Page 157 of Fall into Savagery

Under the bright morning light, especially with what had happened yesterday, everything felt surreal.

It felt like nothing more than a dream, and now that I’d finally woken up, things could return to normal.

I climbed out of bed, feeling lighter than I had in recent days.

After slowly getting ready for my day, I walked out of the room. I could hear voices coming from Mikhail’s bedroom. The door was cracked open, and my men were all in there, talking about business.

I let my eyes run over them for a moment before smiling and walking out to the living area.

For the first time in my life, I didn’t care to know.

I had snuck around when I lived in Agnello’s house, wanting to take in every detail I could about his business. A large part of it was because I didn’t want to die for an empire I was ignorant of, but I supposed some fanciful part of me had believed that information would be useful to me someday.

It could have been my ticket out.

I was okay with not knowing about most of the stuff that went on in my men’s business. I could be blissfully unaware.

Perhaps that made me a terrible person.

A huge part of me didn’t care about that.

I walked to the living area and found Linda by the kitchen island, talking with the boys as they enjoyed a late breakfast.

I grabbed my notebook and walked up to her.

Thank you so much for staying with the boys all day yesterday and this morning.

She squeezed my hand quickly before letting go, her kind brown eyes smiling at me.

“Of course, Catalina.”

Why don’t you take off early today?I suggested.

I was sure she would want to go back home to her place.

She shot me a grateful smile and helped me clean up after the boys before hugging them and leaving.

Dmitriy and Konstantin stared up at me with expectant eyes.

I opened my arms, and they wasted no time running to me, hugging me close.

I kissed each of their heads, savoring the feeling and warmth of their closeness.

“We missed you, Catalina,” Dmitriy said. “We missed Daddy and Uncle Mikki and Uncle Damien.”

“We missed you guys, too. What did you do yesterday?”

They proceeded to grab my hand and pulled me over to the couch. I sat between them and listened carefully as they told me in great detail about everything they had been up to with Linda.

And I listened to them with a smile.

The boys were home with us now because they needed time to adjust to their new life, but the following semester, after Christmas Break, we would be signing them up at a private school.

They would be well protected and have the best education the state of New York could offer them.

Things were moving so quickly that I didn’t want to miss any moment with them.

I smiled when Konstantin rested his head on my shoulder while Dmitriy continued his story.

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