Page 97 of Fall into Savagery

“Like Gabriel, we own many strip clubs, but our strippers are all paid properly, and we do pay taxes on those businesses.” Now, whether we paid a fair tax price was … debatable. Not that she needed to worry about that.

“But we don’t sell sex, considering mine and Damien’s pasts,” I continued. “There’s money there, no doubt about it, but it doesn’t hold any appeal to us.”

I felt more than heard her let out a sigh of relief. “Oh.”

I smiled. “Oh. Okay,kotyonok?”

She snuggled closer to me, calming my heart in the best fucking way possible.

“Yeah,” she said softly, and that was all there was to it.

21

CATALINA

Things were moving forwardand toward normalcy.

At least, that was what it seemed.

Or maybe because I hoped for it so much that it seemed that way in my mind.

I didn’t know anymore.

Two days had passed since the day Mikhail took me out for our date.

Gabriel would come to visit us in New York the next day.

He would be staying in the apartment below us for the time being while the men discussed something about the cartels.

I knew very little about what was going on, but I knew that when Gabriel left, Nikolay would go with him.

I still didn’t know how I felt about it—

I shook my head.

I did know.

I didn’t want him to go, but I didn’t know how to voice it.

Traveling was a part of their job description. And after all Gabriel had done to help us, it would only make sense that we helped him, which I was sure that was why Nikolay was leaving. They were going to take on the Mexican Cartels.

My men didn’t tell me that exactly, but it wasn’t hard to figure out.

I took in a deep breath and looked out the window. I was sitting alone in the kitchen in the penthouse. Mikhail was off doing whatever he usually did, and Damien was with Linda and the boys to buy them some stuff. I knew it surprised him this morning when the boys insisted Damien was the one to go with them and Linda, but he indulged them, nonetheless.

Linda was our newly hired nanny for the boys. She was a little older than Damien, coming into her forties. She had kind green eyes, dark skin, and dark hair.

Moreover, the boys seemed to have taken a liking to her immediately.

If she thought seeing me handcuffed to Damien or me living with three men and having an intimate relationship with all of them was weird, she didn’t show it.

She was professional in every sense of the word, yet she wasn’t cold.

She was perfect.

Nikolay was the only one home with me, but he had been bombarded with phone calls all morning, most of which he took away from me. I knew he was afraid I might hear something that would upset me.

He was trying to protect me. They all were. But sometimes, I wished they wouldn’t treat me like fragile glass and more like their partner. I might’ve had a voice, but I knew they didn’t want it when it came to dealings with the Bratva. And though it made sense to me, I didn’t want to be left entirely in the dark.

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