Total pages in book: 49
Estimated words: 45635 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 228(@200wpm)___ 183(@250wpm)___ 152(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 45635 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 228(@200wpm)___ 183(@250wpm)___ 152(@300wpm)
I held his gaze when I said all of that even though part of me didn’t want to hear the answer. He didn’t respond right away. He just watched me, taking in every word, every reaction, like he always did when something mattered.
“You read all of it?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“And you understood it?”
“Not all of it,” I admitted. “But enough to know it’s not something… good.”
He stepped closer then, closing the space between us until I could feel the heat of him. His hand came up, settling against my jaw before sliding to the side of my neck. The touch was firm and pulled me out of my own head.
“Look at me,” he said quietly.
I hadn’t realized I’d looked away until he gave me the low, commanding order.
“I don’t want you involved in the ugly side of this world, but I know I can’t shield you from it all,” he continued. “Do you understand me?”
I swallowed. “That’s not what I was asking.”
“I know,” he said, his thumb brushing slowly against my skin. “And I’m not going to lie to you. There are operations that move people. Some are worse than others. Some don’t give those people a choice. That’s the truth of this world.”
My heart was racing now, an unspoken question hanging on the tip of my tongue.
“But I’m not involved in that, Lucia. My family isn’t involved in that ugly side of business."
His voice stayed low, and just hearing that had me exhaling fast and hard in relief.
I searched his face, trying to read if he was lying to placate me, if he was giving me something easier to hold on to.
“It’s a tracking ledger,” he said. “Routes, movement, and people tied to those routes. Workers, couriers, and contacts. It looks ugly on paper if you don’t know what you’re looking at, but it’s not what you’re thinking.”
I didn’t answer right away. Part of me wanted to believe him without question. Another part of me needed it to make sense. “And you’re telling me that’s all it is?” I asked quietly.
“I’m telling you I wouldn’t keep something like that under my own roof if it was what you’re afraid of,” he said, his voice steady, not defensive, not dismissive. “Not with you here. I would never lie to you. You ask me something, you get the truth. Always.”
He said that with such certainty and finality that I knew it was the truth. My shoulders loosened just slightly, the tightness in my chest easing enough that I could breathe without feeling like something was pressing down on me.
“Okay,” I said, and I meant it.
“But there is something you need to know,” he said.
The shift in his tone was subtle, but I felt it immediately.
“What’s wrong?” I asked as my anxiety rose once more. His touch should have calmed me, but it didn’t stop the unease sitting heavy in my chest.
“What you saw,” he said, his voice low and controlled, “isn’t random. It’s tied to someone building something they shouldn’t be.”
I frowned, trying to make sense of it. “What do you mean?”
He didn’t answer right away. His eyes stayed on mine, watching me in that quiet way he had, like he was already a few steps ahead and deciding how much to give me. “Alessio,” he said finally.
The name meant nothing to me, and I didn’t try to pretend otherwise. “I don’t know who that is.”
“No,” he said, just as steady. “You wouldn’t.”
A slow, creeping feeling that I wasn’t going to like whatever came next filled me.
“He’s your half-brother.”
For a second, everything in me went still. My breath caught before I could stop it, my mind trying to grab on to something that made sense, but there was nothing there.
“That’s not possible,” I said, slower now, like I needed to hear the words out loud to believe them. “My mother and father only have my sister and me.”
Alexei stayed silent, letting me sift through my thoughts.
“Yes, your mother and father have you and your sister.”
It all settled in, and I shook my head, my mind trying to deny what Alexei meant. “My father had a child with someone else?” My husband’s silence told me that was exactly what this all meant.
“Alessio is your father’s bastard son, one your father knows about but doesn’t claim. He’s been making moves on his own,” Alexei continued, his tone steady and controlled, like he was laying out facts instead of dropping another fracture into the middle of my life.
“He’s been organizing his own crews, setting up his own routes, and making deals like he has something to prove. He’s using a last name he doesn’t officially claim to build something that is encroaching on shit he should know nothing about.”
He leaned back slightly, his gaze never leaving mine. “There was a hit on a Bratva warehouse and shipment. It left several of our men dead and the product destroyed."