Page 183 of Lethal Legacy

It’s a low blow, and I know it. But I’m in no fucking mood for this shit. Not tonight.

“Have it your way,” Dimitry mutters, shaking his head. “Fuck knows you always do.”

It’s past midnight when the limo drops me home.

I press the elevator button for the penthouse, then, halfway up, change my mind and hit the button for the floor below. When the doors slide open, I nod at the small army of security monitoring every screen and entrance and go into the children’s apartment.

It takes all of one minute to realize it’s empty.

I come roaring out of the apartment, ready to tear someone apart. One of the guards nods at the door to Lucia’s apartment. “They’re in there,” he says, shifting uncomfortably.

I grimly punch in my master code, and the door opens with a soft click.

The television’s blue light flickers on the walls, a logo bouncing around the dead screen. When my eyes adjust to the dim light, I make out Lucia sitting on the couch, Masha’s arms and legs wrapped around her like a koala and Ofelia curled into her side. Mickey is sprawled on the floor, his head resting on Lucia’s thigh.

They’re all fast asleep.

I stare at the little tableau for a long time. Part of me aches to carry the sleeping kids into their bedrooms, then carry Lucia upstairs and lay her down in mine.

But I don’t.

I cut myself off from this life the day I ran from my father’s lifeless eyes. I’ve always known that one day the past would come to reclaim me, that my world would erupt in blood and violence.

And for months now, I’ve been trying to convince myself that I can somehow balance two impossible extremes. That I can have a family, a woman I love, and somehow still weather the storm of revenge that must be taken.

Because I do have to take that revenge.

Not just to avenge my parents, or as payback for the years I spent running.

Now I also have to take revenge to protect the family that adopted me. And the simple truth is that taking that revenge means killing anyone, or anything, that threatens the legacy Mikhail and I fought so hard to build.

That means Alexei Petrovsky will likely have to die.

And his sister?

I stare at her face, pale in the blue wash from the television. The long eyelashes, covering those liquid amber eyes that make my breath catch in my throat. The sweet bee-stung lips I can never look at without wanting to kiss. The elegant length of her neck, stray curls stuck to it where Masha’s face has pressed them to her flesh.

Every part of my body aches with longing. Aches for her dancing figure in my kitchen, the scent of her cooking welcoming me home. Craves not just the touch of her skin on mine, but the way her heart seems to encompass my own, as if I fit inside her being as well as her body. Lucia isn’t simply the woman I love. She’s the missing part of my soul.

And now I have to let her go.

There isn’t really any other option. I know I can’t kill Lucia. I’m many things, and capable of darker deeds than most men will ever have to contemplate.

But killing Lucia?

Ordering someone else to kill her?

No.

I’ve known that, deep within myself, since the moment I learned her identity. There’s not a chance in hell I can put Lucia in the ground.

But nor can I risk her falling into the Orlovs’ hands.

And there’s no way I can risk Mercura.

Which means that the only real thing I can do, the onlyhonorablething I can do, is stand by and watch her run. Guard her retreat. And make sure that nobody, not even her brother, can ever find her.

Maybe I’ll win this fucking thing. Save Mercura. Bring the Orlovs down. Build an empire so fucking huge nobody can ever touch those I love again.

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