“Adam? Adam, honey, I need you to wake up.”
He stirs in his sleep, making a sound of protest that makes my heart ache. I gently rock him back and forth, reaching up to brush a bit of hair away from his face. “Sweetheart, I need you to wake up.”
His eyes open then, blinking awake as he looks sleepily up at me. “Mama?”
“Hi, honey. I need you to wake up, okay? We’re going on a little trip.” I reach for him, pulling him into my arms, and he immediately curls against me, arms going around my neck and his head pillowed onto my shoulder.
My chest aches, a bright, sharp pain that makes tears prick at the corners of my eyes. This is why I said yes to Damian. Why I needed to come back home. Why I rushed up here, terrified that someone else might have made it to my home before I did.
I’d do anything to keep him safe.
I hold him tight, breathing in the familiar scent of his shampoo and the fabric softener I use on his pajamas. He's warm and solid in my arms, and for a moment, the events of the night feel like they happened to someone else.
But they didn’t. And I know, for us both to be safe, that we need to go.
I grab the backpack, cradling Adam against my chest as I step out into the hall, and reach down for the duffel bag. As I do, the door to the apartment opens, and Damian steps inside, closing the door behind him.
“I got her safely to her car. We need to go?—”
His voice dies as he turns around to face me. He looks at Adam,cradled against my chest, and his lips press together, his eyes narrowing. “Sienna?”
I tilt my chin up, holding his gaze stubbornly. “This is why I needed to come back home.” I take a deep breath, hefting both bags over my shoulder. “This is Adam. My son.”
4
DAMIAN
MY SON.
The words echo in my head as I stare at the small boy curled against Sienna’s chest, arms wrapped around her neck, his dark hair—much darker than hers—mussed from sleep. He can't be more than three or four, small and fragile in a way that makes something uncomfortable twist in my chest.
She has a fucking child.
My mind reels, trying to process this new information and what it means for the situation I've dragged us all into. When I married her twenty minutes ago, I thought I was protecting one person—a woman who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Now I'm responsible for two lives, one of them barely old enough to understand what danger even means.
"Why didn't you tell me?" The question comes out harsher than I intend, my voice cutting through the small apartment like a blade.
Sienna's green eyes flash with anger, and she shifts the boy—Adam, she called him—higher on her hip. "Tell you?” she hisses, her voice quiet enough that I can tell she’s trying not to wake the child up again. “When exactly was I supposed to do that? When you were dragging me out of a warehouse full of dead bodies? Or maybe during the car ride when you were speaking Russian and wouldn'tanswer my questions? Or perhaps at the altar when you were forcing me to marry you?"
Her voice rises with each word, and I can see the fire building in her expression. Most women cower when I raise my voice, when they catch sight of the darkness behind my eyes, the monster that lives in my chest. But Sienna Monroe—Sienna Kutnezsov now, I remind myself—stands her ground, her chin tilted up in defiance even as she holds her son protectively.
It irritates the shit out of me. But underneath that aggravation, in a place I don't want to examine too closely, I find myself... impressed.
"You should have found a way," I say, but even as the words leave my mouth, I know how unreasonable they sound.
"Right." She lets out a soft, bitter laugh. "Because you were so open to explaining things to me and giving me time to explain in return, before."
Adam stirs in his mother’s arms, no doubt picking up on the tension and the harsh voices even in his sleep. I flinch at the idea of waking him; it’s enough to keep me from retorting. Somehow, the idea of needing to deal with anawaketoddler sends an unfamiliar feeling that’s something like fear rippling through me.
The sight of him—so small, so vulnerable—sends an unexpected pain through my chest. I haven't been around children in… Christ, I can't even remember how long. I know Konstantin’s wife is pregnant, and I’ve been bracing myself for the future of having a baby around. I've made it a point to avoid them, to stay away from anything that might remind me of what I can never have.
What was taken from me.
I was nineteen when it happened. I hadn’t been in Victor Abramov’s employ for very long at that point—I was a long way still from where I’ve been for the past decade, as his right-hand man and enforcer, and now the same for his son, Konstantin. I was a grunt, a runaway, fresh off the streets, desperate and angry and stupid. I was headed for a life of crime, one way or another, and the Bratva was my salvation.
Victor Abramov saw something in me, took me in, gave me a jobworking at the lowest rungs of his employ. I got a place to sleep and food to eat in exchange for my loyalty and my willingness to do whatever needed to be done. And I was grateful. I owed him, and I didn’t mind paying the debt.
There were just some parts of the price that I hadn’t expected to pay.
