Page 150 of Ripped Veil (Ripped Bratva)

My heart doesn’t know how to process the comforting weight of the child in my arms.

The result is a painful erection and a burst of temper.

“Get on your goddamn feet,” I hiss.

She glances up at me from her knees. “What’s wrong?” she asks, soundly truly mystified as to why I might be angry now. The baby looks at me, too, as if to ask why I’m shouting at his mother.

Guilt and desire course through my veins, reminding me of a time when I’d had everything in the palm of my hands.

Kind of like I do right now. Except I’d fucked it up back then. I’m at serious risk of making the same mistake again.

“Phoenix?”

I step back without an answer. After a moment’s hesitation, she rises slowly to her feet. She glances between me and the baby.

For a second, I think she’s nervous. Then she smiles.

It’s a slow, beautiful smile that makes me realize just how young she is.

“You look good holding a baby,” she murmurs dreamily. A blush colors her cheeks moments after the words leave her mouth. “Or what I meant was… was…”

“I know what you meant.” The words come out harsh but I can’t hold back the smirk that follows.

Somehow, she’s managed to completely dissipate my anger with just a soft smile and a blush.

“You’re a natural,” she clarifies, her eyes fixed on the baby in my arms. I can see the love there. That unconditional, all-consuming feeling that swallows you whole the moment they grab your finger for the first time. I know it well.

“You should take him back,” I say, holding out the infant.

She shakes her head. “He looks comfortable.”

“That makes one of us.”

For the first time since I’ve known her, her eyes go cold. The effect is strange. Jarring. And extremely unwelcome.

“Then why don’t you just—”

“Holding him reminds me of everything I’ve lost,” I explain in a sudden outburst. The words gush out of me before I have a chance to re-think them.

She stops short, her eyes traversing my expression, searching for any hint of a lie. She doesn’t find it. “Oh.”

The baby boy is still staring at my face as though he recognizes me. Then he reaches up and tries to grab my nose. I stare down at him, remembering a time when I had been high on the excitement of new fatherhood. A tremor of the same kind of emotion simmers just beneath my skin. But I refuse to let it crack through the surface.

I buried that part of me forever when I put my wife in the ground.

“I know you think that I’m just here for money,” Elyssa says softly. “But maybe what I’m really here for is… you.”

I’m not expecting that. Our eyes snap together and she realizes that her words haven’t come out quite like she wanted them to.

“I’m just trying to say that, like… what I mean is… Theo needs a father. Every boy needs a father.”

“There’s no point in getting attached, Elyssa,” I say vaguely. “This life? My life? It’s built on unpredictability.”

She frowns, a ripple of fear coursing through her eyes. “What does that mean?”

“It means that tomorrow is not promised. Especially not for me.”

“I don’t understand.”

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