Page 34 of Immaculate Corruption (Romanoff Bratva)

“Then don’t act like one. We have to decide what we’re going to do.”

“Oh, it’s ‘we’ now?” I snap. “Do I suddenly get a say in what happens around here? How nice. How exciting for me. It’s like a promotion.”

Dima lifts his head. It looks like he has aged ten years in the last two hours. There are dark circles under his eyes, his lips are chapped, and the lines around his mouth seem deeper. “Always with the jokes,” he murmurs.

“Not a single thing about this shit is funny, Dima!” I yell. “I told you I didn’t want my son being part of this world. I wanted all of this shit as far away from my family as possible. And yetyou brought it here.”

“I didn’t plan this. I thought Giorgio would be back there. I had no idea it would be his son instead. I did what I thought was best.”

I clench my fists. “You thought ten feet away from our son would be the best place to hold a mafioso ransom? Are you deranged or just stupid?”

Dima takes a sharp lunge forward. The car creaks without his weight leaning against it. He’s still a yard away from me, but I startle back anyway.

“What was I supposed to do, Arya? I’m on the run, if you remember. I can’t exactly take him back to my mansion or the Bratva cells. I also can’t take him to the safehouse because it would no longer be a safe house if he knew about it, would it? I’d have to kill him if he saw that.” Dima runs a hand through his hair, the curls standing on end in every direction. “I brought him here because it’s a shithole motel in a corrupt fucking city. We’re paying with cash, so it’s not tied back to us at all. I regret that Lukas is here, but it was my only option, and I don’t regret the choices I’ve made. I never fucking will, so don’t ask that of me.”

Some of what he is saying makes sense, but it doesn’t do anything to ease my anger.

“This is exactly the kind of shit I was talking about before,” I say somberly. “There will always be a surprise. Something unplanned. There will always be something that crops up and puts my son at danger. So long as we are near you, we aren’t safe.”

Dima looks like I just slapped him across the face. In a way, I did.

When we had sex in the car the other day, it was because I could see the hurt in his eyes when he saw I doubted him. I could see how much it painted him to want to take care of us, but for me not to trust him enough to let him do it.

I wanted to comfort him. To give him some part of me even though I couldn’t give him all of me.

Now, that instinct is gone.

Dima needs to hear me. He needs to understand me. He has to know that I’m serious when I tell him I don’t want my son subjected to these kinds of dangers. So long as this shit is his life, it can’t intersect with ours.

“I did this to keep you safe!” he hisses.

I stare at him, baffled. “How? How is this keeping us safe? How is this not purely motivated by your own selfishness and desire for power?”

His blue eyes flare, the pupils dilating wide. “Selfish? If I was being selfish, I would have shot Ennio back at the casino the second he didn’t give me what I wanted. And then I would’ve disappeared before his dear old dad could do anything about it.”

“Sounds great to me,” I lie, throwing my hands up. “Why didn’t you?”

Dima points his fingers at the side of his head like a gun. “Because your voice was in my head. ‘What happens when Lukas takes over for you?’” he mimics in a high-pitched voice. “‘What happens when someone goes after him to get to you?’That’s all I could hear while I stood there with my gun pointed at my target’s son. It’s all I could think about. You fucking broke me, Arya.”

My heart tears slightly. I feel it happen. The fabric of it ripping apart, tearing in two.

I want to wrap my arms around Dima and try to protect what’s left of the gentle soul inside of him. The last bit of innocence that his dark and twisted life hasn’t yet stained forever.

But I also want to slam my fists against his chest and demand to know why he won’t just leave with me. Why he won’t run away with us and leave this all behind.

“And now, I have a way forward,” Dima continues. “If I’d killed Ennio, I would have had nothing to lure Giorgio out with. He would have been on high alert, knowing someone was coming for his family, and I never would have reached him. This way, I have a chance to still make the hit.”

“Are you serious? That’s what you’re thinking about right now? The goddamnhit?”

“Of course it is!” he roars. “Because I can’t keep you safe until Giorgio is dead. I can’t protect you and Lukas until I’m wielding the full power of my Bratva again. And I can’t do that until I have my brother’s army. It’s the only way.”

I sag forward and drop my head against my fists. “It’s not the only way, Dima. It’s not. You could leave with me. You could start over with me and Lukas and leave this all behind. This is just the only way that gives you what you want.”

The air between us descends into a deathly silence. We sit there in it for a long time.

Finally, Dima leans back against the car and folds his hands in front of him. “I don’t have to pick between the two. I’m Dima fucking Romanoff. I can have everything I want.”

There’s a barely restrained frustration in his voice. I wonder if I shouldn’t leave it alone. I’m not afraid of Dima, but I don’t want to purposefully poke the bear. However, I also don’t want to lie to him. Not anymore.

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