Chapter Two

“About time you finished. I was worried we might have to camp out here in the hallway the entire night.”

Vanya Guzun’s voice tiptoed a path of forgotten affection through his mind as he walked out of the room. Ignoring the couple he spotted in his peripheral vision, he kept walking.

“Please, Bogdan. It’s time for you to come home.”

The words didn’t stop him in his tracks. It was the voice of a forlorn little girl begging to be picked up and carried on his broad shoulders. A lost little girl reaching out for the love of a father... a role he had fulfilled since Viktor had died.

“We miss you, and we need you. I need you.”

Bogdan shook his head as he attempted to resist the pull her pleading voice represented. He refused to turn around and face them. Vanya wasn’t the crying type, but he could hear her voice thickening with suppressed tears.

“Arian needs you, Bogdan. More than anyone. You have always been his rock, ever since he was a baby. You were his hero, the one he looked up to. To him... to all of us, it’s as if we lost a father... again. Please, come home with us.”

“I am home, Vanya.” From the flat tones in his voice, the message was crystal clear. He wasn’t interested.

“No, you’re not. You don’t fit in this country, Bogdan. You are a true Romanian. It’s in your blood. You know it as well as we do.”

“This is my home now. I have a business, and I have built a new life.” He still hadn’t turned to face them.

“A business? A new life? Don’t make me laugh. You are no fisherman, Bogdan. You’re Bratva. That is another fact you can’t run away from.”

“Correction, Vanya.” Bogdan turned. None of the emotions at seeing her lovely face showed on his. Vanya, all of the Guzun siblings, really, were like his own children. He had missed her the most since she had been like an added attachment to his leg whenever he was around her growing up. “I own the most successful fishing trawling business on the Miami coastline. I supply fish and seafood statewide.” His smile was sardonic. “Even to Moldova.”

“But are you happy, Bogdan?”

He suppressed a smile at her tenaciousness. Vanya had come here with a goal, and it was more than evident she wasn’t leaving until she achieved it.

“I am content.”

“See! You’re not happy,” she cried out, elated.

“Leave it, Vanya. Happiness is overrated, and only you yourself are responsible for your own. Over the past year, I’ve often asked myself what it means to be happy and—”

“It’s when—”

Bogdan’s raised hand cut her excited interruption short.

“Sonja Lyubomirsky, a professor of psychology at the University of California, defines happiness as ‘the experience of joy, contentment, or positive well-being, combined with a sense that one’s life is good, meaningful, and worthwhile.’” His expression turned grim. “The reality is, going back to Moldova isn’t going to bring me any of those. I’ve been fooling myself for years. I’ve never been truly happy, especially over there.

“No, Vanya. I appreciate you coming out here, but I am right where I belong now. There’s nothing for me in Moldova.” A humorless cackle escaped his lips. “I find I rather prefer being a fish mobster than a human one. At least there are no broken families left behind when I chop off a fish’s head. Well... some would debate that, but you get my drift.”

In the world of the Bratva, Bogdan was known as ubiytsa smerti, the death slayer, a moniker he had earned early on as the advisor to the Pakhan of the Guzun Bratva. He was respected because he was truly a nice man with a dry sense of humor. However, he was feared more because, as an assassin, he showed no mercy to those who opposed or hurt any of the Guzun Bratva family.

Strangely, since it had become a way of life for him most of his adult life, it was this aspect that he hadn’t missed over the past year. In fact, he reveled in not having to kill or look over his shoulder for the next stupidly brave one, wanting the accolade of beating the ubiytsa smerti.

“If you don’t want to go back to Moldova, then at least come and live with us in Andrei’s castle in Russia. Just come home with us.” Vanya caught his hands as she entreated earnestly, “We need you.”

“I’m not going, Vanya. Accept it.”

With a heavy sigh, Vanya turned to Andrei. “You have to tell him. It’s the only way.” Her eyes locked on Bogdan as she gestured to the big man who had been watching him with burning eyes. Andrei always had a way of shrinking the biggest man to the size of an ant. Where Bogdan was the slayer of men, Andrei’s gaze was the slayer of confidence. “He needs you the most.” Her hand curled around her belly. Bogdan’s eyes narrowed as, for the first time ever, he noticed a tender smile of expectation cross the fearless woman’s face. “As does your... grandson.”

“My what?” Bogdan’s fists landed low on his hips. “What nonsense are you spouting, Vanya?”

“You are my father, Bogdan.” Andrei spoke up for the first time. “Remember, I went to the homeland statistics department and the lab that did the DNA test years ago when my uncle claimed Viktor was my father?” His eyes darkened. “I found out they did four different tests. Only one sample showed a ninety-eight percent match to my DNA. I personally had it verified again after Janos died.

“Vanya is right. You are about to become a grandfather. I need my father in my life, especially now that I’m about to become one. I never had a real father. The one who claimed me as his son was a shit face, Uncle Janos was worse, and Viktor... well, we both know how he was. I need an example to guide me when my son is born. You were there for the Guzun family when their father died. I need you in my life now.” Andrei walked closer. “I finally realized why I was always so drawn to you. Why I felt a deep connection from the first day we met. My soul knew who you were. Please, come home with us... Tat?.”

“I can’t be... I’ve never... I believed Janos was lying about Dimitri Balan not being your father at the time purely to hurt Zafira. I didn’t have sex with Nikita that...” Bogdan’s words became strangled in his throat as he cast his mind back to Viktor’s bachelor”s party. “I haven’t thought of that night for so long because I was having the worst time of my life. Celebrating the joy of my best friend getting married while my heart was crushed about losing the woman I loved. I chose to lock it from my mind because it was after that night, and upon our return home, that I was thrown in jail.”

“In jail?” Vanya’s brow furrowed ominously. “Why don’t we know about that?”

Bogdan sighed. “Apart from Viktor, his father, and Zafira’s father, no one knows I was incarcerated for a year for no reason. When I returned and found your mother happy with a little baby boy as a sign of her love for her husband, I chose not to tell her.”

Leaning against the balustrade, Bogdan’s eyes turned smokey as he watched the people having fun below.

“Everyone seems so happy and carefree,” he muttered. “I forgot what that feels like.”

“You can be happy, Tat?.”

His body shuddered in reaction when Andrei laid a hand on his shoulder. A gesture he had performed many times over the years, but this time, it felt different. It shook Bogdan to the core... knowing it was his son, his own flesh and blood, comforting him.

“With us and our son... Boian Bogdan... Rusu.”

“Rusu?” Bogdan’s voice cracked as he stared at Andrei. That they were naming their son after his father and him made his heart swell to bursting point. A happiness he was unfamiliar with filled his soul as for the first time, he identified similarities in Andrei’s features and his own. He was happy to notice that Andrei had invested in plastic surgery, and only a thin scar remained under his eye from the harrowing shot that had almost cost him his life.

“Now that I know who I am, Vanya and I want to start a new beginning for our children, so we chose to do so with my real surname,” Andrei continued. “I can now finally be who I was born to be, and it’s a tradition we want our descendants to continue. That’s why we changed our surname to Rusu and decided to name our firstborn after my blood grandfather and you... my birth father.

“I don’t know what to say... or feel. All of this is so sudden and...” He turned away as, for the first time in his adult life, he struggled to keep his emotions under control. “I was so focused on keeping Viktor from fucking Nikita that I forgot that I ended up with her.” The hand he ran over his face trembled. “I did have sex with your mother that night. In fact, I was the last one who did. I kept her busy so she would leave Viktor alone.” His breath escaped in a broken exhale. “Jesus Christ, is it real, Andrei? Are you truly my son?”

“Yes, Bogdan Rusu, you are my birth father.” Andrei’s smile silenced all doubts Bogdan might have mustered up. “I will show you the DNA results to set your mind at ease.”

“That’s not necessary. I believe you.” He shook his head. “It was my one biggest regret in my life,” he mused out loud. “That I was so true in heart and mind to Zafira that I never had a family, a child of my own. Now... after all these years...” His eyes filled with tears. “It can’t be true. Life can’t be that filled with bliss and cruelty at the same time.”

“And yet it is, Tat?,” Vanya said as she hugged him fiercely. “I can’t be happier that you are now my father for real.”

“Who are you, and what have you done with my Vanya?” Bogdan said as he pushed her away and frowned at her. “You even look different,” he said in a gentler voice when her eyes watered up. “Don’t you dare start crying because then I’ll know you’re an alien who invaded my princess’ body.”

Bogdan’s eyes widened as she did just that and with a sob, flung herself into his arms.

“Destul, Andrei! What is happening to her?”

“You have a very short memory, Tat?. Did you forget how Zafira became when she was pregnant? The steely, strong woman broke down and burst into tears at the smallest provocation. Crumbling under a mere frown from you.” He gestured at Vanya. “She’s like her mother in that aspect. I’ve seen a totally different side to her, but I doubt it’s something I would dare remind her of once our little boy is born and she’s back to her old self.”

“I forgot about that,” Bogdan murmured as he returned Vanya’s hug. “There, there, malen’kaya printsessa. Blyad’,” he growled as his gentleness sparked a fresh wail from her. “She’s more like Zafira than I realized. She, too, sobbed when I used to call her pet names at times like this.”

“Here.” Andrei handed him a handkerchief. “I suggest you start carrying a stack with you in the future. Otherwise, you’ll be walking around with wet patches on your shirt every day.”

“I’m not that bad,” Vanya protested but took the proffered piece of cotton to wipe the tears from her face. Her smile lit up the dimness of the hallway. “So, Tat?, are you coming home with us? Once we get there, we’re going to start decorating the nursery. I’m sorry, love.” She hugged Andrei. “But I don’t trust your DIY or painting skills.”

“No need to apologize, moye serdtse,” he said with a broad smile. “I can build a house, but little bits and pieces... not for me.”

“Where is home, Vanya?” Bogdan had to ask. He was overwrought with pride and joy at the news, but living a couple of miles from Zafira... he wasn’t ready for that, especially knowing she had no feelings left for him.

“Chiverevo, in Russia. We have demolished Janos’ house and rebuilt the castle Andrei always dreamed of having.”

“It’s not a castle, love. It’s a stately mansion,” Andrei interjected.

“It’s a castle,” Vanya reiterated with finality. “He specifically designed it so that you have your own wing. It’s connected to the house but completely separate at the same time. You have a private swimming pool, two spare bedrooms, and your own front and back doors, but you can also use the interleading ones to the rest of the castle.”

“House,” Andrei said.

“Castle,” she continued unperturbed. “So, since there’s no reason you can think of that I will accept, Tat?, you might as well give in, say goodbye to the little chit in there, and go home to pack.”

The word tat? kept milling through Bogdan’s mind every time one of them used it. Father... a word he had never expected to be called. It rocked him to the depths of his soul. For the first time in his life, he experienced a spark of what happiness felt like. He clung to it like a drowning sailor, afraid if he didn’t, he would lose any chance of finding a speckle of it ever again.

“Well, since you put it that way...”