Lilly was beyond shocked. This mountain of a man was Dmitry Medlov? His inhuman perfection was almost vulgar. Not only was he tall, muscular and tan, but also blonde and handsome, he had an air about him that made her feel that he was truly royalty of some sort.
She couldn’t help but smile. Placing her small hand in his, she shook it back. “I am,” she said, proud of the title, Vasily’s Lilly.
“Well, it’s very nice to meet you. I’m just so sorry that it had to be under these circumstances.” He motioned back at the sofa. “Please sit back down. Try to relax. I’m sure that you must be exhausted both mentally and physically.”
Dmitry’s demeanor made the tension ease a bit. She was expecting a monster, but the man standing before her was hardly that. “I just appreciate everything. I can’t say it enough,” she said, sitting back down.
“Well, as soon as Vasily heard, he headed straight toward you,” Dmitry said, walking over to the front of his desk. He leaned against it and crossed her arms across his chest. “But I was also told of a little surprise once he got there.” He looked over at Vasily, who had made his way closer to Lilly during the introductions.
“Yes,” Lilly said, looking over at Vasily. “My son.” She instantly corrected herself. Force of habit. Shaking her head, she tried it again. “Our son.”
Dmitry looked in between the both of them. “Well, which is it?”
Vasily was behind the sofa, standing directly above Lilly. Putting a hand on her shoulder, he spoke up. “He’s mine. I can vouch for her. I’ve seen him. He’s my boy.”
“No disrespect to you, Lilly, but are we sure about this?” Dmitry asked carefully.
“Certain,” Lilly answered.
Behind her without words, Vasily nodded.
The confirmation was just what he wanted to hear. Dmitry nodded. “Well, we’ve all been there. Let me be the first to congratulate you, Vasily.” Clasping his hands together, he yawned and shook his head, fighting sleep after a sex session from hell with his wife. “So, Lilly, you’ll be staying with us for a while, at least until we get this business with Leo Rasputin under control. As I understand it, we are not really sure if he is looking for you or not. So, we’ve got some feelers out there to get an idea of what is looking for. If it’s not you, then well, you can go on with your life. If it is you, then that’s why we are here.”
She felt herself bristle at the thought. “I hope that we’re all just over reacting.”
Dmitry smiled at her. “But you don’t think that we are, do you?”
She nodded no.
“Why do you think that?” Dmitry asked.
“Because I know Leo,” she said, voice shaky. “He wants revenge for me testifying against him. I put him in jail.”
“And you did that why?” Dmitry probed further. He needed to see where the woman’s head was to make sure that they were making the right decision.
Lilly swallowed hard. “I had to get back at him for what he’d done to Vasily. He shot him, almost killed him, just for trying to protect me. I had to get him back for all the beatings I took. I had to get him back for all the times he had caused me pure and utter humiliation.”
Dmitry hated the idea of a man beating on woman. He looked at her now, obviously fighting for what little life she had been able to make herself and felt sorry for her. “Well, the Medlov Men are not saints. I don’t want to give you that appearance. It would be a false one. But we don’t beat women. However, I have to be honest with you and tell you that that is not the reason that you are here.”
Lilly looked up confused. Why was she here then?
Dmitry looked up at Vasily. “If I housed every beaten, bitter ex-wife or ex-girlfriend of one of my men, then I’d have a house full and a lot of bad relationships with families across the world. You are here, because Vasily is family and you are the mother of his child.” He wanted to make himself perfectly clear. “So with that being said, I expect you to be completely honest with me.”
“I have been,” she answered sincerely.
“Does Leo Rasputin have any other reason to look for you?” Dmitry asked. “Is this search driven by more than just revenge, because I have to be honest. It sounds like it’s about money.” He looked up at Vasily.
“It could only be about revenge,” Lilly answered. “I don’t have anything else.”
Dmitry hated to ask in front of Vasily but he had to know. “And are you still married to him?”
Vasily looked over at her curiously. He had never thought about that? Was she still married to him?
“No. I filed for divorce during the time that he was detained by the FBI,” she answered. “It was finalized while he was in prison.”
Dmitry knew that there would be a far greater push back from the other Russian mafia families if she were still his wife. “Good,” he said, more confident in his decision to help.
Vasily exhaled a quiet, relieved sigh. He knew the law and if Lilly was still married, then that made Dylan his son legally, and that he simply could not take.
Dmitry nodded and stood up. He had heard everything that he needed to know directly from the source. “Find out what Leo wants,” he said to Vasily and Anatoly. “And make this quick.”
“I will,” Vasily said, stepping from behind the sofa as Dmitry passed.
Dmitry looked between Vasily and Lilly and smiled. “Looks to me like everyone here needs to get some rest. So, please go to your quarters and do just that.”
As quickly as he was there, Dmitry was gone. He and his men disappeared back out of the door and down the hall, leaving the original three alone in the study.
Anatoly rolled his neck and picked up the bottle of vodka he had been pouring from earlier. Now, it really was time for him to call it quits. Yawning, he walked toward the door. “I’m taking this upstairs to my wife and run her a hot bath, if she isn’t already asleep. You two have a good night. We’ll see you in the morning. Lilly, I’m sure that Vasily will give you a rundown of the grounds and what to do and what not to do. So, I’ll leave you in his very capable hands. It was nice to meet you.”
“You too,” Lilly said, glad to finally be alone with Vasily again.
As the door closed, she deflated. Turning toward him, she ran a hand through her hair. “Wow,” she whispered. Words were too difficult at the moment. She just needed to let it all settle into her head. All that she had seen, all that she had been through.
Vasily saw her visibly grappling with everything and took her hand. “I’ll take you to your room.”
Lilly wiped a tear from her eye. “Is my son in the room with me? I’d really feel more comfortable if he were. I don’t want to impose…”
Vasily cut her off. “He’s in the room with you, and you’re not imposing on anyone. Once you’ve had a chance to rest, you’ll be able to think clearer,” he assured her, rubbing her back gently.
She looked up at him, thankful for his tempered strength. God, bless him. He was trying. “Okay, well take me to my temporary home.”
“Come with me,” he said, motioning toward the door.
As Lilly and Vasily walked through the house, alone and slow this time, Vasily gave her a tour. Each room had a story, one that either he had been there for or heard about. Relaxed and composed, he told her funny stories about his time with Anatoly and Dmitry and how much he had learned under their leadership.
“I can tell that you’ve grown,” she said to him as they made their way up the back staircase.
“Time here has given me clarity,” he confessed.
“Can I ask a question completely off of subject here?” Getting to the top of the staircase, she looked around the second floor now in just sheer amazement. “How big is this place?”
Vasily looked up at the ceiling to recall. “17,000 square feet,” he said, guiding her down the dimly lit corridor.
“17…” Lilly shook her head. “You need a map to get around this house.”
“You learn it over time, but at first, it can be i
ntimidating,” he said with a shrug. “So, what is your question?” he asked, stopping and turning toward her.
“That was my question,” Lilly said with a laugh. “How big is this freaking house?”
Vasily laughed also. As he did, his face lit up and Lilly couldn’t help but stop and look at him. Wow, he was still so incredibly handsome. It made her heart skip a beat just to see him happy, to see some glimmer of something other than gloom. “It’s really good to see you smile,” she said, voice wispy. “I don’t think that I’ve seen that in a very long time.” Her head ducked shyly. “It suits you.”
Vasily tilted his head. Was that a compliment? “It’s just good to see you, period.” He stepped closer.
The smile left Lilly’s face. It was inevitable that they would arrive back at the conversation about the elephant in the room. She was just relieved that they were alone.
Licking her dry lips, she beetled her thick black brows at him. “You may not believe this, but I wanted to tell you, Vasily,” she said, heart beating faster by the second.
She could see it in his face. He needed to hear her say it. He needed a real explanation, though he was respectful enough not to demand one at the time.
Despite her nervousness, Lilly kept her voice pitched low and even. “I didn’t know until after you were gone that I was pregnant. Six weeks after to be exact. And after everything that we’d gone through both together and apart, I thought the only way to keep us all safe was to keep my secret.” Huge raindrop like tears began to form again, but she tried to fight them. “Giving birth in a hospital for the poor wasn’t exactly my dream way of bringing a kid into the world, you know.” Her mouth began to quiver. As she blinked over and over, the tears fell to her cheeks. “But after I saw him for the first time on the ultrasound all small and perfect, there was no way that I was going to get rid of him.” She huffed. “But then reality set in. If I called you, if I said anything, then maybe the word would have gotten out and I would have put him in danger. And I know you, albeit not very well, I know you well enough to know that you would have done anything for us. But what you hadn’t considered is that I’d do anything for you too.”
Vasily was quiet, deathly still. His face was stoic, hiding every emotion that he felt or wanted to feel, but she could see it in his stance. He was without a doubt relieved to know that she still felt something for him.
“You don’t have to explain your decision to keep Dylan to me,” he said softly. “I just wish that I could have had an active role in his life. A boy needs a father.”
“What about what you said in the car?” she asked confused.
He frowned. “What did I say in the car?”
“You asked me why I had done this to you?” she said, astonished that he had already forgotten such a cruel insult.
“I meant, why did you keep him from me.” He looked away. “I may not be the best person, I’ll admit that, but I’m not the worst.” Inwardly, he wasn’t sure about that, even as he said it, considering his profession.
Lilly exhaled a deep breath. “Wow,” she said, shaking her head. “I thought you meant something else.” Her eyes watered again. “I thought you meant…”
“No,” Vasily said, cutting her off. He didn’t want to hear what she had thought he meant. He knew what he had meant and that was enough.
“Such a major relief.” Wiping a tear from her eye, she laughed. “I am an emotional wreck today, huh? I mean, look at me. I’m a mess.” She sniffled and wiped her nose. “And I think I stink.”
A laugh escaped him again. “You don’t stink,” he said with a grin. Vasily watched her with unadulterated fascination. Lilly was both soft and commanding in her presences. She was so strong, stronger than he had ever expected. Yet, she seemed not to know it. So self-conscious. “You’re… beautiful,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone. “More beautiful than I ever remembered.” Wiping her cheek with his thumb, he paused, wanting very much to kiss her heart-shaped lips, wanting very much to do so many things.
She looked up at him, waiting for his next move, breathing hard, eyes wide.
The tension in the hallway reached fever pitch, both realizing at the same time that while time had passed, their attraction to each other had not. In fact, it might have grown.
After some insidious thought that made him curl up his bottom lip, Vasily finally relaxed his shoulders. “Let me take you to your room,” he said, stepping back.
Lilly exhaled reluctantly. Some things had remained the absolute same no matter how many years passed. Vasily had always been a hard man to understand. Often, one would never know what he was thinking until acted on it.
She guessed tonight would be no different in that regard.
Walking with him down the dimly lit hall side-by-side, she pushed back all the things that she wanted to say to him. When they got to her bedroom door, she simply bit out, “Thank you for everything.” Her heart was still trying to leap up into her throat. “I know that I’ve said it a hundred times, but…”
Vasily cut her off. “You don’t have to thank me.” For one thing, it made him uncomfortable. He looked away. “If you need anything, I’ll be right next door.” He pointed at the door several feet down the hall to a door that they had already passed. “That’s my room.”
“I would say the same thing here, but it’s pretty clear that you can’t read signs,” she said, winking at him. She wanted to plant a seed, to let him know in some way it was okay to speak in more than three sentences at a time to her.
Vasily was speechless. Pursing his lips together, he narrowed his gaze on her.
“Have a good night,” she said, going into her room and shutting the door.
Chapter Seven
Vasily peeled out of his suit, one slow layer at a time and threw it over in the corner of his large bedroom on the leather sofa for the maid to pick up and clean the next day. Like every night before, he put his designer shoes in the walk-in closet, lined up perfectly with his other shoes. Took off his platinum watch and placed it in the jewelry tray with his clip of hundred dollar bills and his wallet, along with his patron Saint Jude cross necklace. Carefully, he laid his guns on his dresser across from his very inviting bed, and looked at himself in the mirror, shirtless and covered in tattoos.
He almost didn’t recognize himself tonight.
Running a hand over the scar on his chest where Leo had shot him, he slipped into a daze.
Over and over in his mind, he played out the entire day, remembering each and every single detail. Lilly’s lips. Her eyes. Dylan’s smile. His hair. Her smell. His voice.
He swam in a sea of new sensations, head barely above water, and tried to make sense of it all.
The reality was that when he woke up this morning, he was just Vasily. No family. No children. No ties. A true Vor living by the code of the great men before him.
Tonight, however, he had an entire ready-made family in the next bedroom, depending on him for everything from food, clothes and shelter to safety from a very vengeful crime lord.
What were the odds?
One thing was for sure, he’d never cast another judging thought toward his bosses for getting married and having children. Before he had secretly harbored a little frustration against them for complicating their situations by creating families, especially considering what the risks would always be. Now, he understood at least half of the equation.
Seeing Lilly tonight, after all those years, felt like someone sticking his head through an electric current. He wasn’t surprised that the last thing that she’d done before going to her bedroom was to challenge him. It seemed that her entire purpose in his life had been to do just that, even when she didn’t mean to. What did surprise him was the fact that he had done nothing about it.
He wasn’t a saint.
He had had more than his fair share of women.
So, why hadn’t he told her how he truly felt?
Maybe it was that he felt she was too vulnerable right now to make some
cheap pass on her.
Maybe it was the fact that she was the mother of his child.
Maybe it was nerves.
He slammed his hand down on the dresser and shook his head. Damn that woman. She was going to drive him crazy. Trying to get his bearings, he bent over and ran his hand over his buzzed crew cut and shook his head.
It had been so long since he had had her. So long since he had held her in his arms, tasted her sweet plush lips, felt her soft brown skin against his and her heart beat against his chest. It was a torturous fact, but he still remembered her face when he was in between her thighs, how her mouth parted as he entered her. How she closed around him and took him into her velvety folds and made him forget everything and everyone.
Seeing her again, brought the desire back that he had before, he’d been able to control, damn near ignore. But after he had seen her, after he had fallen for her even without touching her, out of necessity, he had to avoid her just to keep the glimmer of hope from being exposed in some unplanned moment between them.
The truth of the matter was that ten years ago, when he ran up the stairs of Leo’s home to save her and was shot as a reward for his trouble, the pain didn’t come from the sneaky bullet of the hidden body guard, but her ultimate rejection of him by her. He wanted to die on that cold, wooden floor after she had recoiled away from what he offered. Protection. Respect. A new beginning.
When he had recovered from his wounds, all he had felt was a fog of fury.
But when Yakov contacted him nearly a year later and told him what she had done – testified against her husband just to seek revenge for that night – he had known that whatever deep emotion had drawn him to her, she had felt also. Perhaps, just as strongly, but no doubt enough to break the chains that Leo held on her.
And now she was here.
Next door.
“What the fuck am I doing?” Vasily mumbled as he rose up from his slumped position. He couldn’t let her slip out of his fingers again, just to protect some foolish pride.
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