Page 45 of Romi

“I don’t know how, but I will make you mine, Sonia,” he said, taking my face in his hands.

Seeing the truth of it in his eyes, I literally glowed inside. Finally!

“About time you got with the programme,” I said with a cheeky wink.

He threw his head back and laughed, the sound sending shivers of erotic pleasure all over my body. Linking my arms around him, I leaned up and kissed his sexy mouth. As the kiss became more frantic, I let my hands explore those sexy abs again and then let them slip a little further south to discover that my, oh my, Romi was ready for another round. My core gushed at the thought, and I grasped his length in my hand, intent on making the most of our time together.

Quite sometime later, we pulled our clothes back on and cuddled for a while, just enjoying being able to hold each other. Unable to stop myself, I put my hand up under Romi’s T-shirt and traced his abs. Wow, those abs! I really couldn’t get enough of them. I loved how hard they felt under my fingers. I kept touching them. Touching him. The smile on my face was so wide my jaw ached, but it was such a wonderful ache. I still couldn’t quite believe this was real, and my Mr Sexy Abs was really letting me touch him. Every now and then, I secretly pinched myself just to be sure it was, in fact, real and not some delicious dream.

“When you return to University, I will come with you,” Romi said, kissing me on the cheek.

“Oh, I’m not returning,” I said, then proceeded to update him on my plans.

His face split into the biggest grin I had ever seen on him, and I giggled as he held my face between his large palms and sprinkled it with tiny little kisses.

After a few seconds, he pulled back, still holding me.

His smile faded, and he gazed into my eyes with an intensity that made me shiver with pleasure, and despite the early morning breeze, I felt hot. Oh my! It was utterly amazing to me how this man could certainly make all hot and bothered with a simple look.

“I have a confession to make,” he said, and I raised my eyebrows in question at the guilty look he was suddenly sporting.

“I missed you like crazy when you were away. I made sure that Rolan and Armen got rid of any competition for your affection because I was so jealous. I know I didn’t have a right to be, but I was, and I’m sorry if I overstepped, but I’m not sorry. I wanted you for myself, and I would do it again if I had to,” he said in a rush as if he needed to confess immediately, or he might never do it.

His words should probably have annoyed me. After all, the level of possessiveness he displayed by keeping other men away from me when he hadn’t been willing to pursue me for himself wasn’t right. However, I couldn’t bring myself to be angry. In fact, the absolute pleasure that zinged through me, knowing he had wanted me that much, made me want to squeal in delight.

“You’re forgiven, but only because you have finally come to your senses and decided to claim me for yourself,” I said, kissing him hard.

“It did take me a while,” he agreed, chuckling.

“I knew that I wanted you, Sonia. I’ve been in love with you since the moment you stepped out of the pool last year wearing that gold swimsuit. Probably long before that, if the truth was known, but that was when I finally realised that my soft spot for you had grown into something else entirely. Yet, I doubted you felt the same. I shouldn’t have, and I’m sorry it took me so long to see that.” He hugged me tight and kissed the top of my head, and my heart melted.

As we lay there, Romi explained to me what was happening with the attacks against our family and what was expected to transpire over the next few days.

Hearing that Petrov was going to get out of jail early filled me with rage. That bastard had to pay for what he did to Krissa. It was about time he got what was coming to him. No way could he be allowed to go into witness protection. I was more than pleased that my family had plans to deal with him on Wednesday.

Of course, that wasn’t the worst of it.

While it felt good to be finally in the loop, my heart raced, and my stomach churned with worry when I found out about the planned attacks by the Malia Boys and Broxys on the Lab and Estate expected to happen on Friday.

However, as usual, Miki had a good counterplan in place, and while that eased my concerns a little, I was still consumed with a sense of dread. My family and friends were in danger, and there was nothing I could personally do about it, but pray everything would work out as I hoped and we wouldn’t lose anyone.

Romi told me that Miki and Glowacki wanted our enemies to think that the alliance between us and the Poles had broken down and that their plan to set up Glowacki and the Albanians was working.

Apparently, one of our guys was attacked last night and left for dead, but fortunately was still alive. However, one of Glowacki’s men was also attacked, and he hadn’t been so lucky. So, to avoid more attacks and deaths, if possible, Miki and Glowacki were going to fake a war.

Romi was coordinating the pretend attacks by us on Glowacki’s businesses, and Glowacki’s son, Dariusz, would be coordinating their attacks against ours. During these attacks, some of our guys and some of the Poles would “die”, and their bodies would be removed by our clean-up crew. In actual fact, they were only going to pretend to die and then hide in some abandoned farm buildings near our Lab, ready to help with the defence of the Lab on Friday.

Like Glowacki, we apparently had some traitors in our ranks, too. The shits! So, these pretend attacks would be used to get rid of some of them as well.

When Romi told me Ivor was one of the traitors, I couldn’t help but cringe. What an arse! His flirting had often made me uncomfortable, but it had also secretly boosted my ego a little bit, if I was honest, so to find out he was a bloody traitor really didn’t sit well with me, and I couldn’t help feeling a pang of guilt. I would be keeping as far away from that asshole as I could from now on, that was for sure.

Everyone was certainly going to have their hands full over the next few days, and our home was going to be busy. The plan was that Glowacki and his family would come to stay with us at the Estate on Thursday night. Although none of the intel we had led us to believe there was to be an attack on Glowacki’s home, neither he nor Miki wanted to take any chances, and it was easier to defend both families if we were in the one place, so his younger son and daughter would remain with us while the attacks occurred.

Miki had also arranged for Romi’s mum, my aunt Leticia, his half-brother Dimitri, and our aunt Marta to come over for a “holiday” so that we had an excuse for a family party with fireworks on Friday night in the hope that the noise they created would help cover any noise caused by the attack. Naturally, Marko would monitor police activity along with our enemies’ phones, so we knew when they were coming.

As always, Miki did his best to plan for every possible eventuality, so he had Sergei and his dealers ready to cause chaos in the streets. They would ensure that should there be any complaints of trouble or noise at either the Estate or the Lab, the police would be too busy dealing with the trouble in the centre of London to investigate, at least until the attacks were over and all evidence had been removed.

On Friday itself, Romi told me I would need to remain at the Estate with the rest of the women and Glowacki’s youngest two kids. Romi, Dimitri, Dariusz, our men, Anton, and some of his men would be there to defend us. Nobody had wanted to pull Anton and his men into any of our illegal activities. However, Anton apparently insisted on fulfilling his obligations as a Bratva Blood Brother. He took the childhood pact they had all made seriously and felt it was his duty to defend our family. Anton had always been like another big brother to me, and I knew we had been his surrogate family while he was growing up, so I understood.