Page 32 of A Secretary for the Bratva Boss
A shudder rips through me. It's absolution. It's a brand. It'sacceptance.
My world, which had stopped, starts again.
"You're my world," she whispers against my skin. "And we'll just… We'll be crazy in it together."
Da.
I pull her to me. I don't care about the blood. I don't care about the sirens I can now hear in the distance. I bury my face in her hair, her scent—citrus and fear andher—chasing the copper from my lungs.
Daniil's car door slams outside. He'll clean this up.
She saw the monster.
And she stayed.
Now we'll return to the penthouse and build something neither of us have had for a very long time…
A home.
9
Epilogue - Talia
Nine Months Later
"I swear to God, Anton, if you tell me to 'be careful' one more time, I will sit on this marble floor and refuse to move."
I'm trying to sound menacing, but it's ruined by the fact that I have to pause for breath. I'm... large. "Heavily pregnant" doesn't quite cover it. I'm nine months pregnant with the heir to the Ismailov empire, and I feel less like a glowing goddess and more like a small planet who is permanently annoyed.
Anton just looks at me, his face a mask of infuriating calm. He's leaning against a doorframe in the penthouse, arms crossed over his chest, looking like he owns the world. Which he does. "You will not sit on the floor,moya zhena."
"Don't test me," I grumble, waddling over to the small, packed box on the table. It's just my favorite mug and a framed picture of our ultrasound.
"Talia." His voice is low, a warning.
"I am capable of picking up a box, Anton. It weighs maybe two pounds."
"The rule was not a feather," he says, his eyes glinting. "You are not to lift a thing. That is what Troy and his men are for."
I huff, planting my hands on my hips, which is really just resting them on the high, hard swell of my belly. "This is ridiculous. I don't even know why we're moving. I like living here."
"I know you do," he says, and his face softens, the Pakhan melting away to just be my husband. He crosses the room in two strides, his big, warm hands landing on my stomach. Our son kicks in response, a solid thump against his palm. "I like having you here. I like that I come up from a meeting and have you."
"And I like that I can pop down and bother you," I agree, leaning my head against his chest. "It's perfect. So why are we...?"
"Because," he says, his voice a low rumble against my ear, "the penthouse is for us. It is for the long weekends when we want to be alone and I can have you, all night, without a baby monitor." Heat coils low in my belly at the implication, even after all this time. "But children," he continues, his voice quieter, "need space. They need... grass. A safe place to run. A place neither of us had for very long. We will give our son the best, Talia. We will give him a real home."
My throat tightens. He's right. He's always right. "A forever home," I whisper. "Okay. But I'm going to miss the view."
"I will give you a better one," he says simply, and he kisses me, a slow, deep kiss that still makes my knees weak.
The drive is not what I expected. It's not a long drive at all. Just out of the city, to a quiet, ridiculously wealthy suburb on the river. The car pulls through a massive set of iron gates, up a long, tree-lined drive, and stops in front of a house that looks morelike a modern museum. It's all glass and warm stone, built into a hill, private and secure.
"Anton..."
"It's just a house," he says. "Come. We stopped for lunch, but I'm sure you're hungry again."
He fusses, of course. He fusses with my seatbelt, fusses with the steps up to the porch, fusses with the chair in the massive kitchen. And... everything is here. "What...?" I look around. The kitchen is fully stocked. Our books are on the shelves in the living room. Our clothes. "I... I thought this was moving day," I say, confused.
