Page 188 of Wicked Refusal

I thought I’d broken up my son’s family for good. That I’d robbed him of the chance to have a father.

Turns out, he just hadn’t met his real dad yet.

Nikita joins us. Maksim, too, a rifle slung carelessly across his shoulder. “Kalinda?” he calls into his phone. “Yep, we’re all breathin’. Would you mind pulling the car around? I think we’ve got thirty seconds before the cops get here. Forty, tops.”

Wow. Kallie’s driving getaway. Talk about adapting quickly to the mob girlfriend life.

“What do you say?” Yulian holds out his hand to me. “Ready to go home?”

Home.Our home. Mine, and Yulian’s, and Eli’s—and soon, our baby girl’s, too.

“Yeah.” I accept his hand. “I’m ready.”

65

YULIAN

The guest rooms at the Lozhkin penthouse are all full tonight.

Maksim and Kallie turn in first. Nikita sticks around a little longer, hovering around us like a guardian angel, but eventually, exhaustion gets the better of her, too.

Then it’s just us.

“Does he always snore like this?” I frown.

Mia smothers a laugh in her pillow. Between us, Eli is sawing tiny trees in his sleep. “Get used to it. He’s comfortable around you now.”

“He should be. I’m his dad.”

Dad.A complex word. A beautiful word. I thought I’d have months to try it on for size, see how it felt.

But fatherhood doesn’t wait for you to be ready. Like every gift, you don’t get to decide when it’s coming.

It’s still the best gift in the goddamn universe.

“You’re right.” Mia smooths the blankets over him. “He’s your son now. No takesies-backsies.”

“Who says I’m taking anything back?” I reach out to brush a stray curl away from his eyes. “Maks is bringing over the adoption papers tomorrow.”

“Wow.” Mia blinks. “That’s… fast.”

“No, it’s not. It’s long overdue.” My hand stretches past Eli, grabbing hold of Mia’s. “I should have done this immediately.”

“You couldn’t have,” she says, eyes lucid. “Brad… he would have put up a fight.”

“And if you think he would have won, then you didn’t listen to what I said to him.” A stray tear rolls down her cheek. I catch it with my thumb, gently brush it away. “No one touches what’s mine.”

Mia’s smile lights up the room, even as her tears keep falling. I bring her hand to my lips, kiss her knuckles one by one. When I get to the spot her engagement ring used to be, my stomach twists.

“I’m sorry.” I’ve never spoken these words so often in my life, but right now, they’re the only words worth speaking. “I shouldn’t have reacted like that earlier. I should have trusted you.”

She shakes her head. “No, I… I lied to you. I’m the one who didn’t trust you when I should have.” Her big blue eyes fix on me, shining like stars. “I was so focused on saving the man I hated, I didn’t stop to think about the man I loved.”

“And do you still?” I’ve never felt so vulnerable in my life. So completely at the mercy of somebody else, somebody who could break me or make me with a single word. “Love me?”

But that’s what faith is, isn’t it? A leap in the dark, a gamble with no guarantees of success. To have faith in someone means trusting they won’t break you, even when they have the power to.

Mia gazes at me with surprise. Like she wasn’t expecting me to ask. To surrender that power back to her.