He grips my hand and continues.
“The Bratva is my family. I owe it to the men who are trapped there under Budimir to free them. I owe it to the men who died for my father to come back and fight on their behalf. I owe a lot of things to a lot of people.”
He hasn’t blinked or wavered once. His voice is strong and unyielding.
It’s the voice of a don.
“I’ve realized what I want now, Esme,” he tells me. “Maybe if I’d been born to a different family, things might have been different. But this is the only life I know. I can’t be anything else but what I am. This is it for me, Esme. This is my life. And I want you in it. I want to leave Phoenix with something and this is all I have to offer. My legacy. My father’s legacy. The Bratva.”
I stare at him.
My heart is pained, but I know what my decision is without having to think about it.
I’ve known it for a while.
But it had only cemented itself in my consciousness earlier today when we were at the beach.
All I really need is my husband and my son.
“This is not the life I want,” I tell him straight. “But…”
I look up and Artem is waiting patiently for my answer. He looks calm, but I know he must be nervous about my answer.
“But if it’s the only way I can keep you in my life, and in Phoenix’s… I suppose I’ll have to accept it.”
There’s three seconds of silence and then Artem smiles.
“You’ll come back to L.A. with me?”
I nod.
A part of me always knew this was an inevitability. I’d known it from the moment Artem showed up at my doorstep.
For so long, I’ve been terrified of reliving the nightmare I lived in the Moreno compound under my father’s oppressive presence.
But I’m a stronger woman now.
And Artem is not Papa. He is a stronger man. A better man.
And I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that he will protect me with his dying breath.
In the end, all I had to do was ask myself one simple question:
Do I love him?
And every time I ask myself that, no matter the circumstances, the answer stays the same. Every single fucking time.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.