Page 142 of The Bratva King

I can’t sleep.

I lie in bed staring at the ceiling, replaying the conversation in my head.

I was so close to telling him everything. My real name. About my husband. About the Feds and witness protection and five years of running.

For a second, keeping it from him felt harder than telling him.

Secrets are the reason Luke and I are still alive. My entire life has been strategy. Doing whatever it takes to keep us alive. Nikolai makes me question every instinct that kept us safe. The rules Greg drilled into me. He makes me want to believe we could stop running. That I could have a life where I’m not constantly looking over my shoulder.

Wanting that is dangerous.

If he hid the man in the park from me, what else is he keeping? What else is he deciding I don’t need to know? He says he’s protecting us, but I can’t protect Luke if I don’t have all the information. What if the man following Luke has nothing to do with Nik and everything to do with me?

There’s too much coming from too many different directions.

When morning comes, I’m exhausted but wired. I shower and dress. I need to think. Plan.

I need to be ready to run.

Luke is asleep when I check on him. His dinosaur nightlight is on. He has a projector, too, but after an hour of dinosaurs dancing across his ceiling, we decided that’s not something anyone wants to wake up to in the middle of the night. I head downstairs and find Irina in the kitchen. I don’t want to see Nikolai. I don’t trust myself not to say something I’ll regret. Or worse, to forgive him too easily.

I take my coffee into the small sitting room Luke has claimed. It’s quiet, with some of his toys and books scattered around. I find the tablet Nik bought for Luke. It’s supposed to be for educational games and dinosaur videos. I power it on, open the browser, and start searching.

Small towns in the Midwest. Cheap rent and good schools. Somewhere a single mom and her kid can disappear without anyone asking too many questions.

I’m back in survival mode. I thought I’d left it behind when we came to Vegas six months ago. When I let myself believe that Vegas could be home. I have to do it without the government’s help. I’m on my own. No one is securing an apartment or handing me the keys to a car. I am building the escape myself.

I hate that I’m doing this. But every instinct I have says the life we built here is about to fall apart.

“Mom?”

I jump, nearly dropping the tablet. Luke is standing in the doorway in his dinosaur pajamas, rubbing his eyes.

“Hey, buddy.” I close the browser before he can see the screen. “You’re up early.”

His gaze settles on the tablet.

“Come here.” I pat the couch beside me. He climbs up and curls into my side. I wrap an arm around him. “Want some breakfast?”

“Can Nik make pancakes?”

Something in me sinks. “Not today, buddy. Do you want cereal?”

“Okay.”

We have breakfast in the kitchen. I take Nik’s usual seat beside Luke. I don’t know if he’s in the house or already gone for the day, but I don’t go looking.

“Kylie’s coming today,” I tell him. “You guys can swim.”

“At the pool?”

“No. Here. You’ll stay in the shallow end.”

“Okay.”

Kylie arrives an hour later. She’s still staying in the guest house, but it seems silly to have her babysit my kid when I’m right there.

I’m grateful to have her today. I need time to figure out how to leave.