Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 76222 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 381(@200wpm)___ 305(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76222 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 381(@200wpm)___ 305(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
It was a kiss that told me she knew what I wanted, what I demanded, and she accepted. I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her in tight, curling my body around hers because I craved to have her as close as possible.
I needed to know this was real.
“I love you, Gio,” she finally told me—the words I realized I'd desperately needed to hear.
I pulled back and cupped both sides of her face.
“I’ve wanted to tell you since the beginning. I’ve wanted to tell you when you were deep inside me that first time and all the times after. I wanted to tell you there was nothing else in the whole world that mattered except you and me,” she confessed, and I nodded.
“It’s only ever going to be you and me… and this little one.” I placed my hand on her belly and felt this surge of happiness slam into me. God, it felt good knowing she carried my child and that she loved me.
This was heaven.
She was heaven.
“Amore mio. Tu e il nostro bambino siete tutto per me.” My love. You and our baby mean everything to me.
I lifted her and took her to bed—our bed—because this was where she belonged from this point on. Right next to me.
Who knew the devil could find happiness when he’d only ever known hell?
31
GIO
DAYS LATER
I’d called this meeting with Dmitry and Nikolai since all of this shit between us had to come to a stop. We needed to settle this because I wasn’t giving up Tatiana. In fact, I planned on making her mine in all ways. It wasn’t enough that she was mine and the mother of my baby and all future children. I wanted to make her my wife, too.
Even days later, the tension between the three of us was so thick, even a fucking knife couldn’t cut through it.
As I sat across from Dmitry and Nikolai, the weight of the situation bore down on us like an anvil hanging over our heads. Nikolai sipped on a whiskey, and Dmitry drummed his fingers on the tabletop. Both of their blue gazes were laser-locked on me.
But while the tension between us was fucking suffocating, it wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle. I was pleased to see Nikolai’s black-and-blue eye and the cut on his cheek, and Dmitry sporting a busted-as-fuck lip and bruising on his neck.
All three of us had bruised and scabbed knuckles.
We’d met at a neutral bar, one that was a “safe” place for all parties. I’d promised Tatiana I wouldn’t get into another brawl with her brothers—or, at the very least, I wouldn’t kill them.
If I were being honest, I wasn’t sure I’d ever felt such violence directed at me like I did right now with Dmitry and Nikolai staring at me. I’m sure they were envisioning all the ways they could kill me in the same way I was with them.
The silence and barely restrained aggression reflected from both sides. I was pretty sure, right at this moment, there was nothing as dangerous in the entire world as the three of us.
“Let’s just cut through any pleasantries,” Dmitry finally tossed in, Nikolai snorting smugly after his brother spoke.
I shrugged and leaned back. “I killed that fucker because he was hurting Tatiana. In fact, you bastards should say thank you.” They both kept apathetic expressions, but I didn't miss the way their jaws clenched after my statement. “He had planned on killing her just to get at you guys.” I hated fucking talking about it like this… like I did a damn job.
Sure, I didn’t have the strength of these feelings for Tatiana when I killed that fucker, but something had made me take his life other than just my thirst for blood. I would have beaten any motherfucker to a goddamn pulp for hurting a woman, but I’d known actually killing someone on the Petrovs’ turf—other than the fighters inside the cage—could cause issues. Yet, I’d done it anyway for Tatiana, and I wanted these fuckers to see it the way it was.
My patience was fraying. “I killed that fucker because Tatiana deserved better. She deserves someone who will protect her at all costs. No matter what.”
“Why didn’t you come to us after?”
I met Nikolai's gaze head-on.
“Arrogant as fuck to think you had the right to act on your own. To not even let us know you killed on our territory without approval—what was that?”
I didn't respond because that was the least of the issues we had. And when the Petrovs glanced at each other, I knew they realized that as well.
“What’s the fucking deal with Maksim?”
I thought about Dmitry’s words and how much I should reveal. At the end of this, I knew I had to be honest, at least partially. “I was given orders,” I replied, my words sharp. “You know how shit goes down when we’re given orders.”