Chapter 2

Kai:

I kept my eyes on the woman for a second before Viktor started the car. The fact that she was easily fooled made me want to laugh. 

“I am curious about where he found her,” I said, looking at my beta, Viktor for a second as he drove. The man smirked, keeping his eyes on the road as we headed home. We had a lot to do, and this was just ONE thing that we needed to tend to.

I ran my finger over the pendant for a second, shaking my head as I knew that it was too easy. “She did her best though.”

“What are you going to do with it?” Viktor asked, and I shrugged. “You know, after your conversation with your brother, I would have expected that you would at least call him.”

“That man is nowhere near being my brother.” I said, recalling our last conversation in New York a few months ago. “He wants to introduce me to her tomorrow. I am going to give it to him there. The woman is to be my wife. I would prefer her to be intact.” 

The last thing that I expected was to marry a woman of Cosimo’s choice. But I knew that if I wanted to get to my goals, there was a price to pay, and this was one of the prices. 

“And do you think that she is going to accept marrying you to begin with? She doesn’t seem to be the kind of woman that would. Plus, the hickey on her neck proves that she is nowhere near being the type of woman…”

“I am not going to judge what she did or does before she marries me. As for accepting; as far as I understood, she doesn’t have another choice.” I said, and Viktor frowned. “Come on, let’s head to the hotel, we’ll talk about this tomorrow. For now, I believe that mom would be waiting, and you know how tense she can get when it comes to mentioning the word Cosimo.”

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“You are not going to marry the woman, Kai.” Mom said, stopping me from completing the sentence that I wanted to tell her. It was always like this whenever I brought up the topic. 

“Mama, the two of us have fought everything, with everything that we had for him to legitimize me as his son, and just when he is about to…”

“Cosimo is not the type to do something for you. He is not going to benefit you, Kai.” She said, stopping me. “He let his son go, he allowed him to be against him, do you think that he is going to be any different with you?”

“Mama, please…”

“I said no.” She said, stopping me. “If you are going to do it either way, fine. But do not expect me to accept the woman, nor to look at whatever child she brings in. I did not give birth, raise, and educate you to end up losing you to the man who gave you up long before you were born. Mind you, the man never even bothered coming to check on you as you grew older.”

“I understand, mama, but don’t you think that after all this suffering, that you deserve to get something out of it? The man is going to end up leaving something for us…”

“He can rot in hell with whatever he thinks that he would offer.” She said, stopping me. I looked at Viktor who shook his head. His mother, Yelena Lyonov, looked at the two of us. I knew that even she agreed with mom. Trying to convince her was not going to get me anywhere at this point. 

“Kai, how about you allow your mom to rest? She’s been worried about you throughout most of the day. The man called you here to Rome, we came with you to speak to the man. She was willing to comply with that, but you cannot expect her to be willing to accept a man who abandoned the two of you when you needed him most,” she said. I nodded, getting up from the couch where I was sitting. 

She expected me to leave the living room, but instead, I walked toward her. I got on my knees in front of my mother. My eyes softened as I looked at her before I took her hand in mine, gently kissing both of her knuckles. 

“I know that you don’t like this, and I understand your reasons. I can’t blame you for them either. But you have to understand mine, mama.” I said, my voice softening. She didn’t say a word, I didn’t expect her to. I got up from the floor and cupped her cheeks, kissing the crown of her head before turning to Yelena and kissing her cheek. Yelena took my hand in hers, gently squeezing it. I smiled and took a step back, nodding at my beta to follow me.

The two of us walked out of the suite, leaving them to calm down. And he raised an amused eyebrow. 

“What do you plan on doing?” He asked, making me sigh.

“We’ll go as planned.” I said, looking at the wall in front of me. I pulled the crest out of my pocket, running my finger over it. “We’ll find out why this thing is so important that he had a woman stealing it for him. As for marrying; I didn’t come all the way here to go back empty handed. Don’t you agree…?”