Claim

18

Lyon walked out of Tiffany’s feeling like the luckiest man in the world. He was loved by the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, a woman who had once seemed as out of reach as the moon.

And she loved him back.

She loved him back and she was happy to be carrying their baby.

His heart swelled. Of course, he’d thought about building a family, but it had always been through the lens of his legacy with the bratva. That’s how their world worked. Family — bratva and otherwise — was everything, and the larger your biological family in the bratva, the greater your sway.

The greater your power.

Loyalty in the organization meant cover, and the best cover was having as many pieces on the board as possible.

Kira had changed everything, had changed him. Now he saw their child not as a piece to be played in his quest for control of the bratva, but as a little girl with Kira’s green eyes, a little boy with her fair hair.

Their child was a permanent connection between him and the woman he’d come to love with his whole heart, a connection that would strengthen the bond they already shared into one that was unbreakable.

He was surprised to find there was nothing he wanted more.

He looked at his phone and headed for the park. The engraving he’d ordered from Tiffany’s would take a couple of hours, which worked out perfectly. Tonight, he and Kira would fly home to Chicago, but first, he had an important meeting to attend.

Central Park was crowded, teeming with families looking to enjoy one of the first warm Sundays of spring. He watched them with new eyes: the fathers with children on their shoulders, the mothers cooing at babies in carriages. Soon, that would be him.

Him and Kira.

But first, he had to make the world — his world, their world — safe for their child.

He followed the winding path to Central Park Zoo, bought a ticket, and entered along with several other families and one couple. He looked at the map that had come with his ticket, spotted his destination, and continued past the sea lions in the central garden.

He understood almost immediately why he’d been instructed to make his way to the snow leopard enclosure. It was at the back of the zoo, and the crowd had thinned by the time he reached it.

He entered a small building at the front of the enclosure and spotted Roman Kalashnik staring into the glass at the enormous white jungle cat sunning itself on a boulder.

“I’m fascinated by them,” Roman said without turning. His hair was still too long over his wool coat, which stretched at the seams to accommodate his large frame.

“I can see why, although I wish we weren’t seeing them under these circumstances.” Lyon watched as the magnificent animal yawned, then looked around, as if it knew people were watching, even if it couldn’t spot them through the glass.

“How so?” Roman said, his eyes still on the animal.

“Wild things shouldn’t be captive,” Lyon said. “It isn’t natural.”

“And yet aren’t we all wild?” Roman turned his eyes on Lyon, and Lyon was surprised to find that his eyes were dark as soot. The last time they’d met, Roman’s eyes had been shielded by sunglasses.

“We’re not in captivity,” Lyon said.

“Aren’t we?” There was genuine curiosity in the question.

“Touché,” Lyon said.

Roman stuffed his hands in his coat pockets and started walking. “This is the second time I’ve risked my life to meet you.”

“Yes,” Lyon said. “And yet both times have been of material interest to your own future.”

He’d called Roman after his conversation in bed with Kira that morning knowing it was risky. Roman Kalashnik wasn’t the boss of the New York territory — that would be Roman’s father — but he wanted to be, and one day soon, Lyon believed, he would be.

Getting out from under his father wouldn’t be easy for Roman — Igor Kalashnik had a death grip on the role of pakhan in New York despite his advancing age — but Lyon had pledged his support to Roman in the endeavor in exchange for Roman’s help getting a clear shot at Musa Shapiev.

That mission had failed — although Lyon had made the disappointment up to himself in his eventual and leisurely killing of the man — but that hadn’t been Roman’s fault.

“Perhaps you should explain,” Roman said. “I was under the understanding that you had already been crowned pakhan in Chicago.”

“I have, but a hidden rival has emerged, one who’s been working against me since the beginning, one with power of his own backed by someone with more power,” Lyon said.

“Ivan Demenok,” Roman said as they stepped into the sunlight outside the building that fronted the leopard enclosure.