Page 169 of Fall into Savagery

It was a hard thing to admit.

“You guys are going to live with me, your dad, and your uncles forever. You know that, don’t you?”

They looked at each other once more, and I felt myself relaxing when I saw their shoulders did as well.

“We want to live with you forever!”

I smiled. “I hope that will always be true.”

I didn’t think I was ready for their teenage years, or when they finally went off to college, or wherever life took them.

They nodded furiously.

“Of course, we would! We love you!” Konstantin proclaimed.

“And I love both of you guys so much.”

Dmitriy moved closer to me, and I wrapped my arms around his small body. “We never want to go back to our mom. We want you to be our mom.”

I blinked as my lower lip started to tremble.

Fuck.

I always wanted kids.

But I never thought I could be this blessed to have two of them. And I knew if I told Nikolay I wanted to adopt them, he would be ecstatic.

Yet, I didn’t know what the correct response here would be. They didn’t have the best childhood, and I didn’t want to do anything wrong by them.

“I’m not your mom,” I said softly. “But I will always treat you like you’re my children. It doesn’t matter that you didn’t come from me. You’re mine.”

Konstantin looked at me with wide eyes. “Really?”

I bit my bottom lip. Was that the right thing to say in situations like this?

I didn’t know, but they didn’t seem upset by what I said. I nodded. “Really.”

“So we can call you Mom?” Dmitriy asked.

It took everything in me not to lose it then and there when I answered, “Yes, you can. Nothing would make me happier.”

They snuggled in closer to me, and I didn’t think I had ever felt so blessed.

The things I never thought I could have growing up were happening before my eyes.

A loving husband—and in my case, three—adorable children and a dad who loved me simply because I was his daughter.

So many good things.

And I was struck with fear then.

I was so scared that those things might be taken away from me in a blink of an eye, and I didn’t know what to do with that.

Linda returned from her bathroom break, and I quickly blinked away the tears from my eyes. I tightened my arms around them for a bit and kissed each of their heads before I stood up.

“Mom has to go to the bathroom,” I told my boys. I smiled over how natural it felt. And they both looked up at me as if I hung the moon, and I realized for them, I would do just that, as long as they asked me to.

They nodded and went back to their ice cream, and I smiled at Linda as I walked past her to the bathroom. One of the men I didn’t know the name of followed close behind me.

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