Page 88 of The Bratva's Bounty

Humming softly, I pulled one of his hands away from the steering wheel to rest it on my lap. Mindlessly, I played with his fingers while looking out the window, pulling myself into my head.

Sometimes, it was hard to believe that two years had gone by and that we'd be married soon. Hell, it was crazy to think about all that's happened in those years. All my friends and Lev's brothers were all settled nicely and starting families of their own; the psycho twins included—shockingly.

Lev and his brothers had their businesses, both legal and not, that flourished with each passing day. Angel and the lot of us girlies had our own thing going on with the safe haven business that Angel started up after her marriage to Nikolai. For the most part, half of us had a day job to report to, but then there was the other half where the safe haven business was our job.

Take me, for example; I didn't have a day job. Sure, I could've started up another tech business, but I didn't feel like it. If I started another one up, then my heart wouldn't be in it. Thankfully, Angel was more than happy to shove the safe haven business into my hands, given my business experience. Angel was still the head of it all, but I was co-CEO, basically. I handled the business front, all the tech work, and some of the equipment management for the safe haven business. And by equipment management, I meant I made the bombs, killer drones, little nifty techy devices, and things of that nature.

It only felt like yesterday that Angel threw the idea at me, and I accepted. One blink of my eyes later, and apparently, two years had gone by. With the Volkov Bratva expanding to nearly all of California over the years, we've had to expand the safety net for victims with the brothers. We were gonna have to look at getting more trustworthy managers and such under our belt soon to keep our plates from getting too full, but I'd bring the issue up to Angel after she popped out her latest children.

"You alright,zhizn moya?" Lev's deep voice distracted me from my thoughts, and if that wasn't enough, he fully snagged my attention when he grabbed my hand and kissed the back of it. "You have your thinking faceon, and I don't want you muddling up your mind too much and stressing. It's not good for the baby."

The sweet and warm smile graced my lips at the sound of his worried words. "And you're worried that you're going to be a bad father," I teased, snickering a little. "You're already worrying about our little one, and they're not even out in the world yet."

"W-well, worrying about you and our child is different than actually raising them," he retorted with reddening cheeks.

Smiling at him reassuringly, I leaned over and hugged his arm. "Don't worry, I'm not stressing. I'm just thinking about how the past two years have been and how there are still big things to come." Okay, that might've sounded better in my head, but it really wasn't anything tasking on me. "I'm just so happy and glad that I have you by my side." Honestly, I didn't know what I'd do without Lev sometimes.

Breathing deeply, I patted his arm softly. "Just drive. I wanna just sit in silence with you and enjoy your presence." More often than not, him being around was more than enough for me.

Peaceful silence befell us for a long stretch until Lev spoke up. "Do you want to stop by the flower shop?" The car slowed to an idle roll as a quaint little shop appeared ahead of us.

Looking beyond a nearby café, I stared at the floral shop with pressed lips and a pensive scrunch of my face. "Maybe after the doctor's appointment." I was in a good mood, and I didn't want to add any tension to sour it right now possibly.

"Are you going to tell them?" Lev questioned with a quirked brow, sounding a little apprehensive underneath all the curiosity.

Sighing heavily, I shrugged my shoulders in response. "We'll see. Let's just keep going for now."

I didn't want to deal with my mother and brother right now. Well, more so I didn't want to interact with my brother.

After I effectively put my company into the ground all those years ago and dragged my parents to The Catacombs, things with my mother andbrother have been rather strange. My father was dead, bits and parts of him at the bottom of the ocean or swimming around in a shark's stomach until it'd eventually be excreted and sink down. My mother got the help she needed at The Catacombs. Extensive therapy later, and she was a different woman.

Too bad the same couldn't be said for my brother. While my mother was on the straight and narrow… Yeah… I just wished the same could be said about my brother. He was still a fucking asshole and a half, though he had his good moments. He needed help badly, but he always refused it. Of course, my poor mother didn't want to let him go because he was somewhat all she had left.

Bao was still reluctant to reach out to our mother, for which I didn't fault him, given the treatment. I wasn't particularly close or fond of her; we've established a stable-ish relationship with each other and have learned to live as friends or something along those lines. We definitely weren't cozy and best friends or some mother-daughter duo. We kept in touch with each other, and I visited her from time to time just to make sure she was okay.

I couldn't help but follow the shop with my eyes as we drove past it, only tearing my gaze away when it went out of view. "It probably sounds stupid of me, but I somewhat wished things would've turned out differently." Call me silly for wishing and wanting that perfect family, but that was the only thing missing from my life.

"The world would be too happy of a place if everyone had the perfect family," Lev joked, chuckling dryly. "Well, whatever went wrong with your parents is what we won't do with our kid."

I waited until Lev parked the car in front of the business building before grabbing his face and pulling him down into a deep kiss. "I love you, Lev." Warmth filled my heart, and I smiled as I looked up at him deeply. "Thank you for putting up with my craziness and trusting me."

Of course, he had to ruin the moment with his snarky words. "Well, I've been known to make bad decisions that work out." His mirthful laugh made my eyes roll in response. "I love you so much, and I can't wait until I have someone to share my suffering with." That last part was meant in jest.

Slipping a hand down my body, he rested it against my stomach, rubbing at it with the most loving look and eager eyes.

Epilogue: Lev

~20 years later~

"Lev, can you find Nolan for me? I need to finish setting food out."

Nicole didn't even turn her head to look at me the instant I entered through the door, making me roll my eyes out of irritation.

After hanging my keys onto the wall, I went over to my busy bee of a wife and grabbed her by the hips, stopping her and spinning her around into a stunning kiss. "Hello,zhizn moya, I'm so happy to see you after a long day of chasing idiots around, and of course, I'm okay even though I'm half mummified in bandages," I snarked playfully, drawing her full attention to my battered body.

Her mouth dropped open with a scolding scoff, and she smacked my chest. "Lev, what happened? Why didn't you tell me anything? Should you even be up and walking?" Whatever she was doing was completely forgotten as she dragged my ass to the living room. "Why didn't I get a call? Who did this to you?" she fretted, grabbing at my shirt to lift it and see the damage.

Chuckling, I grabbed her hands and pulled her down onto the couch with me. "Empress, I'm fine. I just took a tumble down a hill." A rocky hill, but she didn't need to know that. "Just got a little banged up on the way down, that's all. I'm perfectly fine, though. Alexei and another one of our doctors checked me out and clearedme, so really, you don't have to worry," I assured her with a warm smile.