Total pages in book: 67
Estimated words: 64993 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 325(@200wpm)___ 260(@250wpm)___ 217(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64993 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 325(@200wpm)___ 260(@250wpm)___ 217(@300wpm)
“I never did that,” I say with a smile.
“No.” His eyes are warm as he cradles my face. “You were always kind. I was the asshole. Can I… will you…” He stabs his fingers through his air with a rueful smile. “I don’t have a clue how to do this. May I take you on a date?”
I laughed. “A date?”
He winces. “It’s backward, isn’t it? I’ve already sucked you dry without giving a thing in return. But...I’d like to remedy that. Can we start over? Go to dinner? Get married? Have little redheaded babies?” He tilts his head to catch my gaze. “Too soon for that?”
Warmth curls everywhere in my body and tiny explosions of joy burst in my chest. He wants me. He’s all in. “A little.” I bring my hands to his chest, leaning into him. “How did you get me into naturopathy school?”
“A magician never reveals his secrets.”
“Fair enough.” I smile.
“Are you going to go?”
I catch my breath. Am I? I just found out the guy I’m crazy about wants to be with me. Is it really the right time to move away for four years?
As if he guesses at my hesitation, he covers both my hands. “If you’re worried about us, we’d figure it all out—no problem. Of all of Ravil’s men, I’m the only one perfectly able to work remotely.”
He said us. There’s an us.
I still can’t believe it.
“Ever since Ravil broke the bratva code to marry Lucy, all the brotherhood or death rules seem to have gone out the window. He just let Pavel go to be with his girlfriend in L.A.. Maxim has a wife. Oleg’s girlfriend lives with us.” Dima shrugs. “I don’t see why I couldn’t move out, too.”
I beam at him, wings flapping in my chest. “You’d come with me? Really?”
“Natasha, I’m all in. I want to be with you—any way you’ll have me.”
I try to imagine what it would be like to have Dima with me at naturopathy school. Coming home to him typing away on his computer in the living room. Watching movies. Cooking together. I couldn’t imagine anything better.
“One more question—what happened to my student loans?”
I brace myself, afraid to hear he committed a felony in my name, but he touches my nose and says, “I just paid them off with my savings. I figured you’d want me to go legit with them.”
“Wow. Thank you,” I breathe. “I hope you don’t think you’ve bought me now.” I don’t mean it. He had me at date. Paying off my forty thousand dollars worth of student loans will definitely buy me—body and soul.
He cups my nape and massages it. “I plan on working my ass off to prove what you mean to me—any way I can.”
My eyelashes get damp. “You already have.”
“Come here.” Dima scoops me up into his arms and carries me toward his bedroom.
I loop my arms around his neck, laughing. “Where are we going?”
“I need to taste you.” His eyes darken.
“I need to taste you back,” I murmur as he pushes open the door.
Epilogue
Dima
Natasha squeezes my hand as we stand with Nikolai in front of the door to the apartment where we grew up.
I glance at my twin, my stomach a tight drum, guilt and shame crowding me from all directions.
He shrugs. “It will be what it will be.”
Right.
He lifts his fist and knocks at the door, then pushes it open without waiting for an answer. “Mama?”
Our mother is sitting on the couch, watching television on the giant flat-screen I arranged for her to win. She looks the same, only so much older. Wrinkles line her face, and her hair is more grey than blonde.
She shrieks, falling backward on the couch as we enter the apartment.
“We’re alive, mama. I’m sorry you thought we were dead.” I speak in Russian, getting the words out quickly in case she thinks she’s hallucinating or that we’re ghosts.
Making a soft lowing sound like a wounded animal, she scrambles to her feet, and Nikolai and I rush to help her.
“My boys!” She’s weeping already. She hugs us both at the same time. “My boys. How is this possible? What happened? I don’t understand.”
I can’t stop the sob from hurtling up my throat. What we did to our poor mother was unforgivable. How she must’ve grieved, living all alone all these years.
“I love you, Mama,” is all I can choke out.
“We joined the bratva,” Nikolai explains. “And they don’t allow any family. We had to fake our deaths.”
“I lost you, but here you are!”
We hold our mother through her sobs of joy, Nikolai and I shamelessly crying with her.
“Who is this?” she asks, noticing Natasha.
“This is my new girlfriend, Natasha.” I hold my hand out to Natasha, and she joins our little circle. “She helped bring me back from the dead.” I tuck my beautiful girl against my side and drop a kiss on the top of her head. “Natasha, this is our mother, Maria.”