As we stood wrapped in the wind, Talia looked up at my face and asked, “You feel the same? Even after you remember your family?”

I nodded my head, unable to speak. I felt drained, numb. But I knew I wanted this female above anything else.

“You need to rest,” Talia said on a relieved sigh, and took my hand. She turned to walk us back to the house, but I needed to express something from the heart. I pulled on Talia’s hand. She turned to face me, her beautiful face confused.

I lifted my hand over my chest and rasped, “To me, you are not a Tolstaia.”

Her eyes softened, and stepping closer, she replied, “To me, you are not a Kostava.” She lifted higher on her toes, and said, “You are my Zaal, the man whose soul has stolen mine.”

Then she kissed me. Her cold lips met mine; soft, tender, caring. She pulled away and stroked my arm. “Let’s go inside. I need to care for you and hold you while you sleep.”

Warmth spread in my chest. I let this female, my female, guide me into the house. As we entered the door, Luka rose from the long seat. He watched me with wary eyes. Squeezing Talia’s hand, I let go, and walked toward her brother. The guards all stood around him, more guards than there were before. All holding their guns.

But Luka’s eyes did not leave mine.

Standing before him, I said, “You have my gratitude for freeing me from Master.”

Luka’s face hardened. “He isn’t your master anymore. He’s nothing but a fucking dead man walking.”

I nodded at Luka. I went to walk back to Talia, when he announced, “Anri would be proud of the man you’ve become. You’re like him in every way. Your looks, your strength, your loyalty.”

I closed my eyes for the briefest of moments, before taking a deep breath and making my way back to Talia.

We entered the bedroom and Talia took me into the shower. She cleaned me slowly with a washcloth, then patched up my cuts and bruises, before brushing out my hair. All the time she touched me, I touched her back. As she cleansed and cared for me, she peppered my face with kisses, told me, without words, that she was mine, and I was hers.

As we climbed into bed, I faced Talia on my pillow. Memories now were a trickle, a gentle stream in my mind.

Talia watched me. I shuffled closer, wrapping her in my arms. I closed my eyes, relaxed my heart with the female I should never have wanted, and confessed, “Ya khochu byt’s toboy vsegda.”

Talia stilled in my arms, then with a press of her lips on my chest, whispered, “I, too, want to be with you forever.”

Chapter Sixteen

Luka

Brooklyn, New York

One week later

“You’re really doing this?”

I turned to face my father as I stood in the center of my living room.

“I’m going,” I replied coldly. My father slowly sat down on the sofa.

I hadn’t seen him since that day in the gym when he’d seen me training. When I’d arrived back here from the Hamptons last week, he was away on business. This evening I found him waiting at my door. He was here to discuss tonight’s plan to take out Levan Jakhua. We’d finally got a tip-off for where the Georgian bastard was hiding from our insider. I’d been given permission for this sting from the Pakhan in my father’s absence.

It seemed he was now here to hear about it in person.

Refocusing on the here and now, I watched my father cross his legs, reflecting the calm demeanor he always wore, as his eyes fell upon me. “And you’re going to kill him? You?”

My jaw clenched as I anticipated the argument that was going to come. I walked to my papa and sat down on the seat before him. “My byki will go in to where he’s hiding. I promised you I wouldn’t fight, and I won’t. They’ll bring Jakhua out to me.” I looked up at my father. “Then I’ll slit his fucking throat.”

My father’s hand rubbed over his short graying beard, and he nodded. “And Kisa knows you’re doing this?”

“She understands what I have to do to avenge Anri,” I replied vaguely. He nodded again.

We sat in silence until I asked, “Papa? Why don’t you want me to fight?”

My father’s hand stopped on his face, his brown eyes looked into mine. “Luka, you will never understand this until you have children, but the day you were taken from me”—he patted his chest—“something within me died.”

A hollow pit formed in my stomach. My father rarely showed emotion. Since I’d gotten back to Brooklyn after being freed from the gulag, he hadn’t really known how to treat me. I supposed that was because he no longer knew me. I’d left him a boy, and I’d returned a damaged man. Fourteen years of raising me had been lost. I’d never really thought about it that way before. Maybe he was just as lost as I was.

He sat forward. “When Kisa told me you were back, when she stood in our private box in the Dungeon and told me my son, my lost son, was the man killing Alik Durov in the cage, I couldn’t believe it.” His eyes lost focus. “You were savage, wild, but highly effective. You slaughtered Alik Durov. You slaughtered anyone that came into your path. You were unstoppable, the most effective killer I’d seen, well, since Alik.”

I stiffened at the mention of Alik Durov, but my father’s expression softened. I was looking at my real father. Not the Bratva boss, but Ivan Tolstoi, my father.

“I watched that boy slowly go insane, Luka. I watched it happen before my very eyes. With each kill, he thirsted for blood, the bloodlust slowly took control. And as for all the fucked-up things he did in private? I had no idea. But that boy lived for the kill. Sought out our enemies and tortured them. Killed them in the most sadistic ways imaginable.” He sighed. I thought he looked tired. “We may kill in this life, Luka, but we’re not beasts. We adhere to a code, even when it comes to the death of our rivals.”

“Papa—” I went to speak, but my father held up his hand.

“When I saw you kill Durov, you no longer resembled my serious and respectful son I’d known as a child.” His eyes met mine. “You looked like Durov. That same need for the kill was in your eyes.” He sat back and dragged his hand down his tired aging face. “It still is, Luka. That look. That look is still there. Every single day.” Silence hung in the air, and he added, “You’re going to be the pakhan, Luka. Of that, we are certain. But I refuse to watch my son become like Durov. I’ve just got you back. I won’t lose you again. Especially to the demons you hold inside. I won’t lose you to yourself.”

My chest tightened at the flash of vulnerability in my father’s eyes. I stood and walked toward him. I kneeled at his feet. “Papa, I’m back. And I’m not Alik Durov. I’m your heir, and I won’t let you down. You have my word on that.”

Water built in my father’s eyes. He lifted his hand and tapped it on my cheek. “You’re my life, Luka. My legacy,” he said through a tight throat. “I lived with a void in my heart when you were gone. I thought that thinking you were dead all those years was the hardest part of losing you.” He shrugged. “Turns out it wasn’t. Because living with the knowledge that I could lose you all over again? All because you crave to be in the fight? I fear, this time, would kill me.”