Page 84 of Gilded Shackles
I curl into myself, feeling like my heart’s just been ripped into shreds. My hand drifts to my stomach, instinctive now, protective.
He doesn’t know yet. About the baby. About how everything just changed while he’s still living in the same brutal world.
The father of my child kills people for a living.
It’s a thought I’ve been side-stepping, dressing up in softer words.
Enforcer.
Protector.
Provider.
But beneath all that, it’s still violence. Still danger.
What kind of life am I bringing this child into? What kind of man will he be when half his heart belongs to shadows I’ll never see? I look at the table by the window, at the meal gone cold, the candles burning low.
I close my eyes, forcing myself to breathe.
He’s still the man who holds Pasha’s hand when he’s scared. Still, the man who looks at me like I hung the stars. Still the man I love.
But tonight, for the first time, I wonder if love will be enough.
24
NIKOLAI
Ihate being dragged out of bed right after sex, especially with Elle.
I'm sitting across from my uncle in his office, still half-smelling of her skin, stomach growling because dinner's probably cold by now. Viktor looks comfortable as ever, like the man invented calm. Meanwhile, I'm trying not to look like I'd rather be anywhere else on the planet.
"You know," I say, leaning back, "most people call before dinner. There's this magical window of time where a man isn't actively enjoying his wife. It's called working hours."
Viktor's mouth twitches. "Enjoying your wife? Is that what the kids are calling it?"
"I'm past forty. Hardly a kid."
"To me, you're still the boy who cried when I took away his knife collection." Viktor leans forward, hands clasped. "And trust me, nephew, if I didn't need you urgently, I wouldn't have interrupted your evening."
My uncle, the feared Pakhan, has always had a soft spot for me. It's mutual, though we'd both rather eat glass than admit it.
"What's so important?" I sigh.
He pours a drink. "You want one?"
"It's past midnight."
"Stop being a brat and take the damn drink." He gives me a look that reminds me why everyone in this city fears him and why I still occasionally feel twelve in his presence.
I take the glass he slides across. The whiskey burns like fuel going down. "What's this about?"
Viktor reaches for a folder. Always with the folders, like we're living in a spy movie from the nineties. He slides it across the desk.
"Your houseguest," he says. "The mother."
My spine straightens. "Natalia? What about her?"
"She's not who she says she is."
