Katie never enjoyed the luxuries, I didn’t think. She hadn’t had them until she was with men like Jimmy and maybe she didn’t want to indulge. Or maybe she just didn’t know how. She’d been surviving for a very long time.
She didn’t move in this penthouse like she owned it or like she wanted anything to do with it at all. She only pulled items from one drawer which made it clear to me that she only used one. She didn’t take up all the counter space but stood at the very end of it in front of that drawer as she brushed her hair quickly and flipped it back out of her face. She applied a touch of lip gloss. “Life is the luck of the draw from the very beginning.”
“I intend to make it less about luck for our kid.” The words flew out of me before I could stop them. Was I right to think I would? Could I control our places in the bratva and mafia enough that my offspring wouldn’t live the life I did?
“No one has that power, Rome. Not even the monster in you can make that happen.” She let what she said hang in the air, and it filled the bathroom with a heavy scent, one of fear and despair.
“If I can protect the Armanellis from others, I can damn sure protect our kid, Katalina.”
The hum that rolled from her had me questioning everything. “Can you protect them from us? Me and you? We’ve been raised by this mob, molded by blood and pain and a ruthless struggle for power. I don’t know any better. Do you?”
“Your dad taught you better. You know more than every single one of us here.”
“I hope you’re right.” She brushed past me to go to her closet and get dressed. She threw on a black jean skirt that was frayed at her thigh and a loose white top before we headed out. “How did you get in without the bratva seeing you?”
“You want me to give up my secret after you wouldn’t give up your address?” I let her scope out the hall before I exited and closed her door.
“My address is on a need-to-know basis. I’m supposed to be keeping a low profile and myself safe.”
I waved my hand around the hallway of the building. “This is safe? You’ve got no security where there should be.”
She sighed and slid her phone from her pocket. “You’re changing the subject. How did you get in? If you want, I can call and ask Cade. I’m sure he knows.”
I ignored her threat. Cade had ended up giving me her address, but no one knew what the fuck I was doing in the dead of the night. “He’s not going to give you the answer you want. It doesn’t matter anyway. I’m here now.”
She narrowed those moon eyes at me. She looked tiny in the hallway, about to slide the phone back into her skirt’s pocket, young with almost no makeup on. Her t-shirt was baggy, dwarfing her even more.
“You need to add my number.” I pointed to her phone.
“I don’t know why.” She didn’t fight me, just handed it over so I could enter my cell number.
“Because you might need me.” I waited a beat. “Especially now that you’re carrying my child.”
“We don’t know that for a fact,” she hissed and the laugh that burst out of me caught me off guard. She was so damn quick to lash out. We were both that way with each other and I was already imagining the time we’d have with a kid.
Imagining and looking forward to it. It was a dangerous amount of feelings to have at once for something that might not even come to fruition. “Don’t you think they should start seeing us together?” I walked toward the elevators.
She grabbed my bicep and yanked me back. “Absolutely not, Rome. Maksim is just beginning to give me a little breathing space.”
“They don’t give you shit, woman. You take it. This is your domain, your bratva. Remind them if you need to.”
“I don’t need to. I want their trust and I want to trust them too.”
“So call them.” I crossed my arms in front of me.
“What?” She stepped back like I was insane. I walked up to her and pulled her phone back out.
“Call them and tell them I’m here. Tell them first and build their trust. Give them something to hold onto.”
She rolled her lips between her teeth, so I knew she was thinking about it. We stood there with the air conditioning blasting loudly for maybe a whole minute before she snatched the phone from me and dialed.
“Maksim?” She paused and then whirled away from me, pacing up the carpeted hallway and back toward me as she talked fast. “I’m with Rome. I don’t know how he got in and I don’t care. That’s not the reason I’m calling…Yes, I still think you can handle security for me. Rome knows the ins and outs of every building in the city. He was bound to get in.”
She rolled her eyes and sighed.
“No, I’m not calling about that. I appreciate the job you’re doing. I realize this is a big deal for you and I trust both you and Luka. I’m calling because I need you to let me leave with him and not tell anyone. I’ll disclose more information later.”
She waited and chewed a nail as she nodded at whatever he was saying.