3

Lucy

I lean on my desk after Ravil and his young bratva soldier leave my office and breathe deeply.

Not yogic breathing. More like the kind of frantic panting to keep from passing out.

What are the fucking chances?

After all my concern that my best friend Gretchen would tell someone at the Black Light and that it would somehow get back to Master R, my partner from that night, he ends up in my office purely by chance.

A referral from Italian mafia kingpin Paolo Tacone.

Gretchen will call it fate when I tell her. She believes in the Universe delivering your highest good and all that crap. She also told me I had an obligation to tell Ravil about my pregnancy.

But I had a very good reason not to.

God, I don’t know if I played that right. Threatening a Russian mafiya kingpin probably wasn’t my smartest move.

And I definitely offended him.

But maybe he has no interest in the child. For all I know, he could be married. Or hate kids. Or agree with me that his profession doesn’t lend itself to fatherhood.

A shiver runs across my skin remembering the way he held my hand way too long. How I turned into a doe in the headlights, his masculine magnetism making me weak in the knees even when I know I should run.

I definitely shouldn’t have lied. It’s not my style and insulted his intelligence. There was no way he didn’t guess it’s his. I remember him being extraordinarily perceptive. Knowing how I’d react to his every suggestion before I did. Planning our scenes together with every nuance of perfect timing and action to coax my surrender.

I also remember him choking a man for saying something disrespectful about me.

Ravil is dangerous. Lethal, even. He’s in the bratva or Russian mafiya. I knew it when I met him at Black Light by the tattoos that cover his skin. He’s probably high up, considering the Russian diplomat he was at the Black Light with. He operates outside the laws I spend my day tap dancing around. He takes what he wants.

I don’t mind lethal in a client. I’ve been exposed to the Tacone family since I passed the bar. Part of me finds the power and danger they wield exhilarating. I found it just as thrilling in a play partner at Black Light. Until the violence unfolded before my eyes. That was when I used my safe word and walked.

And I definitely mind it in the father of my son. Someone filling the actual role of father, not just the sperm-donor part. As a sperm donor, Ravil Baranov is perfect. I don’t know his medical history, but he’s physically fit and good-looking with piercing blue eyes, fair hair, and a body built of solid muscle. He’s also highly intelligent.

He’s just not the sort of man I want as a role model for our son.

Dammit.

Now I’m on pins and needles, waiting for his reaction. Will he try to insert himself into this pregnancy, or will he walk away? He’s in the driver’s seat with me anticipating the sky falling.

And I do fear it could fall.

I just don’t know how. Or when.

Ravil

“It’s a boy.” Dima—the best hacker on this continent and Russia’s— winks at me over the top of his laptop.

A boy.

I’m having a son.

I lean over Dima’s shoulder as he scrolls through Lucy’s medical records. I ordered Dima to give me every piece of information he could find on her, starting with medical records.

“Due date is November sixth,” Dima reads aloud. His twin, Nikolai, looms over his other shoulder.

“That makes the conception date...hang on…” Nikolai’s thumbs work over the screen of his iPhone. “Valentine’s Day.” He meets my gaze. “But you already knew that.”

I suck in my breath and rub my jaw. Yes, I knew. The baby is definitely mine.

I’m having a son.

I never thought I would be a father.

“We’ll have to share our papa with a new baby brother,” Nikolai teases, clapping me on the shoulder. Papa is a name sometimes used for the pakhan, or head of the bratva. It’s not one I’ve ever claimed, but my men use it jokingly.

The hard look I shoot him makes him immediately retract his hand. He offers a shrug. “Congratulations? Are you going to claim him?”

Part of the bratva Code of Thieves is to swear off all family—disassociate yourself from mothers, brothers, sisters, wives.

Lovers are all right because we don’t swear off sex. We’re the opposite of monks.

But severing ties is a way to protect the organization. It keeps everyone’s interests clean and unimpeded. Protects the innocent.

It’s one of the reasons I never pursued Lucy after Valentine’s Day, despite the fact that she utterly captivated me that night. That I haven’t stopped thinking of her since. Finding out she’s pregnant changes everything and nothing at all.

Not that bratva rules don’t get broken.

Especially by those higher up.

Igor, our pakhan in Moscow, reportedly has a beautiful, red-haired daughter. He didn’t marry the mother—she’s been kept as his mistress all these years, but he essentially has a family. Of course, their whereabouts are unknown. He has to keep them safe. When he dies—and word is his cancer is spreading rapidly—he may try to leave his very large financial interests to them.

In which case, that pretty red-head probably won’t survive his funeral. I’d give her three months after his death, max.

And now I will have a child to protect, as well.

Am I going to claim him?

Lucy seems to think I have no right. That I’m unfit.

“The child is mine,” I say darkly.

No one takes what’s mine.

“Send me every bit of information you can find on Lucy Lawrence,” I order Dima. “What she does. Where she eats. What she buys. Who she calls. Everything.”

Lucy

After stopping at a cafe near work to eat a quick dinner, I take a cab home. My feet are too swollen to even consider taking the El and walking the few blocks to my place.

I limp out of the elevator and open my apartment door, dropping my work satchel inside the door. My place is small but immaculate because I need order around me to manage everything on my plate. I turn on the lamp by the door. I have one heel already kicked off before I catch sight of my luggage standing near the door.

What the—?

I suck in a sharp breath, filling my lungs to—

“Don’t scream.” He barely speaks it. Just a low intonation from the shadowed figure in the armchair in my living room over by the window.

My heart stutters and thuds painfully when I identify him, one elegant leg crossed over the other, lounging back like he owns the place.

He unfolds his large form from the chair with grace.

“Wh-what are you doing here?” I catch the back of the sofa with my fingertips to steady the swoop of the room. Damn blood volume.

He doesn’t answer, just saunters toward me with a devilish smirk in place. Like he knows everything that’s about to happen and enjoys that I don’t.

Damn Russian.

“I came to get what’s mine.” He advances slowly.

The floor stops tilting enough for me to take my hand away from the couch and jab it into the purse still slung over my shoulder to find my phone. I might be able to call 911—

Ravil catches my wrist and takes the phone away, pocketing it.

Or not.

He divests me of the purse, which he drops on the floor by the satchel.

If he looked angry, if his touch had hurt me, I’m sure I would have screamed. At least, that’s what I tell myself.

In reality, I’m trapped in his azure gaze, memories of how he commanded my body so masterfully the last time we were together flooding back.

I find indulgence in his eyes... not rage. Only a hint of danger.

I put a hand protectively over my belly and take a step backward toward the door.

He catches my wrist again and pulls me back. Places my palm back on the sofa. “I liked you where you were, kotyonok.”

Kotyonok. His pet name for me.

Kitten.

He picks up my other hand and puts it on the back of the sofa, and I have no doubt why he enjoyed this position. I’m perfectly presented for a spanking. He presses down on the backs of both hands, his body crowding mine from behind. “Don’t. Move,” he murmurs against my ear.

I instantly rebel, pulling one hand up and away.

“Hmmm.” He’s patient. He catches my hand and pins it down again. “No safe words for you this, time, kitten. But I’ll be gentle.”

He bands one arm around my waist and splays his hand over my growing belly. “You shouldn’t have kept this from me.”

I go still, breath clogged in my throat.

Ravil’s aggression is leashed. Suave. He’s no more threatening than a handsy date, and yet I’m not foolish enough to underestimate him. He’s confident he holds all the cards here, and until I know what those cards are, I must be cautious. He rubs a slow circle over my baby bump.

I don’t insult his intelligence by attempting to play dumb. Say I didn’t know how to contact him. We both know I could’ve figured it out.

Keeping his hand over my belly, he uses the other to drag up the hem of my skirt in the back.

I’m wearing thigh-highs for hose—not to be sexy but because regular pantyhose are too hot to wear in July. Especially for a pregnant woman.

I hear Ravil’s intake of breath when he discovers them. “Fuck,” he chokes. “Who did you wear these for?”

I’m suddenly tempted to lie. To tell him there’s someone else. That I’m back together with Jeffrey, or maybe, I met someone new. Maybe that would stop his sexual advances.

Except I don’t want to stop the sexual advances. They are what frighten me the least about this man.

He’s already proven himself an attentive lover. He gave me the best orgasms of my life.

And I haven’t been with any man since.

So I opt for the truth. “They’re cooler than regular hose.”

“Cooler.” He practically purrs his approval. He strokes his palm around the left globe of my ass. “Yes. That would be important.” He arranges the skirt of my dress above my waist and nudges my feet wider. I wobble, still halfway in one heel, and he bends down to slip it off.

Like a modern-day Prince Charming, only his form of charming is quite a bit more terrifying.

“Your feet are swollen,” he remarks gruffly. “No more heels for you, kitten.” He tosses the shoe down the hall.