Page 100 of The Disputed Legacy

“We all do. Deep down, that’s all anyone wants.”

And Beatrice hadn’t ever given it to him.

“After I dealt with her, and after I focused on making you boys the best men I could ever be proud of, I realized something else. It was never only about getting love, but giving it. Because if I’ve learned anything since almost dying last year”—he paused to knock his knuckles on the wood table, which made me smile—“that gift of giving love matters so much more.” His smile was slow and gentle. “Watching you all fall in love with your wives and bring these children into the world, well, it’s erasing many,many years of being so jaded. Of thinking I would only have misery to accompany me until the end of my life.”

“That’s not true,” I said, hating the idea of my father being surrounded by us all but alone and suffering.

“No, it’s not. Misery won’t keep me company anymore.” He beamed. “My sons and daughters-in-law will. My grandchildren will.”

I nodded at him. “We will.”

“Maybe I’ll join you and Oscar one morning. See if you’re burning your eggs too.”

“Me? Never. Now the toast? That’s another story.”

He chuckled. After a moment of eating, he asked, “Did you get the papers?”

“For adoption? Yes.”

“Then as soon as we wrap up this business with the Romanos, we can have a party to celebrate him as my grandson.”

I smirked. “Are you sure Grandmother will allow another party? She’s driving me nuts with wedding planning already.”

He shook his head but still smiled. “And is Willow handling that pressure all right?”

“She is. I think between you and me, she’s enjoying it.”

Father laughed.

“She’s told me more about her parents. How loveless and strict they were. I think between Joann and Grandmother, she’s finally learning what it feels like to have a mother.”

“Good. They can spoil her like that.” He furrowed his brow, leaning over as if to whisper, not that anyone was in here to listen. “And what about that other matter we discussed?”

He’d been present when Katerina told me about how to find the cop who thought he’d owned Willow.

I nodded and cleared my throat from the last bite I’d taken. “It’s resolved. Hugo and I went to kill him.”

“Clean kill?” he asked.

“Yes.” Maxim had been the one to suggest using a sniper rifle to take the man out. For some of those Feds, that was best. I didn’t want to attach the Ivanov name to any political bullshit.

“And the others?”

“Yes,” I replied again. “All of them.”

Katerina hadn’t told Willow that she’d looked up the identities of all the cops she could recall. The others who’d shared her. Going back to look at who was on the force at that time, it was easy enough for Katerina to hack into databases and find the men. They’d all died. Clean kills. Single bullet between the eyes.

“And her father?” he asked.

I nodded, narrowing my eyes. “That wasn’t as clean as the others.”

Reliving the experience, I relished the victory and satisfaction of torturing the man who’d thought he could sell his daughter to get out of a stupid debt. I’d found him and made a slow show of telling him that he had been wrong to let that cop think he could own the beautiful, brave woman who was the love of my life. My fiancée. The mother of my children.

I didn’t own her, either.

She owned herself in every stubborn, independent fiber of her being, but her heart was mine. Just like mine was hers, now and forever.

He’d begged for mercy that I didn’t grant, and by the end of making him bleed, cry, and piss himself as he knew his death was near, I wondered if this was how Damon always felt, crazy to inflict as much torture and pain as possible.