Chapter 37 Roman
ROMAN
Iwoke up too soon.
It was another one of those mornings where I could have sworn I’d just put Emily or Henry back in the crib and had only just gotten back in bed.
Exhaustion frayed my nerves. My muscles ached without enough rest.
Fuck, when was the last time I had been able to burn off some energy in the gym?
That was the sort of tiredness that had me groaning as I woke up.
But it wasn’t that kind of exercise that had me so ragged.
It was another physical activity. One I would always make time for when I knew she needed me.
Rolling over on this quiet morning, I found Amber next to me in bed, her naked body sprawled out under the sheets we’d made such a mess of late into the night.
Her red hair was splayed out all over her pillow. Flaming tresses draped over her sweet face, too, and I smiled as I reached out to brush it back.
The mother of my children.
Nothing could darken my day now. Knowing she was not only the “stand-in” mother of Emily and Henry, but she was also carrying my child.
In the peaceful quiet of this morning hour, I watched her sleep and imagined how much better it would be when we woke up in bed together after all the danger was over.
Over? Ha.
Danger would be a constant in our lives. But I would breathe easier when I knew that I had ended the specific threats against her.
I wonder if Lorne and Sergei were right.
Thinking back to the discussion I’d been a part of before I came home, I considered that part of the hell might already be over. That they were accurate with the hit being placed on Amber’s rapist when the prison guards’ shift changed over last night.
I reached for my phone, snagging it off the nightstand and realizing that was what had woken me up so soon. Not the twins, not Amber, but my phone buzzing with a text.
Moving slowly and not jostling the bed so Amber could sleep in, I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and read the text.
Sergei: Meeting at UM in five minutes.
UM was his shortcut for Uncle Mikhail. But even if I hadn’t gotten this from him, Lorne’s text below it would’ve clued me in.
Lorne: Big boss wants to talk.
Neither of them would share sensitive information over texts.
But as I hurried to get up and throw some clothes on, I wondered if they had good news or bad.
Just so Amber wouldn’t wonder about where I was so early, I sent her a text she could get to when she got up.
With a quick kiss on her forehead and then a step into the nursery just so I could see Emily and Henry sleeping peacefully, I left.
On the way to my uncle’s, I hoped that it was possible for things to come in pairs. Like, maybe I could have more good news after the excellent news that I had another child on the way.
Reality would declare that I had to get the good and the bad at the same time, but I kept my head held high as I hurried through the connections to reach his building.
They were all there waiting for me. Sergei, Andre, Lorne, and a few others while Uncle Mikhail sat at his desk.
“Took you long enough,” he greeted dryly.
I shrugged. “Late night.”
“Also a busy night elsewhere,” he replied. “Namely, in a specific row of cells.” He tossed in the name of the prison where O’Sullivan had been held.
I raised my brows. “A good kind of busy?” I asked.
Please, please tell me someone killed that asshole.
It still aggravated me that I had to let someone else do it. That I couldn’t be the one to choke the life out of him or drive my blade into his flesh. For what he’d done to Amber, he deserved every ounce of my hatred and wrath. He should be getting all of my anger as I avenged her.
But I wasn’t so stupid enough to defy my uncle. I wasn’t so dumb as to disregard that sneaking into a federal prison and killing him would cause more trouble for my family. For Amber. We had mighty power, but some branches of the government were simply too challenging to cross.
Mikhail nodded. “Yes, but not in the way we assumed it would go down.”
I sat in the closest chair, feeling like half of the weight bearing down on my shoulders had been tossed off.
Sergei stepped forward with Lorne to explain.
My brother smirked before he launched into it.
“It seems that we weren’t the only ones with someone on the inside.
Niko Popov had placed someone in that prison, also with a hit on O’Sullivan.
He had invested in many projects, but with Rossen’s affairs and finances exposed lately, it seemed that he’d double-crossed Niko, using O’Sullivan to pull it off. ”
I blinked, quickly connecting the dots. “So… Popov had O’Sullivan taken out?”
“That’s what it looked like, but the man they had on the inside wasn’t experienced. He hit the wrong cellmate, hell broke out, and O’Sullivan ended up killing himself with a guard’s gun during the fight.”
I furrowed my brow.
What the…
“So he’s dead,” Lorne said.
I nodded, still frowning.
“But not by our man,” Sergei added.
I nodded again. “Motherfucker,” I grumbled. He’d killed himself? That was nothing more than him depriving me of having the satisfaction of ending his life.
“All that matters in terms of Amber’s safety,” my uncle stated, “is that he’s no longer an issue.”
I faced him and let out a deep breath. “Yeah. Of course.” Technicalities couldn’t bring me down now. Dead was dead. Even if he’d made it happen himself.
“Now, with all that happened at the prison, and with all of Rossen’s financial evidence exposed,” he continued, “it seems that Niko Popov’s confused who the fuck he’s supposed to be mad at.”
“At Rossen?” I guessed. If he had sent someone to kill O’Sullivan for the deception he’d done with Rossen that would screw them over, then he had to be giving up protection on that banker asshole.
“Yes,” Andre said. “But Ivan Popov has gone rogue and is deciding that we need to go down for this.”
I rubbed my hand over my face and groaned lightly.
“Niko’s calling for a hit on Rossen,” my uncle said. “But Ivan’s determined that Rossen’s not the one who’s at fault.”
“Niko put Ivan on Rossen’s protection detail, and if I had to hazard a guess, Rossen’s been telling Ivan that he’s being framed. That he’s innocent.”
“That everyone’s out to get him,” Lorne said with a sarcastic, dramatic lift of his hands as he rolled his eyes.
“I’m out to get him,” I said.
“Yes, but now, it’ll mean attacking Rossen and Ivan Popov since he’s teaming up with him and declaring a new faction within Niko’s empire.”
“For fuck’s sake.” I stood, annoyed that we had more complications. I opened my mouth to speak, but Uncle Mikhail held his hand up.
“However, this now means that Niko is more amenable to shedding the ‘dead weight’ within his organization. There’s been more infighting that we ever could have imagined.
Ivan has a following of many who want to throw a coup and get Niko out of power.
” He raised his brows and shook his head.
“I had a long, productive phone call with him this morning. A long phone call where I stressed that he should recall how we single-handedly toppled Giovanni’s empire recently. ”
I liked where this was going.
“Niko has agreed to look the other way as…” Uncle Mikhail pursed his lips with a pensive expression. “How did he put it?”
“He agreed to look the other way while the trash took itself out,” Andre finished for him with a cocky smile.
I blurted out a laugh. “It’s not every day we can get our rival’s blessing like that,” I joked.
“And it’s not a gift,” Uncle Mikhail said.
“I made it clear to him that this was by no means an obligation or a favor or anything of the sort. I should hope he understands because I promised him that he can expect the same treatment that we gave Roberto Giovanni if he ever tries to target anyone in our family again.” He lifted a hand.
“Or anyone hired by us and in our residence.”
“No one fucks with my family,” I stated. “And no one is going to dare to hurt the mother of my children.”
“Well, yeah, if you assume he was trying to have the twins taken to get to Amber,” Andre said.
“No. My family. Not just the twins,” I replied.
Lorne frowned. “But you said—”
“The mother of my children.” I snapped my fingers and pointed at my uncle. “Is Claire around? I’ll need her to get some of that prenatal stuff for Amber.”
Lorne’s mouth hung open. Sergei chuckled. Andre grinned and Uncle Mikhail gave me a deadpanned smirk. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah. She’s pregnant.” I couldn’t even try to hide the wide smile on my face.
Good news was being shared in spades today.
“Do you mean that Sofia is the only one who’s not pregnant?” Andre asked with a laugh.
Sergei pointed at him. “Don’t jinx it.”
Andre shrugged. “Nah. It’s not a jinx. I want at least five.”
Mihail huffed a laugh. “We go all these years without a single woman or baby or anything, and now look at us.” Sobering to smile, he said, “Congratulations.”
“Thank you. But I would prefer to hold off on the celebrations until after Ivan Popov and Rossen are handled,” I advised.
“Already done.” Uncle Mikhail nodded once.
“Done?” I asked.
“It’s already in the works,” Andre said.
“Rossen encouraged Ivan to go to his property outside Miami. Their yacht is scheduled to be leaving the dock within a couple of hours, and we’ve arranged for a strategic strike on it.
That is, if no one else beats us to it. All this news about how many people Rossen has screwed over is netting him a lot of enemies, all the way from Washington to the Middle East and beyond. ”
“We will follow up,” Sergei said, “to ensure no survivors can be a problem later on.”
“Justice will be served, even if it’s not by our hands,” Uncle Mikhail said with triumph.
“And so long as everyone knows my family is untouchable, that’s all that matters.
” He sat back, crossing his hands behind his head.
“Because I’ll tell you what, it’s a damned good feeling to know that all the heavy players in the scene here are dead or otherwise gone. ”
Between Roberto Giovanni and Niko Popov, the overall risk of our rivals was drastically lower now.
“I’m ready for some fucking peace and prosperity for a while,” he added. “Too many babies around for war.”
I smiled. “A new generation to look forward to and to concentrate on.”
He nodded. “You’ve got that right.”
For the first time in forever, it felt like everything was right in my world.