Page 79 of Shattered Empire (Shattered World)

His eyes were wet with unshed tears as he stared at me. After a moment, he gave me a sharp nod.

“I will earn the right for you to call me father.” His voice was hoarse, brimming with barely restrained emotion. “I will show you I am worthy of that name.”

I smiled at him and nodded. “I look forward to getting to know you.”

“Good,” he cleared his throat and sat back comfortably in his seat, one leg crossed over the other, “now, tell me about this wife of yours.”

Chuckling, I relaxed against the leather of my own seat and proceeded to tell him about the goddess of a woman who had bewitched my soul.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

We landed nine hours later at the small SeaTac airstrip where my hangar was located. I barely slept the entire flight as Andrei and I worked on getting to know one another. In one word, it was surreal. Tomas filled the void Kirill had left within me as a child, and I’d never wanted another father. To have the chance at getting to know the father that would have loved and kept me if he could have shifted something inside me.

Something I wasn’t quite ready to name.

Maksim and Nikolai awaited me as I stepped off the plane and back onto the blessed terra firma of the city I called home. The two men greeted me with wide, bright smiles and firm hugs. None of us had ever been separated from each other for longer than a week at a time. Five weeks was nearly unacceptable.

“Your woman is causing quite the stir.” Nikolai smirked at me. “And she’s learned a few things since you’ve been gone.”

Vas had been keeping me apprised of Ava’s every move. Not that I would interfere, but I did have him caution her a few times about her actions.

It hadn’t worked.

“I’d honestly wear a bulletproof vest when you decide to tell her you’re still alive,” Maksim joked. “On second thought, maybe something to protect your legs. She’s got a thing for shooting out kneecaps.”

Andrei laughed boisterously behind me. “I like her already.” He clapped me on the shoulder. “And you said she was sweet and naïve.”

“She was,” I muttered.

Nikolai smirked. “Then this idiot went and made a fool of her. On top of that, he faked his death.”

“Nothing worse than a woman scorned.”

“Where is she now?” I slid into the backseat of the G-Wagon.

“In Portland with Vas and her father,” Maksim reported. “Looks like O’Malley’s niece stole some evidence from her mother’s case from lockup for her.”

I wish I could have been there for her.

“How did O’Malley get Kavanaugh to agree to a sit down?” It was well known the two Irish families had a long, blood-filled history with one another.

“O’Malley threatened to withhold the evidence pertaining to Ava’s mother if he didn’t agree.”

“And no one is dead?”

Nikolai laughed.

“According to Vas, everything is groovy.” Nicolai pitched his tone at the last word. It made him sound like a blond-haired surfer boy named Crash who smoked pot. Or Shaggy from Scooby-Doo.

“Get me something more than groovy,” I told him, mimicking his tone. Andrei smirked at me, and for the briefest of moments, I wondered how he saw me.

Would he think I was a good leader?

Would he accept how I ran my organization?

Part of me felt like a teenager again, begging for approval. I wanted my biological father to be proud of what I’d built.

“Where to, boss?” Maksim asked as he pulled through the gate and onto the main thoroughfare.

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