Page 72 of Lethal Legacy

The gray predawn does nothing to lessen the hard marks that scar his body. I stand by the bed, mentally committing every one to memory. The sheet covers only his ass, the rest of his powerful body splayed like a canvas before me. There is barely any part of him that doesn’t show evidence of the life he’s lived, the wars he’s fought. From the puckered white scars left by bullet and knife to the ink, both old and more recent, Roman’s body tells a story of violence and hardship that goes back much further than the years I can trace him as part of the Stevanovsky bratva. One tattoo, under the broad pad of his heel, catches my eye. It’s a series of numbers, so tiny they’re barely discernible and so faded they look to have been there since childhood. But there is something about the precision with which they are drawn that gives them an air of significance. I wonder what the numbers mean to Roman, what person or place they commemorate. I shiver when I think of how young he must have been when he had that work done, what kind of life he was leading. It’s a reminder that while I may know Roman’s body, I know less than nothing about the man himself.

Part of me wants to crawl back into the bed and curl into him. Try to know the man he is now, even if I can’t ever meet the one he keeps hidden.

But I learned my lesson the first night. I’m not going to wait for him to order me gone. No matter how intense the sex, nor how seductive it would be to turn into his embrace and remain there until he wakes, I have to remember what my place is here.

Forgetting is a dangerous temptation. One that I’m increasingly afraid will break me, if I let it.

20

LUCIA

Iwalk to the café beneath a blazing early afternoon sun, hoping to catch Abby when she goes for break. The children have had a disrupted school term, having started in Spain then gone back to London for some time while the building renovations were finished. They’ve been back and forth between London and Malaga ever since, but have remained connected enough to their lives here that they are all involved in the upcoming Holy Week celebrations held by the Russian Orthodox Church. After a busy morning shopping for school supplies, Luis drove the children an hour out of town to the church, where the rehearsals are held, leaving me with a few spare hours.

It’s not even been two days, and I’m horribly aware that I’m in far deeper than I ever imagined I could be—and not just with Roman.

Early this morning, not long after I returned to my apartment, I heard Ofelia talking to Masha on the baby monitor, which I took with me when I crept out of Roman’s penthouse. I almost turned it off out of respect for their privacy, until I heard what Masha was saying.

“Is Luce gonna be our new mama?”

I froze, my heart thudding, completely shaken out of my half-awake daze.

“No, Mash.” Ofelia slipped into Russian, as I notice all the kids do when they’re talking privately. “We have a mama. Remember? Her name is Inger. She’s really pretty.” The pain lurking beneath that cheerful tone cut me to the core. I might not have had a mother for a long time, and ours might have been a strange household, but I know what it is to be loved completely by both parents. The thought of a child as young as Masha not knowing that feeling is heartbreaking.

“Oh.” Masha’s voice was small and uncertain. “Inger in ’Merica?”

“Yes,myshka.” Ofelia’s voice was quiet and pained. “Inger in America is our mama. Remember when we visited her? Remember how pretty she looked? She was having her photo taken.”

“I ’member.” Masha paused. “But if she’s our mama, why do we call her Inger?”

“Because it’s safer for her if people don’t know who we are.”

I almost leaped out of bed and ran across the corridor when I heard that. I also wanted to take this Inger woman and strangle her until she couldn’t breathe.

“You want to keep Mama safe, Masha, don’t you?”

“Da.” I could almost see Masha’s little head bobbing fiercely.

“Then we have to be careful, Masha. We always have to be careful, do you understand?”

“But why?” The fear in Masha’s voice made me want to kill something. Or someone.

“You don’t have to worry,myshka.” I heard the rustle of the covers as Ofelia cuddled her little sister. “Mickey and I will always be here to protect you. We’ll keep you safe.” She began singing then, the Mary Poppins song Masha was playing yesterday afternoon.

I lay awake until long after they’d both fallen back to sleep, my heart aching and mind racing.

It feels like I’ve walked into far more than even that contract suggested. I already knew Mikhail Stevanovsky died in a car bomb. News like that makes the papers, and I’ve researched Roman and his business enough to get a rough idea of who the players are. I know, for example, that the children’s grandfather, Yuri, is in jail, and that their other uncle, Nikolai, runs a nightclub that’s frequented by celebrities. Abby’s horrible footballer is a regular there.

But it feels like there’s a whole lot more to this story that Idon’tknow.

Like the fact that Roman worked in a restaurant kitchen as a teenager. I saw the flash of interest in Ofelia’s eyes at that particular piece of information. I’m clearly not the only one curious about who Roman really is, where he’s come from.

For some reason, I imagined that Roman had been raised to the bratva. As Mikhail’s younger brother, perhaps he might not have been born to bepakhan, but certainly born to play a leading role. An honored family member born to the brotherhood. Born to violence.

I don’t doubt that last part. I’ve been around dangerous men long enough to know a lethal killer when I see one. And bratva don’t wear the kind of ink Roman does unless they’ve earned it, the hard way. The scars on his body alone are enough to tell me the violence he’s lived.

But boys born high up in the bratva don’t wash dishes in restaurants at fourteen years old. Or if they do, it’s some kind of punishment, over quickly. They certainly don’t work in such a lowly position for two years. And the way Roman shut down after letting that piece of information slip has every instinct inside me on high alert.

I spent hours googling him while the children slept in this morning, but just like my earlier searches, I turned up nothing. Zip. Nada. Roman is as much a mystery to me as I am to him.

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