LOGINRomanThe glass is in my back before I fully register the sound.One moment I’m stepping into the bedroom with Raven in my arms and the next the window explodes inward and I’m taking us both to the floor, covering her body with mine, my shoulder and back absorbing the impact of the fall and whatever came with it.Silence.Then my men are in the room.Four of them through the door in under ten seconds, weapons drawn, Marcus sweeping the window line before anything else.“Stay down,” I tell Raven, yanking the duvet off the bed and draping it over her naked body. “Roman—”“Stay down, baby.”She stays.Marcus moves to the window frame, staying low, reading the angle of the shot. He studies it for a moment then straightens and looks at me.“Rooftop,” he says. “Building across. Minimum four hundred meters.” He glances at the two men behind him. “They’re gone. Single shot, clean exit. This was planned.”I push myself up off the floor.I feel the glass shift in my back as I move
RavenRoman pulls me back against his chest, and I settle into him, the warm water shifting around us as I let my eyes drift shut.His fingers move lazily through my damp hair, combing the strands away from my neck.“I’ve been thinking about names,” I say quietly.He hums softly. “You already have Mason.”I smile. “I know, and I love the name. But what if it’s a girl? We still don’t have a name.”His arms tighten around me just a little. “We’ll figure out the perfect one before you get to term.”I trace idle circles over his forearm resting across my stomach. “And this time, you’re choosing the name.”I feel him hesitate behind me.“Me?” There’s a quiet note of surprise in his voice.I nod. “Mm-hmm.”He laughs softly against my hair. “That’s a dangerous amount of trust.”“You’ve earned it.”The bathwater laps gently against the porcelain and his thumb moves in slow strokes over my belly and neither of us feels the need to fill the quiet with anything.Then I freeze.“Wait.”His hand
RomanThe house is calm when I come home. I loosen my tie walking down the corridor, already tired in the way that sits in your bones rather than your eyes, the Diamond Club meeting having taken more out of me than I want to admit. Not physically. Just the particular weight of years of patience finally converting into action.I push open the bedroom door.The en suite light is on, the door open, steam drifting into the bedroom in soft curls.I hear water moving.I walk to the doorway.Raven is in the bath, hair pinned loosely up, the water deep and warm, her knees drawn up slightly, her head resting back against the edge. She opens her eyes when she hears me and something in her face settles the moment she sees me, the way it always does, like she’s been waiting all day to see me. “You look exhausted,” she says.“Long day.”“I made dinner.”“It can wait.”She watches me shrug off my jacket. Hang it on the back of the door. Work through the buttons of my shirt.She move
RavenIf I’m going to do this, someone has to know where I’m going. If something happens, I can’t let myself disappear without anyone knowing where to look.We’re only a few minutes away from the house, but I don’t want to go inside.Not when someone out there claims to have something important for me.Maybe it’s from my father.Maybe, after all these years, he’s finally trying to reach me.The thought settles heavily in my chest.I’ve imagined this moment more times than I can count. If I ever saw him again, I’d ask him why. Why he walked away. Why he never came back. Why he never cared enough to find me.Maybe today, I’ll finally get those answers.I unlock my phone and stare at the message for a long moment before I do anything with it.Then I hand it to Anaya.She reads it once.Then again.“No,” she says.“Anaya…”“Absolutely not.” She hands the phone back like it’s something unpleasant. “We are not doing this. You are not going to some unknown location because a s
RomanThe Diamond Club sits behind an unmarked door on a street that doesn’t appear on any map worth finding.I’ve known about it for years. Getting inside has taken considerably longer.Two of Gerald’s men are positioned at the entrance when I arrive. They see me coming and the shift in their posture is immediate, hands moving before I’ve reached the bottom step.“Private event tonight,” the larger one says.“Move,” I say.“Mr. Bellerie—”My men come up on either side of me. Gerald’s men reach for their weapons. My men reach faster.The street goes very still.Six men with weapons drawn on a quiet Thursday evening, nobody moving, everybody calculating.“There will be a bloodbath on this pavement,” I say quietly. “And I promise you, I won’t be the one going down.” I hold the larger man’s gaze. “So think carefully about the next five seconds.”A voice from inside.“Let him through.”Gerald’s voice. Controlled. Reluctant in a way that costs him something.The men step asid
RavenThe babies section of Harrods smells like something between a nursery and a dream.I stand in the middle of it holding the tiniest pair of socks I have ever seen in my life and feel something happen to my chest that I wasn’t prepared for.“Raven.” Anaya appears at my elbow, arms already full. “Look at this.” She holds up a cashmere onesie the color of warm cream with little bear ears on the hood.I take it from her and hold it up and stare at it.“I can’t,” I say.“You can and you will.” She’s already moving down the rack. “We’re getting three.”I put the onesie in the basket and keep walking.I’d decided early this morning that I’m not going to find out the gender. I don’t know how to explain it properly to Anaya except to say that it doesn’t matter. Boy or girl, this baby is already the most loved person in the world and has been since the moment I found out they existed. I don’t need a color to prepare myself. I just need to show up.“So we’re going unisex,” Anaya co
RavenIt’s Anaya’s birthday party. The one she’s been excited about for days.I’m not even fully through the door before Anaya stops dead and stares past my shoulder.“Um.” She crosses her arms. “Raven. Why are there two men built like refrigerators standing in my hallway?”I glance back. Griffin
RomanRaven got discharged from the hospital, and I’m the one driving us away.“I don’t want to go home yet,” she says softly.She’s been quiet since we pulled out of the hospital car park. Not the heavy kind of silence that comes with fear or pain. Just quiet. Her head rests against the seat as sh
Raven“Sorry to interrupt,” the doctor says. “We would like to do an ultrasound this afternoon if you are feeling up to it. To check on the baby given everything your body has been through.”I nod. “Of course.”The machine is brought in. The gel is cold against my skin. The probe moves across my ab
RavenRoman is back.The door clicks open, and something in my chest loosens before I even register that it’s him.The exhaustion of the past few days is etched into the set of his shoulders in a way he’d never admit out loud. He sets a bag on the chair beside my bed and holds up a takeout containe







