Page 69 of Forgotten Vows
I couldn’t help but laugh a little. “Well, I’m no better. Because after him, I had no one.”
“No one at all? No dates? No boyfriends?” Emil asked.
I shook my head. “No one. I was too busy learning how to be a mom and raising Lev. Too busy looking over my shoulder and worrying that somebody from my father’s family would come after me if they found out about Lev.”
Alexsei furrowed his brow. “You really don’t have any ties with them, huh? They’re your father’s family, not yours?”
I nodded. “Lev is my family.” I was starting to feel like these two men could be a part of a new family, too. Even Gabriella. And Misha. But all of that was contingent on whether Ivan would want to make me a Dubinin with him.
I supposed that was up to Luka to decide, too.
“I know it has to be hard,” Alexsei said. “I wasn’t married for long, but I remember how often my wife and I argued about my being away for work and at Luca’s beck and call. And my wife was always wishing I was home with her and Misha more.”
He really was the only one who could talk from experience about this. He’d been married and lost his love. I wanted to get my head out of my ass and get over this grudge I couldn’t let go of for when Ivan made me think he had strayed and cheated. I had lost Ivan once, but we had a second chance if I could go for it.
I would be a fool if I didn’t take it.
“And I wouldn’t be shocked if after this, Ivan asked my father if he could step back from his duties. To make up for lost time with you,” Emil said.
We were silent for a while, but as we sat in peace, too many questions came to the surface in my mind. I couldn’t keep quiet much longer.
“Look,” I said, leaning forward. “I don’t want to complain or sound ungrateful. I am extremely grateful for how things ended today, with everyone being unharmed. And I appreciate and respect how Ivan didn’t hesitate to go after those who set this up.”
Even if he might have been motivated to do so for his uncle, not just me.
“And I understand that he’ll need to report to his boss. I assume that when he’s done talking to Luka, he’ll talk to me and fill me in on the important stuff.”
“Hey, if you’ve got a strong enough stomach,” Emil said, “I can show you a video of what went down.”
I held up my hand as Alexsei shot him a look to shut up.
“But one question is bothering me too much to sit still and wait. I can’t be patient about this.”
They both looked at me expectantly, as if urging me to spit it out already. So they could answer.
This openness with them was still so new to me. All my life, my father was the ruler and he didn’t feel like he had to tell me anything. Women were treated differently in Luka’s house, and I had to respect that.
“Did the men, or whoever they were, tell you if my father is dead?” I grimaced, suspended with impatience to know that one fact. If my father was still out there, hiding as a potential threat to my life and my son’s life, I had to know and be prepared.
If my father lived, that also meant that Luka and Ivan and all the other Dubinin men would have to face him. And that wasn’t something simple like an ordinary hit. That was one Bratva boss demanding that another Bratva boss be killed. I didn’t want to literally be in the middle of a war.
“They wouldn’t say,” Emil answered, almost sadly as if he regretted he couldn’t tell me what I wished to be true.
“Dammit,” I muttered.
“But if he’s alive,” Alexsei reminded me, “Ivan will protect you. We all will.”
I smiled the best I could, touched that they’d care. But more so, I tried on the idea of Ivan loving me enough to go to war for me. I imagined that it was true, that he’d been loving me all along but just staying away because of the threat my father posed.
I was no better off. I’d done the same. And it prompted me to want to take the risk and admit I loved him back, that I’d pledge to stand with him no matter the danger heading our way.
29
IVAN
Luka didn’t seem eager to take up much of my time. Emil had already forwarded him the video of what happened in the back of that gambling hall. I walked into his study when he was replaying it, stopping and going back over the part where I asked if the two moles knew if Konstantin lived or had died.
“They just wouldn’t say,” he summed up sourly, closing out the window on his screen.
