Page 67 of Lethal Legacy

That pulls me up short.

Pulling on sweats, I head for the basement gym. I need to punch the hell out of something, and I’m fairly sure Dimitry, damn him, has already left.

I set about methodically pummeling the bag.

I keep thinking about the way Lucia looked, salsa dancing in the kitchen. I want to take her to my holiday villa in the mountains outside Malaga and watch her dance just like that on the terracotta terrace as the sun sinks over the Mediterranean Sea in the distance. I want to walk into a house filled with the scents that make it a home. I never knew how much I’d missed that until I stepped out of the elevator tonight. I want to sit on stools at a kitchen counter, instead of at a formal table with silver cutlery and chef-made food.

I want to see Lucia’s belly swollen with my child.

I freeze with my fist in midair.

What the fuck?

Where the hell did that thought come from?

Children aren’t on the agenda for me. I’m a criminal, raised and honed on hard streets. No matter the perfect facade of Hale, or the hidden machine of Mercura, my life will always be one of danger and violence. It’s a world that destroyed my life once, but which I could never quite escape. It’s the world that has taken everyone from me, including the adopted brother I loved more than anyone. I’m doing everything I can to raise Mikhail’s children far from that world. Shielded from it. I want them at college, doing degrees. Choosing careers that don’t involve nightclubs or guns or running from home in the middle of the night. By the time Mickey inherits Hale, it will be clean as any normal company.

I can run Mercura in the background. Keep the darkness well away from him.

It’s too late for me to choose a different life. I’m bratva, in the mud as deep as anyone could possibly be. That’s why I can’t get attached to my godchildren. It’s better that they look at me with the fear-edged wariness I’m accustomed to, rather than the spark of warmth I saw tonight. I can’t be what they need from a parent. It’s why I put up with Inger, encourage her to spend time with them. They need a mother. Not a godfather who has no idea where to start parenting and an au pair who could run off at any moment, without warning.

And yet.

I can’t rid my mind of the image of Lucia as she was in the kitchen tonight. Only in my fantasies, her belly is swelling softly under the dress. The vision is like a seed that has taken root somewhere in my chest and simply refuses to leave.

I’m going fucking mad.

This is a business arrangement, I tell myself sternly as I punch my way around the bag. It isn’t a goddamn future. Besides, she checked the box on the contract saying she takes the pill, and she has no reason to lie.

But for some reason, that doesn’t shift the image out of my head.

Alongside the jarring thoughts of Lucia carrying my child comes the infinitely more terrifying thought of her alone somewhere, running for her life, in that state. Deep down, I know she’s going to flee again. If I’m honest, that fact is maybe part of the reason I suggested the contract in the first place. It’s safe. Has a finite end date. I use her for what I want, with the knowledge that she doesn’t want to stick around any more than I want her to.

Has it really taken only one night inside her body for those plans to go so profoundly out the window? It makes no sense. I’ve had countless women, in more ways than I can even remember. And never once have I wanted any of them to stay in my bed beyond the moment I’ve taken what I wanted from them.

Now I can barely think straight for planning when I’m going to have Lucia right back there again.

I think back to my earlier resolution of seducing her in order to get answers. It’s a good plan, a logical one. I noticed the way her eyes softened tonight when she saw me with the children. But seducing her was supposed to be an entirely physical exercise. The slow, deliberate breaking down of Lucia’s defenses as I make her body mine in every way a man can. A strictly compartmentalized seduction that belongs on my king-sized bed.

Not in the kitchen of the children’s apartment.

Never, in all my thoughts, have I imagined domesticity as part of that seduction. And I’m wholly unprepared for how it makes me feel now.

I think of the shadows lurking in Mickey’s eyes that, for just a moment tonight, cleared. I don’t know if I’ve ever looked behind the thick glasses and seen the quiet intelligence and gentle strength in the cobalt depths. Just as I’m not sure I’ve ever realized that Ofelia’s arctic glare is just a mask, or that Masha looks at her siblings as if they’re her entire world.

I’m not sure that I everwantedto see any of that. Maybe I knew that the moment I did, I’d feel exactly this disquieting sense of guilt. But now that Pandora’s box is open, I can’t suddenly put the knowledge away again. I can’t just walk away from my brother’s children knowing that I’ve failed them, and him, so profoundly.

And no matter how close I am to Dimitry, I cannot stand the thought of him being the one the children take their cookies to, the one lounging inmykitchen, lazily watching Lucia dance.

Fuck, no.My fist thuds viciously into the bag.

I might not have asked for this family. I may not even want it. But it’smine,goddammit. And I take care of what’s mine.

It looks like my seduction of Lucia Lopez just became a full-time fucking job.

Given how overburdened my current work life is, that should annoy the hell out of me. Instead, it gives me a caveman-like sense of deep satisfaction that is as unfamiliar as it is fucking disturbing.

But it doesn’t mean I can’t reestablish some control. In fact, the thought of exerting control over Miss Lopez has a definite appeal.

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