Page 60 of Toxic Temptation (Krayev Bratva #1)

VESPER

“Vesper’s fucking a gangster.”

Coffee explodes from my mouth, painting my mother’s pristine white blouse with brown droplets. My brother sits there cackling like a fucking hyena while I scramble for napkins, my face burning with mortification.

“I’m so, so, so sorry,” I gasp, thrusting a napkin toward Mom.

She dabs at the coffee spots with impossible calm. “For the coffee bath or the gangster fucking?”

“Mom!”

In thirty-one years, I have never heard my mother curse. Not once. Not even when she slammed her finger in the car door and it swelled up like a Saturday morning cartoon.

Waylen is clutching the edge of the table, his ears turning red as he fails to stifle his laughter.

“I’m going to murder you,” I hiss at him.

“Hippocratic Oath,” he chokes out. “First, do no harm.”

“There are exceptions.” I throw a balled-up napkin at his face. “I’ll make one for you.”

“Enough.” Mom cuts through our bickering. “Let’s not lose our marbles here. Waylen, that was cruel. Vesper should have been allowed to tell me herself, and in much nicer fashion to boot.” She turns to me with thoughtful eyes. “But since we’re here, I’d like to know about this man.”

I don’t have time to focus on the fact that Waylen just got scolded—lightly, but scolded nonetheless—for probably the first time in his whole charmed life. Usually, Waylen can do no wrong. In Mom’s eyes, that brother of mine shits roses.

“Ahem.” Mom clears her throat. “I’m all ears, dear. All non-judgmental ears.”

My stomach churns. “It’s complicated.”

“Most worthwhile things are.” She waves a hand. “Go on then. Don’t be shy.”

“We’re just… helping each other. It’s temporary.”

“But you’re sleeping with him.”

An embarrassed flush crawls up my neck. “When did you become so direct?”

“When I realized life was too short to pretend my daughter wasn’t avoiding me, or that she’d rather spend time sawing open corpses than sharing a meal with her own mother.”

I flinch like she slapped me. Then, trying to ease the tension in the room, I insist, “Mom, that’s not true. If I do my job right, they don’t end up as corpses at all.”

She doesn’t bother faking a laugh. “I’m not trying to guilt you, dear. But it’s been six months. Six months since you’ve sat in this kitchen, Vesper. And I’d bet dollars to donuts that you’re only here now because Waylen dragged you here by the scruff of your neck. Am I right?”

The guilt sits heavy in my chest. She’s right. I’ve been hiding from everyone who reminds me of what I lost.

“This feels like an ambush,” I mutter.

“It’s called a conversation. I’m not here to judge you for dating a criminal.”

Waylen makes a noise of protest from across the kitchen, but Mom silences him with a look.

“His name is Kovan,” I say quietly. I’m not looking directly at him but I can feel Waylen’s stare burning a hole in my face.

“And he’s more than just a gangster, Mom.

He has a nephew he loves and is trying to get custody of.

He’s an amazing uncle, a great guardian.

Sure, his life is… different from mine. But he’s not all bad. ”

“No one is all bad, honey.”

“I don’t know about that.” I’m thinking of Jeremy now. “Some people seem pretty damn evil to me.”

She arches her brow. “But not this man you’re involved with?”

I sigh. “No. Not him.”

“Well, when do I get to meet this man of multitudes?” she asks.

“Mom!” Waylen interjects, all puffed-up indignation. “Are you serious? I tell you she’s dating an honest-to-God, real life gangster and you ask when you can meet the man?!”

Mom twists in her seat to face Waylen. I can only see her profile but she looks something close to fierce. “You are a grown man, Waylen James. Snitching on your sister should be beneath you.”

His jaw drops. “I told you because?—”

“You wanted me to disapprove of her choice and convince her to stay away from this man?”

Waylen rubs the back of his head. “Well… yeah. Yeah, that’s kind of it. Sorta seems dumb when you put it like that.”

Mom clicks her tongue. “Love isn’t straightforward, Waylen. You fall for who you fall for and when you do, you fall for all of them. You don’t get to pick and choose the pieces you’d like, even if you find out later that the man you thought you married was an entirely different person in the end.”

My eyes snap to Mom’s face.

She aged so fast after Dad’s death. There are twice as many lines on her face as there were before. She looks frail now. Almost as though she’s wasting away.

Maybe that’s another reason I chose to focus on my career rather than my personal life. All my experience of love has taught me that it kills you faster than any medical condition ever could.

I’ve always known that my parents loved each other. Dad in the normal way, Mom, in the all-consuming, I’m devoted to my husband kind of way.

This is the first time I’ve ever felt like there might be more to their love story than meets the eye.

“Mom, what do you mean?”

She looks down at her hands rather than at either one of us.

“Just that people are complicated, sweetheart. Relationships are complicated. And sometimes, loving someone requires personal compromises.” She sighs, her shoulders slumping tiredly.

“Waylen, we need ice cream for the peach cobbler I made. Go get some now, please.”

Waylen pushes himself off the counter, his eyes bouncing between us. He looks kind of relieved to be dismissed, surprisingly.

But as he passes behind me, he puts a hand on my shoulder and gives it a little squeeze. “Sorry about ratting you out. I’m just… worried.”

“I know,” I murmur in exhaustion. “Get me a pint of the chocolate espresso and we’ll call it even.”

With a chuckle and a nod, he leaves us alone in the kitchen.

Oddly, I no longer feel anxious or nervous. There’s a shy smile dancing across Mom’s face. “Tell me about him,” she says.

So I do. I tell her about the custody battle, about Yana’s abuse, about how Kovan’s hands shake when he looks at Luka’s scars. I tell her about the way he reads bedtime stories in a whole cast of different voices and how he lets Luka beat him at every board game.

When I finally stop talking, Mom’s eyes are soft with understanding. “You love him.”

“I can’t love him,” I croak. “He’s all wrong for me. His world is dangerous and violent and?—”

“That’s not why you’re scared, though.”

I stand abruptly, my chair scraping against the floor. “Of course that’s why I’m scared. Anyone would be terrified of the bad stuff.”

“Sit down, sweetheart.”

Something in her tone makes me obey.

“You’re not scared of his world ,” she says gently. “You’re scared of loving someone you might lose.”

My chest tightens until I can barely breathe. “I’m a doctor,” I whisper. “My career is everything. I don’t have time for?—”

“Stop.” Mom reaches across the table and takes my hand. “You have time. Plenty of it. You’re just afraid to use it.”

“Can you blame me?” I ask. “Look what losing Dad did to you. You barely survived it.”

Mom is quiet for a long moment. “I didn’t want to survive it at first,” she admits.

“But your father was the love of my life. Were we perfect? God, no. We fought about money and his hours at the hospital and whether to paint the guest room blue or yellow.” She smiles, but her eyes are distant.

“And yet if I could go back knowing how it would end, I’d choose him again. Every single time.”

“You’d watch him die again?”

“His death was one day, Vesper. One terrible, awful day. But I had thirty-three years before that. Thirty-three years of morning coffee and terrible dad jokes and him falling asleep during every movie we watched.” Her grip tightens on my hand.

“Don’t waste your years running from love because you’re afraid of one day of loss. ”

Tears burn behind my eyes. Outside, I can hear Waylen’s car pulling into the driveway, the slam of his door, his footsteps on the front porch.

“He came to the hospital when I was in trouble,” I whisper. “He got shot protecting me, and when I saw his blood…” I close my eyes. “I’ve never been that scared in my life. Not even when Dad got sick.”

Mom stands and wraps her arms around me, and for the first time in months, I let myself cry. Really cry. For Dad, for the time I’ve wasted, for the love I’m too terrified to claim.

“Oh, honey,” she murmurs into my hair. “Love isn’t a guarantee. It’s a choice. Every morning, you choose to love someone despite knowing you might lose them. And that choice? That’s the bravest thing any of us can do.”

Waylen’s key turns in the lock, and I pull away, wiping my eyes.

“Did you get the ice cream?” Mom calls, her voice bright and normal, as if she hadn’t just turned my entire world upside down.

“Chocolate espresso,” he announces, appearing in the doorway with a grocery bag. “Just like someone ordered.” He looks between us, taking in my red eyes and Mom’s gentle expression. “Everything okay?”

I nod, not trusting my voice yet.

Mom pets my shoulder. “Everything’s perfect.”

But as I watch her move around the kitchen, preparing dessert like this is a normal family dinner, I realize she’s wrong. Everything isn’t perfect.

But maybe, just maybe, it could be.