Page 77 of Savage Bratva King

And what she wants is me.

“Did you?—”

“Yes.” She cuts me off and rubs her nose against mine. “I thought about it, and the answer is yes, Leo.”

My blood is gushing through my veins, and I can hardly believe I heard her correctly. “Yes, to which part?”

“To all of it. Yes, I want to open the refuge with you, and yes, I’ll marry you.”

Nothing else exists right now. I pick her up and swing her around until she giggles and complains that I’m making her dizzy.

By the time I set her down onto her feet, the implications of her decision are already crawling inside my head and battling with euphoria for prime position.

“You know what this means.”

My tone is semi-serious; this is Gianna’s moment too, and I don’t want to drag her back down to earth with a bump. This is a once-in-a-lifetime moment, and she should be able to savor it without the pressures of outside influences. Like family.

She cups my face in both hands. “It means that I get to spend the rest of my life with you.”

I smile. “Your family?—”

“—isn’t here. This is what I want, Leo.”

“Are you sure? It’s going to make a bizarre anecdote in the future when people ask us how we met.”

“I’ll tell them that we met over breakfast, scrambled eggs, bacon, and maple syrup, and that you were so serious, it was days before I saw you smile.”

“Serious?”

“Yes, serious.” On tiptoes, she reaches up and smooths out the lines creasing my forehead. “And grumpy.”

I wrinkle my nose. “I am not grumpy.”

“Maybe not right now.”

We drift into comfortable silence. “We’ll tell your family together, Gianna.” I’m not letting her handle this alone. “Once this … feud with Xander has been resolved.”

Now, it’s her turn to be serious. “How are you going to do that?”

“He tried to set me up, but it’s going to backfire on him.”

Her expression crumples, and she pulls away. This is why I must protect her from what I do, or it will always be this way. If she ever catches a whisper of what it means to be an Ivanov, it will ram home to her that her husband flirts with danger every day of his life.

“He’s my sister’s husband.” Her voice has shrunk. “Will he… Is he going to be … killed?”

“Gianna.” Deep breath. “I promise that I will do everything in my power to end this amicably. I don’t want you to worry about it, okay?”

I could tell her that the plans to open a women’s refuge should work in my favor and bring the feud to its natural conclusion, but I want to erase this fear from her eyes, and the only way to do this is to make sure that she remains oblivious. The refuge will be hers. That’s all that matters, and if Xander Amory continues to systematically dismantle my operation, he will bring about his own fate.

“Promise me that Mel and Lucian won’t be hurt.”

“I promise.”

“Leo I never wanted…” She sucks on her bottom lip, and I roll it out from under her top teeth and kiss it gently. “…this way of life, I’ve seen how it destroys families.”

“I know, but I won’t let anything happen to you.”

“My father, I don’t know how he’ll react when he finds out that we’re getting married.”

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