Page 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.

But I do. Because I trust her.

And I can’t fucking live without her.

“Yes,” she whispers finally. “With all my heart.”

A weight lifts from my chest. I press another kiss to the back of her hand, intertwine our fingers. “Then marry me.”

This time, I don’t ask.

Mia’s face lights up all at once. She looks so fucking beautiful like this—the mother of my children, the woman who stole my heart.

My future wife.

“Of course I’ll marry you.” Her voice quivers as she speaks. “Of course I’ll be your wife.”

“Not just my wife.” I draw closer, knocking our foreheads together. If Eli feels a little squished in this awkward family embrace, he doesn’t complain. “Be mine, Mia Winters. Belong to me, the same way I belong to you.”

Her lips find mine. We kiss briefly and innocently. A seal on our promise and nothing more. “I already am,” she says. “I’ve been yours since the day I met you, Yulian Lozhkin. Yours and no one else’s.”

We stay like that for a while, resting against each other. Just me, her, and our kids snuggled between us.

It dawns on me that this is it. What I’ve been searching for, without even knowing it. What I’ve been missing since that fateful night, when everything was ripped away from me.

Family.

“Thank you,” I whisper. “For taking a chance on me.”

Her eyes crinkle. “Thank you for parking like an ass.”

“Ouch.”

“Hey, I said thank you.”

“Am I supposed to thank you for towing my car?”

“It would be the polite thing to do.”

I shake my head. This girl. This brilliant, rebellious girl who turned my whole world upside down with one tow truck call.

If I had to go back, I’d block her car in every time.

“Hey.” Mia lifts her head. “I just realized.”

“What?”

“That we’re free.” Her voice colors with joy. “Brad’s gone. Prizrak’s gone. We don’t need to hide anymore.”

She’s right. For twenty years, my mission has been to get revenge. To annihilate Prizrak, make sure they’d never hurt anyone the way they hurt me again.

Now, my mission’s over.

“Then we won’t.” I brush Mia’s hair out of her face and savor the warmth of her skin under mine. “We’ll have the biggest wedding in New York.”

“The biggest in the world?”

“If that’s what you want.”

She shakes her head, still smiling. “All I want is you.” Her hand comes up to cover mine. “I don’t care about anything else.”

I let myself feel the strength of her grip, the life inside her veins. Two lives, both mine to protect. “I’m not going anywhere, kotyonok. ”

“Good,” she says. “Because this is a two-way street. You want me to be yours? Then I get to have you, too.”

“You’ll have me.”

“Forever.”

“That’s a hell of a long deadline for a contract.”

“Yes.” She’s fighting down a grin. “But I’ll still sign it.”

“You’ve said it now.” I cup her chin. “No takesies-backsies.”

We kiss again. Eli grumbles something that sounds suspiciously close to “Gross,” making us both laugh.

I put one hand around his shoulders. The other, I place on Mia’s belly. My family. My future. And finally, I know what it is—my new mission. My new purpose.

To protect them.

No matter what.