Page 47 of Axel

“Explain to me your fashion choices,” I insist. “You wear custom suits from King Street, like so many lawyers, but yours are always dark. Like you wouldn’t be caught dead in seersucker. You prefer conservative shoes and a briefcase but wear bling like a baller, carry a nine, and cover your body withdark ink under starched white shirts. So, what’s your true vibe?”

“If I answer, you have to answer my questions, too.” Sparky’s getting fur all over his charcoal jacket while we wait at the corner for the pedestrian light.

“Deal,” I answer.

Subtly, he looks over his shoulder, making sure no one hears before he turns and lowers his voice.

“Parts of me I hide to survive. I have to blend in, or I’ll be found. But there are parts of me I can’t deny. So, I wear them on my body and take the risk.

“Like my earrings. They’re diamonds made from my mother’s necklace. It’s all she had from her family when she was kidnapped and raped as a child bride at fourteen. She’s a strong woman, and I wear them in her honor.”

I nod, stunned by the totality of his story, his beauty, his honesty. “You hide all of that from your enemies?”

“No,” he answers, “I hide from my father.”

The light changes, but we don’t move. “Who’s your father?”

Axel pauses, letting his eyes search mine with that same intense look he had in the kitchen when he was about to kiss me. When I was suddenly afraid of how I felt for him.

“This is me trusting you, Ruby. This is me, trying to earn yours, too.”

I swallow. “I promise I’ll never tell.”

I won’t. I’d never betray Axel. Hate him? Yes. Come for him? Obviously. But rat him out? I’m too proud to be that kind of person.

“It doesn’t matter. My father has vicious ways ofmakingyou tell.” His voice drops even lower. “He’s Ruslan Kholodov, the head of the Russian Bratva.”

“It lookslike you two will be parents soon,” the vet announces. “According to this ultrasound, she’s about fifty days pregnant.”

“So, in about ten days?” Axel asks about Sparky.

“Yes. Congratulations,” the vet proclaims…

But I’m still stuck on that whole Russian Bratva thing. That whole son-of-the-most-dangerous-man-in-the-world thing.

But like a worried dad, not an escaped Bratva prince, Axel is focuses on the cat. “Should we bring her here when she goes into labor?”

“You can,” the vet answers, “but it’s best not to move her.”

“Can we get a carrier for her?” I ask. “In case she likes it better than the box we got her?”

In case we have to escape in a hail of Bratva bullets and don’t want to leave Sparky and the grandkittens behind?

“We have everything you need in our shop off the waiting room,” the vet answers.

But when Axel tries to put Sparky in her new carrier, one pussy to another, I’m impressed. She hisses, scratching him. She doesn’t want to be trapped, either.

“Okay, okay,” Axel huffs at her. “I’ll carry you home.”

And he does, all the way back to his place, where he sets her down. Together, we watch Sparky prance toward her litter box, and though she’s pregnant as hell, that pussy has pride.

Yeah, I’m really growing attached.

“Ready for our date?” Axel turns to me.

A date?Wow, he’s serious, and I’ve never officially been on one. Hookups and meet-cute-cocks at a bar don’t count.

I glance down at my thrift shop score: an old MichaelKors emerald sheath dress, and that deep vulnerability stirs inside. “Should I change first?”

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