Page 61 of Immaculate Deception (Romanoff Bratva)

When I’m finished, I wash my bowl, dry it, and put it back in the cabinet to hide the proof of my late-night cabinet raiding. Then I head back upstairs.

I’m tiptoeing down the hall so I don’t wake anyone up. But as I reach for the doorknob, I realize there’s a light coming from under my door.

That wasn’t on when I left.

And I can hear a man’s voice, too.

Flashbacks to the hospital root me to the spot.

Fyodor and his men.

That bald, glistening leer on his face.

“Don’t fucking lie to me.”

The slap.

I touch my face unconsciously. I can still feel the bruise where Fyodor hit me.

Terror slithers down my spine before I can even process what’s happening. My primal instinct is to run. Run as fast as I can and don’t look back.

Then—Lukas.

The thought of my son brings my fuzzy, panicked thoughts into focus. Whatever is going on, he’s in there alone. He needs me.

I throw the door open and burst into the room. But it isn’t mobster thugs in my room like I expected.

It’s Erik.

He’s standing over Lukas’s crib, talking softly to him. He looks up when I enter the room. Doesn’t even have the decency to look surprised.

“Sorry,” I blurt, though I’m not sure what for. Erik is the one in my room in the middle of the night, talking to my newborn baby.Heshould be the one apologizing tome.

He doesn’t do anything of the sort, though. “It’s fine,” he mumbles. He turns from Lukas to face me and crosses his arms over his chest. “Couldn’t sleep?”

“A little restless, all things considered. It’s been a hectic few days.”

I try to remain calm. I’m a guest here. Brigitte is just two doors down the hall. Nothing is going to happen to me.

I’m safe.

I’m safe.

I’m safe.

Still, the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Even more so when Erik takes a step towards me.

“But since Lukas is asleep now, I think I’ll try to sleep, too,” I add. “‘Sleep when the baby sleeps,’ they say, right?” I offer a nervous chuckle and move away from the door so Erik can leave.

But he doesn’t budge from his position at the end of the bed.

“How do you get anything done for yourself if you’re sleeping every time the baby sleeps?” he asks in a soft voice. “What aboutyourneeds?”

Something about the way he says the word “needs” makes me shiver.

“I needed a bowl of cereal, so I went and got one,” I joke, forcing another awkward laugh. “That’s all I need right now.”

His mouth quirks up in a smile and his eyebrow raises. He looks so much like Brigitte. I didn’t see it before, but that devious, ‘I just got a bad idea’face? I recognize it.

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