Page 72 of Forgotten Vows
“Yes.” I leaned down to pick her up off the floor, delighted by her giggles. “It was true. You’re the only one for me.” I smacked her bare ass as I carried her out of the shower to drop her on the bed. I didn’t care that we were soaked. We’d just end up back in the shower soon, anyway.
With her legs splayed open, that pink pussy for me to feast on, I grinned up at her. “It’s only been you.”
I lowered to kiss her then licked her arousal already dripping for me.
It will always be only you.
She was it. She was the one. And I showed her all night long how much I would celebrate that she was mine to play with andpleasure. Because seeing her happy and safe was literally my dream come true.
30
RAISA
Lev returned to school the following week. He wasn’t as nervous about going back as I thought he might be, but then again, he wasn’t a shy or troubled child. Like me, he accepted the cards he’d been dealt so far and he made the best out of the hand he held.
With him back in school and the ongoing investigations about the Rivera threat, the possibility of my father being alive, and the worry about other odds and ends that popped up, life seemed… normal.
It was a new normal.
And it resembled the former life I’d left behind when I found out I was alone and pregnant. I was back in the Mafia world, standing next to Ivan and handling the drama that came with being included in such violence. The longer I stayed, living with Ivan in his room in Luka’s house, the more I shifted back into being the “Mafia princess” I once was.
When Lev was being tutored and Ivan was working, I helped Gabriella more. Holding Andre and watching him reach more and more milestones reminded me of the happy moments when Lev was a baby. Like two women were prone to when a baby wasaround, we shared pregnancy and childbirth stories as we got to know each other more.
“Yeah, you definitely have a more traumatic childbirth story,” I told her after she explained how Andre was born early. “I thought I had it bad delivering on my own, but it wasn’t among gunfire.”
She shrugged. “It was a hell of a lesson in what it’s like to be a Dubinin.”
“But Luka clearly loves you and will keep you safe. He respects you, too, which isn’t common.”
She perked at that, asking me more about what it was like to grow up as a Petrov. I didn’t hold back, telling her all of it. Luka sat with us sometimes, too, and I wasn’t afraid to speak freely around him. If they wanted to grill me about my father, they were welcome to. I prayed that they understood I was allied with them the second I realized Ivan was Ivan Dubinin, and I wanted our love to stand up strong to the test of Mafia politics.
As Gabriella and I grew closer and began to laugh and tease each other like actual friends, we talked more about doing something good for society. Because I was a young, single mother on the run when I had Lev and because she had delivered her child literally into a scene of violence, we teamed up in brainstorming about opening a women’s shelter. It would be protected by layers and owned by various shell companies so no one could track it back to the Dubinin name, but Luka said he would provide whatever funds she wanted or needed for it. Ivan was also excited to see me interested in a project like that.
Before I could get too excited and plan many things about my new and shiny future since I’d run back to Ivan and his family, I received what felt like a ticking bomb, rattling and hissing and ready to explode.
One afternoon when Ivan came home after picking up Lev from school, I told them I’d be right down.
“Just a minute!” I only wanted to quickly check my emails. Any day now, that charity organizer would get back to me.
I opened the laptop Ivan had given me when he had a shopping spree day to spoil me and Lev with things we’d been needing for a while. No email was waiting for me from the woman I hoped to get in touch with, the one I’d cold-called for a meeting.
But one stood out.
It was from an address that didn’t seem to match the criteria of spam.
And the fact that it had my father’s name in it made my blood ice in my veins.
“What’s this?” I whispered to myself, nervous but also figuring it had to be spam or some phishing nonsense. That was what I got for browsing charity management services. Filling out all kinds of forms led to the inevitable influx of being spammed in the inbox.
I clicked on it, praying it wouldn’t be a virus.
It wasn’t.
It was much worse.
The video player opened a new box. It played immediately, showing me the face of one person I had never, ever wanted to see again.
“Hello, Raisa.”
