Page 123 of Dirty Grovel

Her eyes go wide. Then a blush races across her cheeks. “Don’t be silly.”

“I’m not being silly. I’m being serious.”

“If you think I radiate nothing but light, then you’re not seeing me very clearly.”

“Or maybe you’re not seeing yourself clearly.”

She sighs. “If this is a distraction, it’s only kinda working.”

“Very well. I’ll tell you everything.”

And I do.

I start by explaining Bratva tradition to her. The duties and obligations of apakhan. The responsibilities he has towards hisvorsand the ones hisvorshave toward him.

Then I slowly ease her into territory disputes, power struggles, the emergence of rival Bratvas before segueing into the personal politics of it all.

The Martineks.

Their enforcers.

The struggle for supremacy.

She listens to it all with very little reaction. But her deep blue eyes stay focused on me, paying attention to every word, to every twitch of my eyebrow and every wobble on my face.

“The Bratva is not a death sentence,” I assure her. “Nor is it a life sentence. Just because you’re born into it, doesn’t mean you can’t get out.”

“Then it was a choice for you?”

I nod. “My parents gave me one. And they offered the same choice to my sister. Oriana opted out. I opted in.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s all I knew,” I say. “It’s what I saw my father do. It’s what I felt I was born for.”

Something flashes across her face. Regret? I have no idea. It’s gone before I can nail it down.

“And will you give our child the same choice you were given?” Sutton asks, her hand falling automatically onto her belly.

“Without a doubt,” I promise her. “I will not force my lifestyle onto my children. But I won’t discourage them from it, either.”

“What exactly does that mean?”

“It means they’ll be raised the way I was raised. Prepared, but not obligated,” I explain. “We will spend summers in the motherland. They will speak Russian as fluently as they speak English. They will be trained in self-defense, and when they’re older, they will undergo rigorous combat training as well.”

The more I talk, the paler Sutton becomes. “It doesn’t sound like you’re talking about raising children, Oleg. It sounds more like you’re talking about drilling soldiers.”

“That’s only one part of their lives. They will go to the best schools. They will travel the world. They will have the best opportunities I can offer them. They will want for nothing.”

“Except a normal life,” Sutton points out quietly.

“Normal lives are overrated,” I say, cupping her face. “We can give them safety and security. We can give them a happy family, a happy home. Joining the Bratva is only one of many choices they will be offered. The rest is up to them.”

“Children, huh?” she says after a long pause. “You’re already planning ahead.”

My face cracks into a huge smile. “I don’t like to do anything halfway. If we’re doing this, we might as well have a football team.”

“How many kids is that, exactly?”

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