38. Mila
MILA
It became easier with time to feel like I belonged in Lev’s home and in his life. It also became easier with time to get over the surgeries that I’d needed when I was shot at Yusef Antonov’s building.
My scars joined the many others that covered my body. Since I’d made that comment of worrying about how Lev saw me and whether my scars and the evidence of past abuse would make me less appealing under his eyes, he set out to change my mind.
He’d worship my body every night, kissing, sucking, and nipping at my flesh like he needed to show reverence. I’d approach him and take the initiative more and more, enjoying the privilege to always know that he’d be mine, and nothing would ever cause him to leave me.
And that was my mindset before we’d marry.
On that note, I was conflicted. Selma didn’t offer my much advice about the decision to “hurry” through it all or take my time to plan a wedding.
“It’s the only time you’ll ever get hitched to a man, isn’t it?” she asked one morning when I brought my dishes to her.
The longer I adjusted to living here—not a slave but a member of the family—the better I acquiesced with her insistence that I was not a guest and I was not part of the house staff.
Being waited on would never feel right, but I understood now that if I acted like I could cook or clean for myself, it was an insult to her.
She valued her worth and the purpose of her job, much like I had and still would.
Just because I am getting “hitched” to Lev doesn’t mean I’m not going to work…
“Yes. One and only,” I told her.
She shrugged. “Then it really don’t matter if you rush through it or plan it some more.”
I cringed. “I don’t look forward to planning something like a wedding. I’ve never thought that I would be doing something like that. Never thought I’d meet a man and that…” A light sigh slipped from me.
I had never imagined meeting a man and getting married. That was how desolately stuck I was in my life as a slave, tossed from one Cartel of dirty, lawless losers to another.
“But now that you are…” Selma prompted, pinning me in place with the stare from her one eye.
I’d finally gotten the story on that one, learning that she had her eye taken because her father had let her pay for his crimes in the literal interpretation of an eye for an eye.
She, too, had suffered from a family who hadn’t wanted her and instead tried to sell her.
She was captured when she was homeless, trying to steal food from one of the clubs that the Volkovs owned on the Strip, but Dmitri had taken her in and had given her a job.
“Now that I am getting married, I would rather just have it done.” I nodded once at her. “And not stress about flowers and guests and all that.”
She flicked her hand at me, dismissing the thought as she faced the sink to rinse off my plates. “Then let Elena handle it. She enjoys it.”
I cringed. “Perhaps. But she’s so close to having that baby.”
Selma scoffed. “Bah. She’s got weeks to go. Three weeks, at least.”
I shook my head. I was far from calling myself an expert on the matter of pregnancies or childbirth, but I had a hunch that the slim, quiet-mannered woman would soon be delivering her child.
She looked so big, so ready to pop. And with those repeated “practice” contractions that had her wincing every so often when she and Carina went over the bare-minimum of wedding plans with me, she was potentially closer than she anticipated.
“Mila?”
Lev called out from the large living room, and I turned to see how he was doing.
A tattoo artist, one of the finest that the Bratva always had priority with, had arrived a couple of hours ago to touch up and finish the tattoo that Lev had wanted on his chest. Among all the real estate of his taut skin, he wanted a mark to commemorate our wedding. In advance.
I set my teeth on my lower lip as I entered the work area and hesitated.
“Okay, this is it,” he said from lying back on the table-like chair that had been positioned here for him to recline on. “What’s the date?”
He was fully aware of my rash idea to just elope and have a small ceremony. But he was also aware of how I was ready to compromise and just have that bigger production that the family deemed as proper, with more guests and an actual dinner and the works.
The tattoo artist smiled, shaking his head. “Once it’s inked here…”
“Don’t put pressure on me now,” I teased my fiancé as he watched me come closer and sit next to him.
“You want to become my wife next week? Or next month?” He took my hand and held it, not looking the least bit uncomfortable with the process of needles in his skin, inking an intricate heart design over his chest that would forever mark our love and the day of our wedding.
“I… do?” I answered.
“I thought you said that at the wedding,” the tattooist joked.
“What’s making you want to have it done sooner?” Lev asked, fully committed to giving me whatever I needed or wanted. Including letting me choose the actual wedding date we’d settle on, a detail he hoped to be finalized now so his tattoo commemorating the date would be accurate.
“I am not sure how I’ll cope with being the center of attention as the bride,” I reminded him.
I wasn’t going to ever be dismissed or overlooked again. I would be his wife. I would have my place here as a spy, too. But old habits died hard, and I tensed up at the idea of being the “star” or focus of any event, even my own wedding.
“What about me?” he joked. “No one’s going to be paying attention to me?”
I smiled as he held my hand tight.
“We will be equals, Mila.” He kissed the back of my hand. “If it’s too much pressure to have a bigger wedding—”
“It’s fine.” I looked at the tattooist and confirmed the date for a month away. “As impatient as I am to be your wife, I don’t need to rush through anything.”
He tugged me closer so he could kiss me, and I sank that much deeper in love with him, wholly and completely.
I sat up and watched the process of him getting a tattoo. Lev noticed how intrigued I was and smiled wider.
“What are you going to get?”
I blinked and swung my gaze to him in surprise. “What?”
“What do you want to get?”
I opened and closed my mouth. I thought that I was making progress with getting used to having all my needs met. My wants too. But a tattoo? I never thought…
“You think I should get one?”
He chuckled, that raspy, smoky sound that was so damn sexy. “I think you think you should get one.”
I shook my head. “No, that’s not necessary.”
“You’re curious.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I am.”
“You’ve never wanted one?”
I swallowed hard and zoned out watching the gun hovering over his skin. “I’ve always wanted one.”
He sighed. “To hide behind?”
I shook my head. “No. To express who I am.”
“I’ve got all day…” the artist drawled teasingly, enticing me to consider it.
“But I’ve never known what to get,” I admitted, getting more amped up and thrilled about the chance that this could be the day to mark myself permanently.
“How about something to match mine?” Lev asked.
I smiled, admiring his skin. He could claim that we’d always be partners and equals, but his body would never match mine. So much bigger, stronger, and with his canvas of so much ink…
Nodding quickly, I tried not to distract the artist. “Okay. I will.”
Alexei strode in from the front, catching the end of my comment. “No, you won’t.”
Lev scowled at his brother. “What?”
“Whatever you two are planning, cancel it if it’s happening today. Elena just went into labor.” He scoffed with that happy news. It was a little early, but not dangerously so. “Adrik is not calm.” Facing the tattooist, he asked, “We gotta borrow him. Can you wrap it up and finish later?”
Selma wiped her hands on a towel as she entered the room. “She’s having the baby today?”
I stood, grinning. “I told you.”
Lev and I rode with Alexei to visit the hospital.
While I was sure that the staff wouldn’t be pleased about the Bratva men clogging up the maternity ward and taking up all this space, I realized that it wasn’t a typical situation.
Elena had a private suite, and adjacent rooms were cordoned off to allow more privacy for her.
Alexei was right about Adrik. It was the most frazzled and stressed I’d ever seen the man. A leader in the making. An interim Pakhan. The boss. But on the day his wife went into labor and there was a concern for slight complications with her delivery, he was only human. Worried and frantic.
By the time the three of us arrived, though, there was no rush or urgency to support Adrik and wait with him.
Baby Luka was already here.
He was born just about when Alexei had shown up to tell us that we should come support the family. In a rush of a delivery, the first heir of the next generation had made his hasty entrance.
Healthy and hearty and larger than perhaps Elena had been prepared for, Luka came into the world screaming and crying, proving that while his mother could be a quiet woman, he was not.
Lev held my hand and we stuck together as congratulations went around. All six of the Volkov men, plus me and Carina, took our turns to admire the baby. But when it was Lev’s turn to hold his cousin’s child, there was no doubt in my mind.
This is going to be us one day.
Seeing Lev cradling a precious baby in his big, strong, tatted arms did something to me.
Maybe it was an ovary explosion with all my hormones heightened to releasing eggs and wanting to carry his child now.
Something about this brutal killer so soft and gentle as he talked to baby Luka just hit me so hard in the chest.
“You’re looking a little rabid there,” Carina teased, sidling up to me.
I smiled and didn’t try to deny it. “I…”
She patted my back. “It’s not like the wedding is a long wait.” She winked at me.
“It’s too soon,” I told her.
She furrowed her brow. “The wedding?” She scoffed. “Oh, don’t even talk to me about that.”
I smiled again. She and Maksim had been married through an arrangement, and I couldn’t compete with the warp speed like that.
“It’s too soon to start having a family,” I confided in her.
It was a slow process of befriending Elena and Carina, but they weren’t pushing me to be besties overnight or anything like that.
They respected me, though, for how I’d wanted to protect them all those weeks ago, and I knew that with time, we’d be a close group of women.
“There’s so many things going on,” I explained. “Baby Luka’s here.” I gestured at her belly. “You’re next. Gregori’s still out there and…” I sighed. “It’s too soon for me and Lev to plan like that.”
But when I was ready, when the time was right, I would embrace having my own child to raise and love with this rugged man who’d always be mine.
When I had a son or daughter to protect, I would do so with my whole heart and all my might.
I would be the end of the cycle of hell that my parents caused.
The Becketts had sold me to slavery and that would never be a possibility for my children.
“Too soon to start a family,” I repeated softly, wistfully watching Lev as he held baby Luka and smiled at me.
Carina rubbed my back. “Too soon to start your own family, you mean. Because you’ve found your family with us.”
As she left me with that deep and profound message, going to check on Elena, I smiled and knew that I certainly had.
I wasn’t alone or captive.
I was surrounded by those who let me be free to love.