Page 38 of Toxic Temptation
The sincerity in his voice catches me off-guard. Crazy as it sounds, I believe that Kovan’s heart is pure. In this situation, at least. In the rest of them? Not so much.
“I’m not sure how I can help with that,” I say slowly. “I could write a medical report about his allergic reaction, document the neglect?—”
“That won’t be enough.”
His sharp tone makes me flinch. “Then I don’t know what?—”
“I’ve spoken with… legal counsel… and they’ve advised me that the court system favors stability. Traditional family units.” He pauses, and I can see him choosing his words carefully. Which makes the next part all the more surprising for how blunt it is. “So I need you to pretend to be my girlfriend.”
I stare at him. Blink. Wait for the punchline.
“You’re joking.”
“I’m not.”
“That’s…” I stand up so fast my chair rocks backward. “That’s insane!”
“It’s practical.” He doesn’t move, doesn’t even raise his voice. “A single man with my background doesn’t inspire confidencein family court judges. But a man in a committed relationship? With a respectable doctor? That changes everything.”
“But we’re— I’m— You’re— We’restrangers!” I blurt out in a near-shriek. “We’ve had one conversation, and there was a gun in your pocket with my name on it if I said anything out of line!”
“That’s irrelevant.”
“How is that irrelevant?”
“Because this won’t be real. It just has tolookreal.” He stands, and just like that, he’s huge and terrifying over top of me, close enough that I can smell his cologne, that I have to crane my neck all the way back just to meet his eyes. “This benefits both of us. You get your hospital cleaned up; I get my nephew safe. Everyone wins.”
“Everyone except Luka!” I back away from him, my heart racing for entirely different reasons now. “How do I know you’re good for him? Maybe his mother?—”
“His motheristhe problem.”
The ice in his voice stops me cold.
“I don’t know anything abouther,” I continue arguing, but with less conviction than before. “What I do know is thatyou’redangerous. You carry guns, you get into shootouts in hospitals, you bribe people and break into apartments. Is that really the kind of environment an eight-year-old should be in?”
“Luka is Bratva.” He says it simply, like that explains everything. Like I even know what the hell that word means, beyond late-night mob documentaries and the occasional blood-spattered headline on the five o’clock news. “He was born into this life. Thequestion isn’t whether he’ll be exposed to danger—it’s who will protect him when he is.”
“That doesn’t prove you’re better for him.”
Kovan reaches into his jacket, and for a split second, I think he’s going for a gun. Instead, he pulls out a manila envelope.
“What does your conscience say about this?” he asks. He tosses the envelope onto my coffee table. It lands with a thump, like a guillotine blade hurtling home.
My hands shake as I pick it up, break the seal, and pull out a stack of photographs.
The first one steals the breath from my lungs.
Luka, his small face covered in bruises. One eye swollen shut. Lip split and bloody.
The second shows him in a hospital bed, his arm in a cast, tears streaming down his cheeks.
The third captures him clinging to Kovan’s shirt, his gray eyes wide with terror.
“There’s more.” Kovan’s voice sounds far away. Caught in a rage or a nightmare or a memory he wishes like hell he didn’t have. “Medical records showing repeated hospitalizations for dehydration. Teachers’ reports documenting him coming to school hungry, exhausted. Sometimes, he doesn’t come at all. It’s all in there, if you look.”
I flip through the photos with numb fingers. Each one is worse than the last.
“If he’s been hospitalized this much, Social Services would have been called,” I whisper. “It’s mandatory reporting.”
