Page 86 of The Enemy's Defector
“You’re really okay?” Lucy asked again.
I could get used to this. One chipper and wry sister and one serious and sweet one. They were opposites, but both were mine now.
Smiling freely, I nodded. “I’m more than okay.” And I meant it. A huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders with Anton’s death. “My biggest enemy is dead. The person who killed my father has been punished and can never hurt me again. I’m safe.” I glanced back at Nik talking to Maxim. “Nikolai is safe.” I placed my hand on my stomach. “My baby is safe. There is nothing more I could ask for.”
“Your baby is also very spoiled,” Sloane added with a grin. She walked back toward the piles of boxes as she tucked her long blonde waves behind her ear.
“What’s all this?” I asked again.
“Deliveries. Gifts for you and the baby,” Anastasia said as she entered the room. She embraced me in a hug and sighed at all that had come in. “Some of the women in the organization thought it might be a nice gesture to send in baby gifts for you.”
“Some?” I laughed incredulously. I’d always known that the Ivanov Syndicate was large and extensive, reaching even outside the city, but this was too much. It was like they’d teamed up to buy out an entire store.
“The goal was to give you something to preoccupy you from thinking of your losses,” Lucy said, indicating that she and Sloane had a part in these gifts coming for me and my baby.
“What losses?” I challenged with an arch of one brow. “I haven’t lost anything but I’ve gained so much.”
Sloane gave me a side hug and rested her head against mine. “That’s really sweet.”
“It’s also really true.” No one could understand how alone I was before I dared to rescue Nik and run away.
“How the hell are we going to make room for all of this?” Nik asked as he and his brothers approached.
I shrugged.
“We’ll be busy figuring it out,” Sloane said, “since it seems you guys will be in your meetings and away.”
I glanced at Nik, wondering why he’d be too busy to help play house with me in preparation for our baby.
“Meetings about what?” Lucy asked. “I thought all the hectic planning and busyness was for the attack on…” She glanced at me nervously, still so considerate about mentioning the Kozlov name, as if it would hurt my feelings.
“With the Kozlovs no longer an enemy,” I said, proving I could say the name and not break down, “what will be keeping you away from me?” I took Nik’s hand, touched when he squeezed mine back. It didn’t matter what we were doing or how we were near each other. We would always reconnect and find our way back to each other.
“The Romanos,” Saul replied, looking at the tall stack of boxes I’d need to get through, apparently on my own.
Maxim nodded as he slung his arm around Sloane’s shoulders. “We have lingering concerns about the Romanos’ involvement in all that we’ve faced.”
“They’ve got to be just as complicit in poisoning your father and taking Nik,” I said.
“Yes, they are,” he agreed, giving me a serious look of consideration. “And we know more about that thanks to you,Sister.”
I smiled, glad that the interim boss was finally coming around to letting me be in the family and was no longer looking at me like I was the enemy.
“Thanks to having you here as a hacker, we can see more than we used to,” he added.
“Then when I need something to preoccupy me, around becoming a mother, I’m glad to help,Brother.” It felt really good to be able to say that.
“I also hope you’ll believe me when I say thank you for before, too.” He cleared his throat and glanced at Nik, then Damon. “For tipping off our father about where we were hidden, so we could be saved.”
“Ah.” I nodded. “Grigory talked to you?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell anyone that you were the one who tipped him off?” Damon asked. “It wouldn’t have been so hard to convince him”—he elbowed Maxim—“to trust you.”
“Because I doubted anyone would believe me. Your father knew about my role then, but no one seems to trust him or what he remembers right now. My father knew, but he was killed. And that was it. It was my word against… your prejudices.” I shrugged. “But that’s all in the past now.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” Maxim said. “We’ve got suspicions that Anton could’ve been behind that back then, aligning with the Romanos.”
