Page 21 of Mafia King’s Dangerous Vow

“You don’t get to decide that.”

“I do,” he says calmly. “Because if you become unstable, emotional, irrational⁠—”

“Irrational?” I laugh, sharp and ugly. “You told me my child was dead for eight years.”

“And now you know otherwise. Which means you should be grateful.”

Grateful. As if he has handed me a gift instead of a grave.

“Go to hell,” I spit out. Then I hang up before he can answer.

I lower the phone slowly and realize I’m still holding it like a weapon.

“Bad conversation?”

I spin.

Aleksander stands in the doorway in a white dress shirt, sleeves rolled to his forearms, coffee in one hand.

The fact that he has seen this—this exact, ugly second—makes me want to put the phone through the wall.

“How long have you been standing there?”

“Long enough.”

He doesn’t come closer. That should make me feel less cornered. Annoyingly, it does.

“Your father,” he says.

I turn the dead phone over in my palm. “That obvious?”

“Yes.”

“Do you always listen to private conversations?”

“Only the ones happening in the middle of my bedroom while someone sounds like they’re about to commit homicide.”

I make the mistake of almost laughing.

“You should eat something,” he says.

“I’m not hungry.”

“That wasn’t a suggestion.”

“Careful,” I mutter, brushing past him toward the kitchen. “You’re starting to sound husband-shaped.”

His low amusement follows me down the hallway.

I hate that I made him laugh.

I hate it more that I was trying to.

The kitchen is bright with morning light, brutally clean and organized in a way that suddenly irritates me.

A plate already waits at the island. I look at it properly. Eggs done right, not just scrambled to death. Toast that isn’t burned. Fruit that someone actually cut.

“You have staff sneaking around at dawn making artisanal breakfasts?” I ask.