Page 85 of Claimed By the Bratva Brothers

“More or less, yeah,” Shelby replies. “Your father won’t fare well.”

“I guess not.”

I don’t enjoy the thought of what’s to come. My father will pay for his share in these egregious crimes. It’s been a long time coming. But it’s one thing to suspect him of being dirty and corrupt, it’s a whole other thing to have concrete evidence about it. It’s downright heartbreaking. My worst nightmares coming true, one after the other, in the span of a single day. I’ll need a year’s worth of sleep to recover from this madness.

“I’m sorry, Shelby,” I tell my best friend. “I’m sorry you found yourself in this situation. I’m sorry you had to choose between me and my dad.”

“Don’t even go there,” she says. “The choice was obvious. I learned a lot from you over the years. I’m the one who’s sorry. For what it’s worth, I lost myself and I forgot about us. I was so focused on your father and his attention, affection, theatrics, whatever you want to call it. I was so drawn into him that I wasn’t being a good friend to you.”

“I’m sorry you had to find out the hard way that he only cares about himself.”

“Well, let’s see him care about himself in prison, ‘cause that’s where he’s headed,” she grumbles, but I can sense the hurt in her voice. He broke her heart, and she will need time to mend it. However, I’m glad she’s free of him. “I already told your guys that they can count on me to testify against him. They’re all going down, Shelby. Matthew Phelps can kiss his political career goodbye.”

Artur lets out a dry chuckle. “You do realize that you’ll be like active uranium in the political world, right Shelby? No senator or congressman will want to work with you after you bury Phelps.”

“That’s okay. I’m getting my master’s in political science. It doesn’t mean I have to pursue a political career,” she replies with a casual shrug. “I will have plenty of other opportunities.”

“Analysts make a ton of money through TV appearances,” Max suggests.

Shelby thinks about it for a second, then glances back at the swelling mass of reporters clamoring beyond the police line. “You know what? You’re absolutely right. If you’ll excuse me, I should go introduce myself.” She kisses me on the cheek and casually walks away, eager to take the media head on.

“I’m gob smacked,” I laugh lightly. “I’ve never seen anyone landing so gracefully on their feet. Shelby is amazing.”

“That, she most certainly is,” Max says. “But we still need to talk about the proverbial elephant in the room.” He moves closer and wraps his arm around my shoulders, pulling me in. “You’re pregnant?”

“I… yeah,” I sigh. “I was working up the courage to tell you. I just wasn’t sure when it would’ve been the right time. You were dealing with all of this.”

“So we’re going to be dads,” Artur concludes, amusement twinkling in his grey eyes.

“If you want to be,” I mumble.

Ivan frowns. “What do you mean, if we want to? Of course we want to be dads. We almost got ourselves killed to get you back, Lyric.”

“I never would’ve forgiven myself if anything happened to you.”

“And I couldn’t possibly live with myself if we didn’t take this thing between us to the next level,” Max says. “Through thick and thin, Lyric. We’re stuck together, you hear me? You, me, Ivan, Artur, the little one here,” he adds, gently cupping my lower belly. “We’re stuck together.”

“It’s not the worst thing that’s ever happened to me,” I quip, smiling as a golden kind of warmth fills my heart and spills into my chest, my muscles gradually relaxing against Max’s hard, strong body.

Artur chuckles, carefully looking around to make sure that nobody can hear. “I wonder which one of us did it.”

“Honestly, it doesn’t matter to me.”

“It doesn’t matter to us either,” Ivan says. “Unless it’s for medical reasons, I’m fine with never knowing which of us is the biological father.”

Max kisses my temple. I wish I could just lose myself in their arms right here, without a care in the world. But there are too many people around us. Too much law enforcement. Too much press. Too many eyes watching. We must be careful. We may have prevailed against Bowman and Smith, we may have survived one hellish nightmare, but we can’t risk getting ourselves embroiled in another scandal that could yield unwanted consequences.

“I love you,” I tell my men out of the sweetest, nocturnal blue.

“We love you too, Lyric,” Max promptly replies. “More than you can imagine.”

Artur smiles. “More than we ever imagined we could.”

30

Lyric

Watching my father testify against Smith on video is quite something. I should be practicing my dissertation, but the video just came out on social media, and I couldn’t resist. It’s been a month since Bowman died. Smith and my father were arrested, along with other prominent federal agents, police officers, lawyers, judges, and congressional staff members, not to mention dozens of associates, businessmen and others involved in what can only be described as one of the biggest and most influential networks in Chicago’s history.

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