Chapter 33—Aiden

“Aiden, please don’t hold the baby like that,” Gabriella scolds.

“He likes it. Look at his little face.”

I’m lying on the sofa holding my son above me, swaying him from side to side so we can pretend he’s Superman.

As my boy smiles, the sight tames the beast inside me.

His eyes sparkle, and in them, I see her. He has my girl’s eyes, but the rest of my one-month-old son is the perfect likeness to me.

“Aiden, he’s going to throw up in your face.”

“Dover’tes’ mne,” I say in Russian, telling her to trust me.

“I do trust you. I just don’t think you’d like having puke in your face. I also don’t want the nightmare of imagining you flying around the house with our boy while I’m away.”

“He will not puke on his papa.” I laugh and bring Aleksei down to settle on my chest. “Let me close up for you tonight. You look tired.”

She’s exhausted and has been every day since Aleksei was born. I can see it all over her face and the sag in her shoulders. Yet, no matter what time of day or night it is, she insists on being Superwoman and multitasking so she can take care of the baby and run her business at the salon.

She doesn’t need to work. Most men in the Brotherhood don’t allow their wives to work, let alone own their own businesses, but it’s important to her, so I allow it.

“That would be great. Could you take my car? It has everything you’ll need in there.”

“Of course.” I rise, walk over to her and hand her the baby.

I kiss them both, grab her keys, and as soon as I step through the door, fire consumes me. Then everything changes into an infernal blaze.

I jump out of the nightmare and nearly fall out of my chair.

I’m covered in a cold sweat, and although my throat works, it’s dry like I’ve been standing next to the furnace at the crematorium, just like the hell blaze from that night.

Fuck, that was a memory of the hours before disaster struck.

The final hours I spent with Gabriella and Aleksei.

There was a time when I’d have that reoccurring nightmare every night, then it got to a stage when I didn’t dream at all for years. Not until I started taking hardcore drugs.

Then those fucked me over.

I look around my office then stare at the blank screen of my computer.

I worked from Romanov Logistics today because of the trouble here last night.

I hope like fuck nobody came in and saw me asleep. I was only supposed to take a few minutes break. That was after five, and it was still bright outside. Now it’s pitch black and raining.

Like I thought, Jude sent stronger people, and it was big.

I expect bigger because Jude is no fool. He knows I have Olivia, and the man wanted my head. I know for sure if he knew where I lived, I’d expect an attack on my house again.

If he was obsessed as he was with Gabriella, the fucker isn’t going to like that I have his woman.

We took down most of his men, but some escaped. They killed three of our best brigadiers, though, and that’s what rubbed Maksim the wrong way. Me too.

What irked me more was what he said about Olivia.

Hand her over to Jude or kill her.

Both sound like the same thing to me, and I realized as I told him I’d do what I needed to, I wasn’t just keeping her for leverage anymore. Somewhere along the line, it changed.

I should go home, and I should see Olivia, but I’ve been purposely avoiding her because I can’t allow myself to sink into the solace I find in her by forgetting.

Discovering those images of Gabriella stirred my rage and got me more protective. That only served to fan the flames of my own obsession.

One I feel guilty over because of Gabriella.

I haven’t been able to stop thinking of her since I saw the images. Thinking about her made me remember how I loved her.

Olivia makes me feel.

Gabriella was the last person to make me do that.

I can deny how I feel all I want or refuse to admit that I care about her, but it’s going to be obvious soon even to me that I just don’t want to let her go.

I know what letting go will mean.

My phone rings, and I reach for it.

It’s Dominic.

“Hey there,” I say.

“You’re not going to believe this.”

“What the fuck happened now?”

“I just hacked an email that came through to Jude this morning. It was from an undisclosed recipient. There was a zipped file in there with some blueprints for a new age gun to be designed by Markov Tech. The encryption was sealed by a retinal signature. The signature belonged to Eric Markov.”

I straighten up. “Eric Markov?”

“Yes. He’s alive, Aiden. You need living human tissue for a retinal scan to work. You wouldn’t be able to fake something like that if a person has been dead for five years.”

“Jesus,” I rasp. “Can you get a location?”

“Not yet. There are some serious firewalls protecting his location. I’ve never seen anything like it, and it’s been a while since I came across something I couldn’t get through. I’m guessing with his track record, he made those firewalls, and it looks like he designed the weapon. I’ve never seen those types of guns before. I think he’s making weapons for the Order.”

Olivia said Jude mentioned Eric was a benefit to them all.

This is why.