Page 5 of Baby Surprise for my Brother's Best Friend

I stretch between two very naked women, one draped across my chest, the other curled around my thigh.

Sunlight pours through the floor-to-ceiling windows, spotlighting the chaos. Discarded heels, champagne bottles, someone’s bra hanging off a lamp.

I should be hungover. I should be gloating. I should be—

I don’t even know what I should be, b

ut I know it’s not this because all I feel is emptiness.

I ease one arm out from under the blonde—Cassie? Courtney? Something with a C—and wiggle free from the other one.

I slide out of bed with the stealth of a man well-practiced in morning-after maneuvers. If only it helped me feel better.

My foot knocks over an empty Dom bottle, and it rolls under the bed like it’s ashamed. Much like I am.

This is what freedom looks like…on the surface, anyway. Scratch just a little deeper, and it's something else entirely.

But this is all no strings. No guilt. No awkward goodbyes. Just a mutual fun and a high thread count. Until I look in the mirror, anyway.

I pad across the marble floor, grab a glass of water, and peer out at the Manhattan skyline.

With the merger going through, I'll have more money and more ways to spend it, and absolutely no one breathing down my neck.

It’s all mine, money, power, freedom. No strings. No drama. No consequences.

At least, that’s the story I’ve been trying so hard to tell myself.

My phone buzzes on the nightstand, loud and insistent.

I squint at it.

Only one person calls me like it’s a moral obligation. My brother, Valentino.

I groan as

I swipe to answer, putting the call on speaker as I stretch again, arms wide.

“Tell me you didn’t,” Valentino snaps without preamble.

Not a hello. Not even a grunted insult. Just rage. Pure, uncut, big brother rage.

I blink, still half asleep. “Didn’t what?”

“There’s a leak, Alessio. A fucking leak tying you to the Bratva. Are you out of your goddamn mind?”

That word.

Bratva.

A jolt of ice runs down my spine. “Come again?”

“Apparently, you already did. With Mikhail Orlov’s daughter.”

I freeze mid-step, staring at the reflection of my very naked, very irresponsible self in the glass.

My heart thuds once. Hard.

Shit.

---