Page 65 of Bratva King's Secret Twins

I pull my bottom lip between my teeth, my lungs burning as the waves draw me further into the sea. “What do you mean, a piece of your mother?” I whisper back, looking at his tense frame from the corner of my eye.

“I mean my mother's right hand and wrist with her limited edition Tiffany watch still on it.” Nik states everything so matter of fact that I forget I am supposed to be angry and turn to him. A part of me wants to see a smile on his face, because he has to be joking, because no one would be cruel enough to send him pieces of his mother.

But there is no smile. Instead, his eyes drop and a small tremor runs through his body. I snake my hand between his clasped palms and scoot closer to him, our knees touching and my arm brushing against his chest.

“You can’t go anywhere because I don’t know where he is, and he will kill you to get to me. To destroy the one good thing Ihave left in this world.” Nik’s voice comes out like this is some manic dream he can’t will himself out of.

“Why would he do this to you?” The minute the question comes out I feel stupid, inconsiderate because what child knows why their parents are so cruel? There is no father in their right mind who would ever do this to their child. I could never imagine tormenting Gio and Mia with throwing away one of their millions of drawings, let alone sending them pieces of their father.

“I am not Boris's biological child.” He rushes out the words as if this is the first time he has ever said them.

“So this random man is tormenting you?” My ears are so hot, I can feel them burning my skin, and my hands itch with the need to rip Boris to pieces.

“No, Boris is my mother’s debt collector of sorts.”

“Well then, pay him off, Nik, you have the funds, don’t let him do this to you!” I grip his hand tighter, pulling it into my chest, my voice a strangled plea as I try to catch his eyes on mine, but he just bites his bottom lip and looks away.

“My mother was in debt trying to keep her club open and Boris took advantage of that. He told her that he would pay off all of the debt she acquired, and back then my mother would've done anything to keep the club open; it was her dream.” He licks his lips slowly and squeezes my hand tighter.

“So she agreed?” I urge him along and he lets out a laugh that sounds humorless and almost mocking.

“Agreed is an understatement,” he murmurs. “The deal was that she provided him with children to be the heir to the mafia. They would have a marriage of convenience rather than love, but Boris was still so territorial of my mother, used totreat her like property and beat her so badly she was in the hospital a couple of times.”

“So he was an abusive prick? Now instead of paying him off, I vote to kill him.”

“When I was younger, I used to try to fight him off of her, but I was a kid and he was a grown man, so I did nothing but get a busted lip and a broken arm.” Nik scoffs, and one hand releases mine so he can rub down his face, before he hunches back over and continues.

My heart beats painfully in my chest, and I can’t help picturing a younger, helpless version of Nik, trapped under the weight of a monster whose only way to make him a man was to beat it into him. If I ever get my hands on Boris, I want to make him feel the fear Nik did as a child. I want him to suffer and bleed.

“What the fuck?” I twist my face, wanting to stare into Nik’s eyes but he avoids me, and stares at his split knuckles. “He broke your arm? How could he? You were a fucking child.”

“He was priming me into the next head of the mafia. It didn’t matter that I was a child.”

“Yes, it did. Nik, how could your mother put you in danger like this?”

“Don’t blame her. My mother didn't have many ways to fight against him. Her only strategy was to shame him by ensuring that none of his children were actually his." He bites his bottom lip and then looks at me with a broken, lazy smile. “So my father is psychotic, and he knows I am not his, and he is pissed that I am the head of the mafia.”

I look away from him, pulling my bottom lip into my mouth and nibbling on the dead skin there. He makes so much sensenow, his obsessive need to hold on to what he claims as his, to control every piece of his world because everything was ripped out from under him back then.

“Look, that’s a crazy story, but how does that end up with you getting your mother's hand in a box?” I snap, my anger at Boris cresting, and I feel like I want to strangle that man to death for hurting Nik when he was too young to fight back.

He speaks in a hushed tone as he says, “If I resign from my position, I can give my mother a proper burial before she decomposes beyond recognition.” He continues, “There's a question if Nadia and my other siblings are actually Boris's children. If Nadia is his, he wants to arrange her marriage to another Russian in order to keep the Petrov name alive. And if Aleksander turns out to be his child, he wants him to kill me and take over the throne, just as Boris did to his own brother years ago.”

I feel numb, and all I can see is Mia and Gio, our children, smiling, laughing and then dead, killed for the sins of a grandmother they would never meet. My body aches with guilt, and panic gnaws at me. I am forcing him to be in the dark about his children because of Mason who seems like child's play compared to the monster Boris is.

The world feels like it's closing in on me; my fear suffocates me and my chest tightens with every breath. The thought of Boris harming our children as a way to punish their grandmother, a woman they will never know, fills me with unfiltered rage.

If I tell Nik about our kids and their potential danger, it could destroy him. He would never forgive me because now he has to think about protecting himself, his siblings, me and two unknown children. And yet, if I keep this secret from him, perhaps he won't be able to protect them from Boris at all.

Fuck, I waited too long and now Nik can’t know about the twins until Boris is dealt with, and even then, it may be too late; Nik may already be dead.

“Shit,” I comment, because that’s the only thing I know how to say besides you have secret children we need to protect. I look down at our feet again. I bite my inner cheek hard enough for the copper taste to invade my mouth and give me a different pain to focus on, one I can soothe.

“Either outcome where Boris doesn’t die before telling my siblings the truth, I am dead. You cannot let the previous leader of the mafia live. So, either Boris, or Aleksander, or Nadia’s new husband will kill me and become leader of the Russian mafia.”

“Don’t say it like it’s that simple,” I choke out a gravelly sound from my throat.

“But it is that simple.” He takes a deep breath, shifting away from me. “There was a time I thought I could just let Boris kill me and save everyone the grief.”

---