Chapter 32
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
SIRE
Four months later
A sea of pastel Easter hats stretches from the first pew to the last. It fills me with peace. Pride. Joy.
Strumming my guitar, I sing, casting my smile at Wren in the front pew.
My angel always dresses elegantly for church. Her simple white sundress matches her wide-brimmed hat. But her smile? Her perfect face is twisted, trying not to laugh, and when I follow her stare, I see why.
Little Annabelle May sits with the other kids on the altar steps. Proudly, they sing with me, “Jesus Loves Me,” but Annabelle loves picking her nose more. Her little finger is digging for gold in front of the whole congregation.
I glance at her parents in the fourth pew. They look mortified, so I stand, strumming and singing into my headset as I work my way to Annabelle. When she sees me, she proudly hugs my leg, wiping her golden treasure on my dark suit pants.
I laugh. So do my parishioners while I finish the song.
Sitting with the kids for a final round of “Here Comes Peter Cotton Tail,” I encourage them to hop for their laughing parents, and they do.
It’s a simple joy, and all I want with Wren one day.
Damn, she’s beautiful, smiling at the kids, too.
Love almost chokes my breath away.
The instinct that Wren is mine. The one I’m meant to be with. The mother of my babies. The woman I need to breed. It’s primal. Overwhelming. Highly inappropriate at this moment, and I don’t care.
Spring is the symbolic season of fertility. A time for new life and new beginnings. It’s the perfect day and Easter service … until an old, sinister spirit crawls up my spine, raising the hairs on my neck.
Searching over the pastel hats, this evil presence feels familiar. I spot the shadowy figure looming in the back.
The Devil’s advisor.
My father’s Sovietnik.
He’s here.
In his black suit, he blends in. His hair is silver now, but I’d recognize his vicious eyes anywhere.
They’re aimed at me.
I glance at Grant, sitting with Delphine in their usual pew. Praying Grant was too young to remember Viktor Aminoff from our tragic childhood, I finish the service.
Viktor would never cause a public scene. He lives in the shadows. He wants me; I know.
It takes an hour for all to leave, including Grant and Delphine, but Wren stays, hugging the kids and their parents.
Sure, Mrs. Cabot leads a group of parishioners who hate Wren. They cut mean eyes. Whisper behind hands. They shame my age-gap marriage like I’m going to hell.
No fucking shit, I am.
And I’ll meet them there with their hypocrisy.
Wren is my salvation, and my only sin is everything I’ll do to keep her safe.
Like now.
I peck her cheek. “Why don’t you go with Ms. Davis and make sure the kids take their crafts home?”
She blinks. “But we didn’t have bible school today. It was a kids’ service.”
Fuck. Think.
“Then, wait for me in my office.” I kiss her, nipping her lip. “I want to play with your bunny tail.”
“Yes, my lord.” Happily, she grabs her purse, swinging it over her shoulder.
I watch her disappear through a side door, towards my office, before Viktor rises from the shadows of the vestibule.
Yes, I’m a man of God, but I was born into evil. I expect the worst in most, so I prepare. From under the first pew, where Wren sits, I reach, pulling out the Glock I keep hidden there. There’s one hiding under my pulpit, too.
“What the fuck do you want?” I aim at Viktor, slowly stalking my way.
He smiles. “Dobryy den’.”
I sneer, “English. I won’t speak his language.”
Thanks to my father, Russian is acid on my tongue.
“Good afternoon.” Viktor clasps his hands. His Russian accent thick, his English impeccable. “Impressive service. Impressive wife. She will make beautiful heirs.”
“Touch her and I’ll kill your heir. I’ll kill Katya.”
Katya, Axel’s first wife, is Viktor’s daughter. She always looked familiar, just like her father. She was the perfect succubus to seduce Axel: a female demon requiring semen to survive.
“Easy.” Viktor surrenders his hands. “I’m not here to rouse our proudest lion.”
“Fuck you, I’m not his lion, and I’m not his heir.”
Lions are the supporters of our family shield, but I never saw them as representing our father.
No, I have them inked on my skin, all my brothers do, to honor our mother.
She’s the lioness, the reason we survived.
“You’ve been playing games again, Sergei.” He halts, steps away, admonishing me like a child. “You make deals with your father and don’t honor them.”
“He’s a wife-beater and child abuser; I’ll never honor him. But I will kill him.”
“That’s not necessary.” He nods toward the cross. “We all meet our maker one day.”
“Ready to meet yours now?”
My pulse doesn’t race. I’m numb. Stone. Cold. Possessed by the spirit who remembers being burned.
“No, I’m here to discuss a new deal.”
I huff a laugh. “Dead men make no deals.”
Calmly, Viktor sits in the second pew, crossing his leg over the other like a vile gentleman. “Perhaps you are willing to die in lieu of a deal, but what about your breathtaking wife? You’ve chosen well. Your father is impressed. She’s nice, strong stock.”
Rage fills my exhale, logic firing across my brain. Wren’s safe in my office. She knows I keep a gun hidden under my desk, too.
“No,” I counter, “I’ve chosen never to have a child until I get Axel’s back.” His eyes widen. Fuck, I’m right, and it makes me sick. It makes me seethe, “Who did you take from him? His daughter or his son?”
Viktor gloats, “My grandson thrives. He adores his mother and father.”
I reel. Axel has a son. Taken from him. This will kill him.
Choking on guilt and grief, I rage, “Ruslan is not my nephew’s father, and Ruslan knows it. Why would he take Axel’s son when he only wants mine?”
Evilly, Viktor shrugs. “You left us no choice. We have a spare, now we want an heir.”
“Never,” I snarl.
“Well then, perhaps we can make an alternate exchange. There is another piece of you we want.”
“Piece of me?” Bitterly, I huff, bearing burns from my father. They may hide under my ink, but not from my soul. “No, he’s taken enough from us.”
“Then we won’t take this time. We’ll accept a donation.”
My blood? Is that why my father asked about it?
Viktor lowers his voice. “Your father has a genetic condition that causes kidney disease. He needs a transplant. He—”
“He needs my kidney?”
Of course, he does.
Karma never fails.
“Or, one from your brothers.” Viktor raises his bushy eyebrow. “But you don’t want that, do you, Sergei? Then they’ll know what you did.”
“I did nothing but keep my family safe.”
“No, you thought you could deny your father, your role, your responsibility, as you always have, and now we have your nephew. What would your brother, Aleksi, say if he found out you sacrificed his son and not yours?”
I can imagine Axel’s pain.
He’s my blood, my little brother who’d sleep with me when we were afraid. I can feel his rage. His suffocating ache. The painful instinct and urge for his child. I want to fall to my knees, dying for him. I love my brother. I love my—
“What’s his name? My nephew?”
Viktor brags, “Lev, our little lion.”
“So help you God if you or Ruslan hurt him. I will behead—”
He flicks his hand. “We would never harm an heir. We may need him. But he’s too small. We can’t take his kidney yet, so we’ll take yours.”
This is barbaric, savage, and my father’s hallmark. He doesn’t care who we are; it’s what we are to him. His blood. It’s all he cares about.
But I care about everyone else but myself. My blood is my grace, my redemption.
“I will give him my kidney in exchange for my nephew.”
Viktor scoffs, “It won’t be that simple.”
All the days I had to sit at my father’s feet, witnessing his wrath, I know…
“Oh, Viktor, death is very simple. But for my father? Finding a kidney isn’t. I know him. He won’t accept anything in his body that’s not his blood, and good fucking luck getting my brothers to give him a goddamn thing once they find out what’s at stake: their nephew.”
Viktor tapers his eyes. “Oh, but you won’t do that, Sergei. You know better. What about your beautiful mother, Queen Nadia? What about your other queens? Your nieces, nephews, and children one day? Kill us, and we will have them killed. You know this.”
My logic revolts. “You’d kill your own grandson?”
Viciously, he snarls, “We all meet our maker.”
This man is vile. Viktor used his daughter, raising her to be as ruthless as he is, sending her to seduce my brother. Only a heartless woman would take a child from a loving father. And now, he’s willing to sacrifice that child, all for money.
But I have the power—the blood.
“If my father wants a piece of me, let him kneel before me and fucking beg for it.”
“He is not well enough to travel.”
“Not my problem, Viktor. It’s yours. That’s why he pays you the big bucks. You’re his little bitch-boy who cleans his mess.”
“Careful, Sergei.” Viktor rises. “You forget who you’re dealing with.”
“Yeah, you’re dealing with me.”
An angel’s voice calls across the sanctuary.
I whip my focus on him, to Wren, standing with the gun from her purse, pointed at Viktor.
“Lay a hand on my husband or my family, and I’ll put a bullet in your skull.” Wren squints one eye, her aim locked and loaded. “Or watch what you drink. Y’all like tea in Russia, right?”
“You would not be so foolish, young lady,” Viktor chides her.
But Wren laughs. “Time’s up, old White man. Only ladies follow men’s rules, and I ain’t feeling lady-like.”
Jesus, Jesus. I’m so in love.
“Angel,” I beam with my gun drawn, too, “I know he’s standing on a blood red carpet, and your aim is true, but I don’t feel like cleaning brains off of bibles today.”
I focus on Viktor. “You heard my deal. If my father wants another piece of me, he can get on his knees for it. Otherwise, it’s like you said; I know better. He lives or we all die.”
I wave my gun. “Now, hurry along, and enjoy some shrimp and grits before you leave our fine city.”