“Nik!” I turned at the sight of his being pulled back. One masked man pressed something to his neck, and my brother went limp.
“No!” I darted forward, but as soon as I put any distance between me and Sloane, I stopped short and hurried back to block her.
Fuck!
I got my gun out and fired at the few men who were trying to take Nik away. Aiming away from him so he wouldn’t be caught in the gunfire, I hoped that the other men in the car following us would use just as much accuracy.
The second SUV that was tailing us slammed on their brakes and men filed out of the car. Just like I was, they used the open car doors as a block to fire at the masked men.
“Fuck,” I roared, so fed up with these attacks and incidents aimed at my family. I was sick of the constant barrage of trouble, more than anything we’d ever faced before. It wasn’t reflective of my skills as the interim boss while Father recovered. This shit had been going on for a while. And it was escalating too damn fast for my liking now.
“Get him,” I ordered the Ivanov men falling into file with me. We all fired at the men who were dragging my unconscious brother further away, but they didn’t stop. They weren’t hit as they got him closer to a van waiting on the other side of the parking lot.
The second they got him in the back, it was over. They’d transport him and the hunt for him would become that much more difficult.
“Go!”
Men ran after them in an attempt to stop these assholes from getting Nik in the car. They were almost there. Watching and staying put like this to defend Sloane, I felt shredded in two.
I had to help my brother.
But I had to save my woman. My child.
I couldn’t run away from her and I couldn’t stand by and just watch Nik be knocked out and taken away like this!
“Go,” Sloane urged. She shoved at my back as she crawled into the backset. “Go get him!”
“No!” I shouted back at her, suspended in raw disbelief that she’d urge me to leave her in danger. Was she kidding? How in the hell could she think I’d abandon her with this happening around us?
“I’m inside. Go!” She pushed my back again, prompting me to chase after the fuckers who’d snuck close and taken him. “I’ll stay in the car. The guards will keep me safe.”
“No,” I growled. “I will. I will always keep you safe, Sloane.” Turning back to face her briefly in the heat of the moment, I saw the fear in her eyes. Not for herself, but for me. For my brother.
She would be a target as my woman. And she would be more of a target as she carried our child. Leaving her was out of the question.
But so was not going after my brother to save him from being captive.
“Stay with her,” Damon ordered, rushing up close as backup. He’d been in the second SUV as well, and now, he charged forward on his feet, running fast but pausing to shout at me, “We’re on it.”
He didn’t give me a chance to reply, already across the parking lot and hiding behind another parked car to fire at the van.
Watching him in action, I had to admit that he was right.
I was never alone, not as the boss in my father’s place nor as a supervising leader. I was a Mafia boss for now, but I would always be one of the four Ivanov brothers and we always worked as a team.
“We’ve got this,” another guard said as he ran up to me, covering me from a hit. “Stay back.”
I shook my head, bewildered by how fast it all happened. Taking his advice, I got into the backseat with Sloane, holding her close and brushing her hair back from her face as she cowered against me. Her heart raced, and mine did, too, but together in this car, we were safe and out of reach from anyone else.
“Who—”
I shook my head to her frantic question. “I don’t fucking know.” It was too early to tell with this abduction just happening. “We have so many enemies. I’ll inform you later. You have to know all of what you’re getting into with my family. But we’ve been trying to pinpoint which enemy is trying to take us down.”
She didn’t reply, stroking her hand over my chest in such a way that I couldn’t tell whether she was comforting herself or she was trying to soothe me.
Once the vans were gone and more Ivanov men were on the chase after Nik, texts flew over my screen of all the men reporting in and keeping me updated as they chased after him.
I was furious that someone would sneak up to take my brother. And I was pissed at myself for lowering my guard while he was snatched away.
For that to have happened like it did, those fuckers were following us. They had eyes on us. With Sloane out and about even for this appointment, I couldn’t afford to lower my guard at all.
With my phone out, I saw the time in the corner and knew we risked being late for this appointment. In the context of witnessing my brother’s abduction, it seemed bizarre to focus on anything else. But this wasn’t a petty little obligation. This was the first time I’d be able to learn about my heir, my child. My future that would tie Sloane to me in an ultimate commitment.
Besides, as we sat there and I willed my heart to slow down, I relaxed—slightly—with the fact that my brother was right. Damon was correct. He was there as backup. He was on this, as were many other men who swore their lives to my family.
I wasn’t alone. I had the future of the Ivanov Syndicate to protect too.
If anyone can hunt down Nik, it’d be him.
Damon was Nik’s fraternal twin, and they’d always been closer than any of us brothers. They were opposites in so many ways, but their connection to each other made them tighter than me and Saul.
“We need to go in,” I told Sloane. “We can’t miss this appointment.”
She reared back to gawk at me. “What? Are you joking?” She huffed and shook her head. “Those men just rushed up and kidnapped Nik!”
I sighed, nodding. Touched that she could be so quickly and genuinely worried about my brother, I knew I would never have to doubt her loyalty. I would never have a reason not to trust how close she’d become to me and those who mattered to me.
She belongs with me. With us.
I kissed the top of her head and then gave a nod of acknowledgment to the men outside the car. They’d flank us until we were inside. As I reached for the door handle, I caught sight of another car pulling up with additional security for us. “And like Damon said, we’ve got this. We have resources to chase after him and we will get him back.”
Still frowning, so doubtful and concerned, she exited the car with me. “How can you be sure?”
“I trust each and every person looking out for us, for him.”
She held my hand tightly as we walked toward the entrance. Tense and agitated, she stuck with me like glue. “I don’t… I don’t understand how you can be so…”
“Yes, you can. You can understand, and that’s why you’re so perfect for me, Sloane. You’re tough. You’re a survivor, the same as we are. The only difference is that now, we’ll fight to survive together.”
She glanced up at me as we entered the facility, and I swore I would never forget the sincere love that shone from her eyes in that moment.
Fifteen minutes later, I experienced an even more unforgettable moment of seeing the ambiguous figure of our child on a monitor. Cast in black and white as the ultrasound technician measured the baby was the image of my heir. I couldn’t tell what was what and most of what the technician said went in one ear and out the other. I’d pore over the doctor’s notes later.
With the steady thump of our baby’s heartbeat on the speaker, I was mesmerized with this new life we’d created.
In lust. In love. In whatever she wanted to call it. Sloane and I came together and had formed this new beginning.
“I love…” Sloane sniffled as she stared, just as mesmerized with the image on the screen and the sound of the heartbeat.
I picked up her hand that I still held tightly. “I love you.”
She turned to kiss me, smiling with unshed tears in her eyes. “I love you, too. And I love him.”
“Him?” I laughed once, then frowned and looked at the tech, who smiled and shook her head.
“No way. Too early to tell,” she quipped.
“I can tell,” Sloane predicted. “I’m calling it.”
I rolled my eyes and kissed her again. “We can wait and find out for sure.”
“Him or her. I don’t care. I love this baby and I love you,” she confessed, truly and openly.
“I love you both more than you can ever imagine,” I replied.
And I will never, ever let either of you suffer for a day in this life. I vowed it and would keep it forever. That was a future I would commit to with every fiber of my being.
“Marry me.”
Sloane turned her head back to me and furrowed her brow. “What?”
“Marry me,” I repeated.
She rolled her eyes and huffed. “Okay, we’ll take this one day at a time.”
I shook my head as the technician wiped the ultrasound gel off Sloane’s stomach. As she left the room, seeming to realize this was a private moment, I helped Sloane sit up.
“No. Marry me.”
She squinted at me. “Are you asking? Or is that an order?”
I pulled the ring case out of my pocket and presented it to her. “Either. Both.”
She laughed once as I took her hand and held it up. “Maxim! You—” She laughed again, staring at me skeptically but with a smile growing on her face. “You just spent a week brooding and isolating me because you couldn’t commit and now—”
I kissed her quiet, loving how she curled against me and kissed me back harder. Neither of us could resist the other.
“Let’s just take this slow and…” She looked down at the ring.
“No. I need to know, Sloane. I need to know that you’ll be mine forever. As my wife. My partner, no matter what.”
For someone who’d never wanted to trust a woman for more than one night, I was now desperate to trust in her love and forgiveness of me.
She had to say yes.
“Please. I can’t have a future without you. Without you and our child so we can raise him or her together.”
