Kostya: A Dark Mafia Romance (Zinon Bratva), Nicole Fox [life changing books txt] 📗

want visitors to get comfortable. “They said you’re misbehaving. Giving nurses hell, refusing your medicine.”

“Missing you.” His voice is soft, and I almost don’t believe he’s said the words. He pushes the button to raise the head of his bed until he’s almost sitting straight up. “Charlotte? I—”

Whatever he was going to say is interrupted by a bout of coughing and a grimace of pain.

“Shh,” I say, dabbing a bead of sweat from his forehead with a towel draped over the side of his hospital bed. “It can wait.”

He nods, groaning softly, and closes his eyes again, settling back against the pillow. I stroke the back of his hand with mine as his breathing gradually drifts back to something approaching normal.

We’re quiet for a few minutes.

“Talk to me,” he says eventually, without opening his eyes. “I hate the silence in here.”

I swallow and smile. “Well, Tiana is coloring. She doesn’t like princesses anymore. She says she wants to be a firefighter. Your men are scaring every nurse and doctor in the whole wing. And, uh, the FBI was here.”

He nods and he either winks or has a twitchy eye. I think he winks. “I know. That’s why I’m in intensive care. Feds can’t come in here.”

I almost smack him in the shoulder. This scheming bastard! He isn’t here because his situation is dire. He’s here because he paid someone for some special considerations.

“Makes sense,” I laugh, shaking my head in amazement. I’m talking more to myself than to him, but he smiles.

“Yeah.” He’s still holding my hand and running his thumb over my fingertips. “I should’ve trusted you. I knew—know who you are. And I let myself be convinced you were a danger to me.”

“And now you know I’m not?”

He laughs even though I am deadly serious. “I always knew you weren’t.” He sighs. “After what happened with Natasha …”

He lays out the story of his ex-wife and Tiana’s mother, painstakingly slowly.

How he loved her and thought she loved him.

How they spent days and weeks and months planning their baby and the life they would have.

How she turned on him.

How she stole Tiana away before he even knew she existed.

My heart aches for him. It seems like the cruelest thing in the world, to steal a man’s daughter from him.

I don’t know what to say or how to lessen the anguish. So I turn my hand palm up and hold onto his. “Kostya—”

“I didn’t tell you all that so you would feel bad for me. I have everything now. I have a beautiful home. My daughter. And I have you. Right?” He opens his eyes and looks right at me. “Do I have you?”

I blink back a tear as I smile and nod. “You have me,” I rasp. “You have all of me.”

The past is prologue, dust in the wind, and none of it matters anymore, except for the fact that it brought us to this moment. I love Kostya Zinon.

“Before I passed out at the shoot-out, did you hear what I said?”

Oh yeah, I did. But I sure wouldn’t mind hearing it again. “Which part?” I can’t wipe the smile from my face.

“Can you put this down and sit beside me?” He taps the rail. There’s a locking mechanism and damned if I can figure out how it works, but instead of fighting it, I walk around to the other side—where the rail is already down—and sit beside his injured leg. Careful. Easy. He turns toward me and smiles.

When he does that, nothing else matters. “I love you, Charlotte Lowe. Everything you do and everything you say … I love that, too. My life isn’t easy. And knowing everything you know, I know it isn’t fair to ask …”

“I’m pregnant. And you’re the father,” I blurt. Not how I’ve planned to tell him. If this was a movie, there’d be an awkward record scratch right about now.

“I know.”

“I don’t want you to say you love me just because I’m having a baby. I’m having your baby.”

“Our baby,” he corrects.

I grin. “Yes, our baby.”

His smile spreads across his face. “I like hearing that.” He sighs. “What I’m saying is … I would understand if you wanted to get as far away from me as possible.”

Even if I wanted to, even if for some reason I had to, there’s no way I could stay away from him. “I don’t want that.”

I close my eyes and lean my forehead against his chest.

“When I was in the mechanic’s shop and I was scared, I got through by imagining you coming for me. Riding in like a knight in shining armor.” Oh God. I sounded like some sort of nutcase. Even Tiana has moved on from princesses and I’m here spilling out my guts about some stupid medieval hero fantasy. But Kostya doesn’t laugh or mock me. He just nods solemnly as I finish, “Anyway, you being who you are isn’t a deterrent. It’s … the opposite. It’s what makes you, you.”

He tilts my chin up and presses his lips against mine—soft, slow, sweet. I can’t stand the thought of never having that again. Of never feeling what I feel right now.

“I love you, Kostya. And anything that happened before doesn’t matter. We have a chance for a family, for a life together.”

No way am I ever going to risk losing him again.

“I was in a firefight that resulted in a hospital stay. The FBI is sniffing around. Chances are, I’m going to spend some time in prison.” He squeezes my hand.

“If that’s what has to happen, then that’s okay. I’ll wait.”

It’s the truth. I will wait. No matter how long it takes.

He holds my hand and leans his forehead against mine. “I don’t want to wait. Marry me. Now. Today. Tonight. As soon as you can.” Not the most romantic of proposals, but it’s ours and I love it. Every single word.

An hour and a half later—in time for the evening news cycle—I become Mrs. Kostya Zinon and the story goes out that