Page 57 of Immaculate Deception (Romanoff Bratva)

“Oh,” she says, blushing. “Right.”

Lukas is awake. His gray blue eyes squint up at me, unaccustomed to the brightness of the streetlight overhead.

I place his seat on the sidewalk leading up to the house and kneel down in front of him, pinching his little fingers gently between mine.

“Goodbye,malyshka,” I rumble quietly.

It’s a piss-poor parting line, but I don’t know what else to say.Good luck? Have a nice life?No. That feels too much like abandoning him.

I could be dead in the morning. Or Arya could disappear, never to be found again.

I tell myself those are the real reasons. But I also know this: my world is dangerous.

I’ve always wanted a son to be my heir. To inherit everything I’ve built. Everything I’ve bled and fought and killed for.

I have that now. He’s right here in front of me. My legacy. The next don of the Romanoff Bratva. He could have an empire at his fingertips.

The question that’s been torturing me is this: what if the very gift I give him is what will kill him? How could I forgive myself if that happened?

I couldn’t.

So, as much as I want to take care of him, to raise him how he ought to be raised… the only way to do that is to remove myself from the picture. Death follows me like a shadow. The farther he stays away from me—the better.

So I stand and leave my son where he lies.

Even when it feels like cracking my chest in two.

As soon as I rise, Arya grabs the car seat. She winces as she lifts it up, so I take it back from her and walk the two of them up the stairs to the front door.

But this is truly as far as I go.

“Thanks,” she murmurs. Arya grips the railing hard. She needs this rest—badly. I can see it in her eyes, in the droop of her exhausted shoulders.

But she lingers anyways. Looking down at me. Waiting for something.

Fuck if I know what that something is, though. I didn’t know what to say to Lukas and I sure as hell don’t know what to say to Arya.

So I just nod one more time and leave.

It’s easiest that way. If we don’t pretend this was more than it was. She can go on her way, I can go on mine, and we can close the book on this bizarre and fucked-up chapter.

I’ll never see them again, and that’s for the best.

For their sakes.

And for mine.

19

Arya

Erik Arnaud’s House—Chicago

“This room is typically reserved for Erik’sovernightguests,” Brigitte informs me, wagging her eyebrows suggestively. “But I made him change the sheets—you’re welcome—and get it ready for you and Lukas. Consider it your home away from home.”

Despite being friends with Brigitte for years, I’ve only met her brother Erik once, when he came to visit us in the city. He spent the last few years working overseas somewhere in Europe and didn’t make it back to the States much. I certainly don’t know him well enough to feel like his home could ever be mine.

But I’ll try. I need some semblance of home—badly.

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