Page 23 of Cruel Love

He drops the book on the bed between us. Russian fairy tales.

“You want me to read to you?” I ask him.

He nods.

“Lucian, these are bedtime stories,” I point out. “It’s not time for bed.”

“Per favore, Papa.”

I sigh and pick up the book, caving completely. I brought this on myself, to be honest. I read to him every night when he and Sofia first moved in. Once my mission took over, those nights became fewer and farther apart. Sofia took up the task, but Russian fairy tales just don’t sound as good in her soft, Italian accent.

Lucian stares back at me, eager and hopeful.

“Okay,” I say, flipping it open. “Just a few pages...”

He grins and hops up the bed to sit beside me. I extend my arm out of habit and he settles beneath it with his eyes forward on the old, graying pages.

I flip through the book until I find my favorite story from when I was his age.

“V kakom-to tsarstve,” I begin, “v nekotorom gosudarstve, tsar' zhil...”

He slides his hand to rest in mine and I pause. Nine months with this child and I’m still not used to the way my heart bleeds for him. So small and fragile in my thick fingers but he’ll surely grow up to be just as strong as me. I smell the top of his head and smile.

“U etogo tsarya bylo tri syna, vse oni byli na vozraste. Tol'ko mat' ikh vdrug unos Kosh Bessmertnyy—”

The bedroom door swings open and Sofia steps inside. Her expression instantly twists from panic to annoyed relief. “Lucian, non dovresti svegliare tuo padre—”

“It’s all right, Sofia,” I say, holding up a hand to stop her from scolding him for waking me.

She takes a breath, quickly blowing it out again as she admires the two of us. Poor thing must have been searching for him for ages and he’s become quite the master at hide and seek, or so I’ve heard.

Like mother, like son.

I look her up and down as she relaxes. My darling Sofia. A Russian resident for nearly a year but she still clings to those bright sundresses. Just as beautiful today as she was the day of our wedding. Hell, even the day of her first wedding — the one we rarely talk about. I think of it often, though. It was the day after we conceived our son.

I close the book. “Aren’t we supposed to speak English in the morning?” I tease.

She steps closer to the bed and places her hands on her hips. “It’s three in the afternoon.”

I glance at the darkened curtains. “Oh.”

“And am I to believe that you were translating those stories into English?” she quips. “We speak Russian in the evenings, yes?”

“Uh-oh.” I wince playfully and bounce Lucian once, making him chuckle. “She caught us, boy. Go beg her forgiveness.”

Lucian slides away and hops down onto the floor. Sofia’s little eyes shift between us as her smile grows. Lucian pauses in front of her, reaching out to grip the edge of her dress.

“Perdonami, Mamma,” he says.

I smirk. He even did it in Italian.

Sofia sighs and bends down to poke the tip of his nose. “I forgive you, piccola luce,” she says. As she stands back up, she looks at me. “And?”

I frown. “And what?”

For a brief second, her eyes twitch down to my bare chest. “Aren’t you going to beg me forgiveness, too?”

I clear my throat, shaking off the last bit of tiredness from my system. I place my feet on the floor and stand up before making my way around the bed toward them. My wife and my son. The family I was never meant to have but will do anything in my power to keep.

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