His (Ties That Bind #2) - Natasha Knight Page 0,6

study me. “How did you even get into this life?”

“It wasn’t a conscious choice,” I say. “My mother was killed when I was fifteen. My father was already gone. Vasily was the only family I had left. He took me in, and I became indebted to him for that. The rest... it just happened.”

“But there must be a reason you’ve stayed all these years,” she presses. “If you don’t even like him.”

I scratch at the stubble on my jaw and shake my head. “We have a complicated relationship. I don’t think I ever really trusted him, but I felt I owed him. And I did respect him at one time. But whatever loyalty I may have had for him is gone now.”

I intentionally leave out the part about my mother, deciding it best for now not to mention it to Kat. At least not until this is over. I don’t want her to doubt my motivations.

“So, if you are his nephew, then what does that make you?” she asks. “How do you fit into the mafia?”

“Officially? I don’t.” I shrug. “Vasily never asked me to be inducted. I think he liked having his own control over me. I am connected only through him.”

“And Alexei,” she observes.

“He is my cousin. And yes, he is also a Vor, but he is a good man. We can trust him.”

“Can I trust you?”

Her question robs the breath from my lungs.

“I am here to protect you now, sweetheart. Please don’t ever doubt that.”

“But those weren’t always your intentions,” she argues. “Andrei said you were supposed to kill me.”

My jaw flexes, and her eyes feel like they are penetrating deep into my soul as she waits for me to explain this to her.

“I was sent to kill you,” I confirm. “But I didn’t. Because the moment I saw you again, I fucking knew, even before Josh, that you were meant to be mine.”

“How can I trust that?” she chokes out. “If you even considered it—”

“Because I would sooner put a bullet in my own head, Katya.” I force her back against me when she tries to pull away. “I’m in this now. Don’t you understand? I’ve left everything behind. I betrayed my blood. I killed my own cousin. And I would do it all again to protect this life I’m building with you.”

She falls quiet, and I still don’t know if she trusts my intentions, but regardless, she doesn’t try to leave me again.

“What are we supposed to do until you figure everything out?”

“For now, we’ll stay here,” I tell her. “Tomorrow, we will try to make things as normal as we can for Josh. We’ll grab some more clothes, food, whatever we need. And when I hear back from Alexei, we will start planning, okay?”

She tilts her head up to meet my gaze, and for the first time all day, she looks like some of her strength is returning. “I’m putting my trust in you, Lev. Please don’t let us down.”

4

Kat

The following morning, I watch Josh as he digs into the pancakes Lev brought him from the McDonald’s down the road. He eats them with a voracious appetite, and I remember we didn’t really have more than that snack at Lev’s cousin’s house last night.

“McDonald’s is a treat for him,” I tell Lev who is watching him with that same expression of awe and pride. And right now, a little wincing as Josh maneuvers a sticky piece of pancake dripping with syrup into his mouth, not quite getting it to its destination directly as it drops onto the open palm of the hand he’s holding beneath his plastic fork.

“Wow,” Lev says.

I have to chuckle as he takes in Josh licking the syrup off his palm.

“Is it driving you nuts?” I ask him, appreciating this moment of levity. Of almost normal. “I mean, you’re kind of a neat freak.”

He turns to me. “A little, but he’s cute. And I’m not a neat freak. I just like things organized and in their place.”

“Well, welcome to fatherhood.”

Fatherhood.

We both stop at my comment and just look at each other.

Lev reaches out a hand and brushes my hair back from my forehead, touching the bruise there.

“I wouldn’t change anything when it comes to him and you. I mean the part with us. Our family.”

I shift my gaze to the cup of coffee in my hands, smiling because I feel the same way. But at the same time, I know there’s the other part. The Russian mafia part.

As if on