Eva Ivanova didn’t cry, not when her father bled out on the snow, eyes open, lips parted like he still had one last word.

Not when her uncle handed her a gun on her tenth birthday instead of a doll and said, “Happy training.”

Not even when she pulled her best friend out of a car wreck with a baby screaming in her arms.

But now? Sitting in a government office that smelled of printer ink and bureaucratic death—a stench she knew well from her uncle’s parole hearings, just without the blood.

She did what any emotionally repressed ex-Bratva soldier turned criminal defense attorney would do. She clenched her jaw until it ached.

“You’re saying I have…legal custody… of a baby? I was expecting jury duty. Or a subpoena. Not… this.”

The court liaison didn’t blink. “Yes.”

Eva blinked for her. “Are you sure?”

The woman tapped the manila folder like it contained the Ark of the Covenant. “Guardianship, per the Riccis’ will.”

“No offense,” Eva said, leaning back in her chair with a dry laugh, “but I was expecting, you know, a fruit basket. Not a f**king baby.”

“Fruit baskets don’t come with legal clauses,” the woman replied, sliding the paperwork across the desk. “You signed this.”

Eva glanced at her signature. Beneath a clause that read:

In the event of death or incapacitation, legal and physical custody will transfer to the named guardians…

“And they went and got themselves both,” Eva muttered.

Her stomach flipped. Her mouth tasted like ash.

She didn’t cry, but she wanted to throw up.

“I was at the crash site,” she said, throat tightening. “Before the EMTs. I held Hanna’s hand while she—” She cut herself off, swallowing. “So don’t explain this like I haven’t bled on that baby’s blanket.”

The woman adjusted her glasses. “Then you understand why she’s yours now.”

Eva’s eyes dropped to the form.

Sophia Ricci. Six months old, orphan. Next of kin: Eva Ivanova and another name

Eva’s spine stiffened. “Who’s the co-guardian?”

A knock at the door answered for her—three heavy, arrogant knocks.

“No,” Eva said before the door even opened. “No. You didn’t.”

The door creaked, and in walked the bastard.

Alessandro Bianchi.

Italian-American. Mafia prince. Now, a corporate lawyer in a suit that costs more than Eva’s rent.

“Mr. Bianchi,” the clerk said.

Eva closed her eyes. “God hates me.” Which was fine; she’d hated Him first.

“Same,” Alessandro muttered.

They stared at each other like two cats in a burning alley.

They’d gone to war in courtrooms across three states. Left wreckage. Ruined each other’s cases. Possibly ruined each other’s sex lives.

But this?

This was personal.

Alessandro folded into the seat beside her, not looking at her. “This is a bad joke.”

“Agreed.”

“I’m not qualified to raise a plant.”

“Don’t be modest. You’ve killed one before.”

He gave her a sideways look. “They’re saying I have custody of a baby.”

“Same.”

“Who gave us this baby?”

“Luca and Hanna.”

“Our dead friends?”

“Our very dead friends,” she said, voice sharper now. “Whose ashes are probably still warm.”

Alessandro turned to the clerk. “There’s no one else?”

“No,” the woman said. “They were explicit. Guardianship to you two. Their best friends. Their ride-or-dies.” She air quoted it.

“Jesus Christ,” Alessandro muttered. “They trusted us?”

Eva scoffed. “They were not in their right minds.”

There was a pause.

Then the clerk nodded toward the baby carrier outside the office door. “Would you like to meet your child?”

“Not,” Eva said.

But the door opened anyway.

The social worker wheeled in a tiny, peach-colored carrier and set it on the floor like it contained a bomb.

Inside: Sophia Ricci.

Six months old. Big eyes. No emotion. Just… watching.

Eva looked down.

The baby stared at her.

Not cried. Not fussed. Just stared.

“…Is she broken?” Eva asked quietly.

“She’s just quiet,” the social worker said.

“She’s too quiet,” Alessandro said, frowning. “Babies cry. They snot. They scream.”

“She doesn’t do that,” the woman said. “Not since the crash.”

Eva bent slowly, knelt. Their eyes met.

Sophia reached out. One small fist closed around Eva’s finger with terrifying intent.

Eva froze.

“She doesn’t even know me,” she whispered.

“She knows something,” the clerk said.

Alessandro crouched beside her. “This is a mistake.”

Eva didn’t answer.

Because the baby wasn’t crying.

She was watching both of them like she was deciding if they were worth the trouble.

“Do you want to contest?” the clerk questioned.

They looked at each other.

“We could,” Eva said. “Let the state place her.”

“You trust the system?” Alessandro asked.

She hesitated. “…No.”

“Neither do I.”

They both turned to Sophia. She blinked, yawned, and frowned like an old man who’d just read disappointing news.

Alessandro sighed. “This kid is going to hate us.”

“Only if she survives us. The Bratva had a 50/50 survival rate, better odds than she’d had.” Eva said, reaching for the pen. “Where do I sign?”

****

Later Parking lot

They walked to Eva’s car with a baby carrier between them like it was radioactive.

“She needs structure,” Alessandro said. “Routine. Safety. I have a nursery. Guards. A Swiss nanny.”

“She’s a baby, not an international war criminal.”

“She might be both.”

“She needs me,” Eva declared.

“You said you weren’t maternal.”

“I’m not,” Eva snapped. “But I’m not handing her over like dry cleaning either.”

Sophia whimpered.

Eva froze.

Alessandro stepped back. Hands up. “Okay. You win. You’re the human blanket.”

“I’m the emotional trauma support animal. Great.”

“She has a will like her mother,” he said quietly. “God help us all.”

Eva opened the door, slid the carrier inside.

Sophia’s hand curled around her finger again.

Alessandro watched her. “This is going to be hell.”

Eva exhaled, eyes on Sophia’s tiny, terrifyingly calm face. “Yeah,” she whispered. “But at least she won’t go through it alone.”

Sophia blinked, then smiled just a little, and Eva’s heart did something stupid.

She shut the door before anyone saw and drove off into the wreckage of her new life.

Eva was one coffee and one nervous breakdown away from setting something—or someone on fire.

Sophia lay on the living room floor, nestled into a folded throw blanket like she’d claimed the apartment as her throne. Six months old. Silent. Her brown eyes were too still, too wide, too damn knowing. She didn’t babble or cry, watching them like she was trying to figure out if these two broken idiots were even worth trusting.

Eva had once held pressure on a gut wound while two men bled out beside her in a stairwell. That had been less stressful than this baby.

Then it came: two short knocks, followed by another, longer one.

Her whole body tensed like it remembered how to kill before it remembered how to breathe. A Bratva code. She hadn't heard it in a year—not since the last time she’d answered it with a pistol in one hand and a cake in the other.

She moved without thinking, muscle memory born of too many nights spent waiting for death. Her Glock was in hand before the creak of the second knock faded. Safety off. Barrel down. She moved carefully and soundlessly across the hardwood, heels barely brushing the floor.

Her breath came slowly. The kind you took before pulling a trigger, then she leaned toward the peephole, squinting… shit.

Two top bolts unlatched with a quiet scrape. She cracked the door open just enough to align her aim through the gap, finger on the trigger.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Katerina Ivanova sauntered in like she owned the lease and the city. Black leather coat tailored to her curves, and her gloved fingers playing with the hem like she was bored already.

She smelled like expensive danger and unprocessed trauma. “Miss me, cousin?”

Eva didn’t lower the gun. Her grip tightened. “You have a death wish?”

Katerina’s gaze slid to the baby on the blanket. “Is that the little mafia messiah? She looks like she’s planning a coup.”

“Don’t touch her.”

“Please. I wouldn’t dare interrupt this sweet little hostage situation you’ve got going.” Katerina shrugged off her coat, revealing a shoulder holster under a sleek black blouse. “God, Yevgeniya . I thought you’d be running a kill squad by now. Instead, you’re… nesting?”

“I’m retired.”

Katerina laughed like Eva had just claimed to be a kindergarten teacher. “You quit. The Bratva doesn’t hand out pensions, sweetheart. You think the blood on your hands fades just because you stopped collecting paychecks?”

Eva’s teeth clenched. “Why. Are. You. Here?”

“To check on you,” Katerina said, unbothered. “And maybe flirt with your… co-parent. Is he here?”

As if summoned by pure chaos, the back door opened.

Alessandro Bianchi, sleeves rolled to the elbow, duffel bag in hand, paused mid-step. His eyes landed on Katerina, and he narrowed his eyes at him.

She turned toward him like a lion sizing up a rival apex predator. “You must be Alessandro Bianchi.”

He cocked his head. “And you must be… trouble.”

Katerina smiled like a knife sliding out of a sheath. “Flatterer.”

Eva groaned, holstered the gun, and moved to intercept. “Can we not?”

But Katerina stepped closer to him anyway, eyes roaming with slow appreciation. “You’re prettier than I expected. Cold and dangerous. But the bone structure? Criminal.”

Alessandro smirked. “You flirt like a threat.”

“I am one.”

Eva pinched the bridge of her nose. “This is a hostage situation, not speed dating.”

They didn’t get three more minutes of tension before the lights cut.

Everything blinked out: TV, lamp, overhead bulbs. The silence after was thick, felt wrong.

Then, one red sensor on the far wall pulsed once.

System breach.

Eva moved first.

“Alessandro—lights!”

He was already flipping the manual switch. Dim backup strips flickered on as motion sensors caught movement by the window.

He was tall, hooded, and very silent.

“Too smooth for street trash,” Eva muttered, crouching. “Too stupid for Bratva.”

Katerina grinned, already pulling a knife from her thigh holster. “Finally, some fun.”

The window exploded inward.

The man hit the floor and rolled, blade drawn. Eva was already there. She caught his arm mid-swing, twisted, buried a boot into his thigh, and shoved him against the wall hard enough to rattle plaster.

He staggered and drew another knife.

Eva ducked, swept his leg, and brought him down again. He grunted, tried to lunge—but Katerina was already behind him, blade pressed under his jaw so tight blood welled up.

“Say something interesting,” she whispered, eyes glittering.

“She wants the kid,” he said, breathing heavy. “Says… you’re in the way.”

Katerina tilted her head. “That’s disappointing.” She muttered before knocking him out cold with the hilt.

* * *

Twenty minutes later

The man was gagged, zip-tied, and stuffed in Alessandro’s trunk like a late delivery.

Sophia hadn’t flinched. She lay on her back now, one foot lazily kicked in the air, eyes wide and unbothered.

“Still not crying,” Katerina mused, crouching beside her. “This baby’s either a miracle or a demon.”

“She’s surviving,” Eva said, wiping blood from her palms. “That’s what we do.”

Katerina straightened slowly, gaze never leaving her cousin’s face. “You still got fight in you.”

“Don’t test it.”

A glance at the clock. “I should go.”

“That’s it?” Eva frowned. “You break in, flirt, stab a guy, then just… leave?”

Katerina grinned. “You forgot ‘look hot doing it.’”

She kissed Eva on the cheek, lingering and almost tenderly. She pulled back with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes, turned on those black leather boots, and walked out with the same sinuous, catlike sway that made men underestimate her right before she slid a knife between their ribs.

Eva didn’t move or reply, but her hand twitched toward her Glock and didn’t let go for a long time.

* * *

Later Midnight

Eva stood at the kitchen sink, scrubbing blood off her hands.

Alessandro sat on the couch, arms folded, watching the baby who still hadn’t made a sound.

“She knows something,” he said.

“She’s six months old.”

“Yeah. And she still feels older than me.”

Eva reached for a towel, then stopped moving as her eyes landed on something: a book sat on the table. Not just any book, old Russian poetry. Obviously not something she owned when she was younger, but forgotten, but it was Katerina’s.

Her blood chilled, but Eva picked it up, then a note fell out. One line, in perfect Cyrillic:

We all belong to someone. Even you.

Eva didn’t speak at first. She just stood there, staring at the note like it was a detonator wired straight to her spine. Her fingers curled slowly around the paper, knuckles white, lips pressed into a line so tight it looked painful. She didn’t even seem to notice that her other hand was shaking slightly, but enough.

Across the room, Alessandro sat up straighter on the couch, shifting Sophia slightly in his arms like she might somehow absorb the tension. He watched Eva, his eyes narrowing.

“What?” he asked.

She didn’t answer immediately. Her mouth opened, then closed again. She turned the book over in her hand like she was hoping it would suddenly make sense—like it might prove she was wrong.

“She left a message,” Eva said finally, voice low, threaded with something that sounded a lot like disbelief but didn’t quite get there.

Alessandro stood now, slowly, deliberately, like one wrong move might set her off. “And?”

Eva didn’t look at him. She held the note out in front of her like it was diseased.

“She’s not here to help,” she said. “She never was.”

Alessandro frowned. “What does that mean?”

“She brought a blade to protect me,” Eva murmured, more to herself than him, “but she left something behind to warn me.”

Sophia stirred awake, rolling over the edge of the blanket, just enough to open her eyes. Eva saw her slightly smile, not a baby smile but a too-calm, too-knowing smile.

Eva’s breath hitched, and for the first time since they brought the baby home, she looked… concerned.

She turned back to Alessandro, her face shadowed in the soft kitchen light.

“This isn’t over,” she said. “Whatever game Katerina’s playing, we’re already in it.”

She unfolded the note again, stared at the sharp Cyrillic script like it was watching her back.

Alessandro stepped closer. “What does it say exactly?”

Eva didn’t blink. “We all belong to someone. Even you.”

Behind them, a low mechanical whine buzzed through the air — just for a second. Barely audible. But enough.

Eva snapped her head toward the window. Alessandro turned too, already moving to check the hallway feed.

The baby didn’t move.

But the camera in the corner of the room blinked once, then went dark.

3-Past Isn’t Past

Eva was still holding the note. The paper was delicate paper with knife-blade handwriting.

We all belong to someone—even you.

She didn’t say anything; she didn’t need to. That note was a message, a strong message from her cousin. Eva only looked like that, spine rigid, jaw tight, body vibrating with the kind of rage that could turn fatal, when she was about to burn someone to the ground.

“She’s not here to help,” Eva finally muttered.

God, he missed her like this. She had a baby in her arms, someone else’s blood drying on her shoulder, and the same cold fury in her eyes that made grown men flinch. They used to call her Groza. Destruction, in heels. He watched her like an idiot, wondering why the hell he still remembered the way her mouth felt on his.

“Katerina?” he questioned.

She turned just enough to glare at him. “She doesn’t leave notes. She leaves bodies.”

“Maybe she wants to warn us.”

Eva snorted. “That bitch doesn’t warn. She taunts.”

Sophia made a soft noise on the couch beside him, not a cry, not even a fuss, just a weird little huff, like she was judging them both. She hadn’t cried once, not when the intruder crashed through Eva’s window. Or when Katerina had slit a man’s throat mid-scream. Not even now, surrounded by tension so thick you could cut it with a damn spoon.

Sophia reached up and grabbed his pinky like she wasn’t touching a man who’d once snapped a spine with his bare hands.

Alessandro froze. His breath caught halfway through his throat. His fingers went rigid. A warmth curled around his pinky, and for one horrible second, it felt like mercy.

What the fuck was she doing? Why did this feel like a bullet he didn’t see coming?

Eva didn’t miss it. Her stare flicked to the contact, then to his face. “You okay?” she asked.

No. “Yeah.” He quickly answered.

“You look like someone handed you a live grenade.” She concluded.

“She kind of is.” He looked away because he couldn’t look at her lips and the kid in her arms at the same time without feeling like a goddamn hypocrite.

Then Eva broke the silence.

She crossed the room, tank top stained with dried formula and blood that wasn’t hers, and knelt beside the couch.

Sophia was still lying there, small and silent, curled against the cushions. Eva leaned over and tucked the blanket around her like she’d done it a thousand times, like it wasn’t breaking her.

Alessandro didn’t move.

He watched her the way a man watches a storm roll in — too stunned to run, too stupid to take cover.

Eva stood in his penthouse barefoot, blood drying on her shoulder, cradling a baby like she was born for war but had been handed peace and didn’t know what the fuck to do with it.

The Glock on her hip said killer, the formula bottle in her hand said mother, and the scar just below her collarbone said he still wasn’t over her.

Alessandro tried not to look at it. Tried and failed. He remembered the way she shivered when he found it.

The way she gasped as if she hated needing him. And now? Just seeing it again was too fucking much.

Back in that hotel in Manhattan — the night of Luca and Hanna’s wedding. The night she threw back two shots of soju and kissed him like it was revenge.

Later, she made him green tea the old Korean way, bowing slightly when she handed him the cup, like her ancestors were watching.

It wasn’t a submission. It was respect and coming from her that meant more. She didn’t give that to anyone willingly. Now she looked at him like she was calculating the cleanest way to kill him without waking the baby.

“Put her down,” he said, quiet but firm. “You need sleep.”

Eva’s arms locked tighter around Sophia. Her jaw clenched like it was wired shut.

“You need to stop pretending you know what I need,” she said.

Her voice didn’t rise. It didn’t crack.

It was too level. Too precise.

Like someone trying not to scream through their teeth.

Alessandro watched her fingers. They betrayed her — the smallest tremor running through them like a warning.

“You’re shaking,” he said quietly.

“I’m not.”

But she didn’t look at him when she said it.

He stepped in — slow, measured. The kind of movement that made people back up.

“Let me take her.”

“No.”

Her grip tightened. Not protectively, like if she let go, she might fall apart.

“I’m her co-guardian.”

She didn’t blink. “And I’m the one she reaches for when she stirs.”

Sophia stirred, now not crying but watching, always watching them.

“You don’t trust me,” he said.

She met his eyes. “Do you blame me?”

He didn’t, but it still hurt because he didn’t regret sleeping with her. He regretted using her.

But even that wasn’t the whole truth. He regretted not staying; he never apologized for choosing her over power.

She moved past him, heading toward the nursery he had designed, a custom cradle, bio biometric monitor, blackout drapes, the works.

She paused at the threshold.

He knew what she was thinking. He could feel it.

This room was too clean. Too perfect. Too full of things she hadn’t picked.

“She’s not staying here,” Eva said, eyes scanning the room like it was enemy territory.

“She’ll be safe here,” he replied.

“I don’t want her safe in a cage.”

“It’s not a cage, it’s a fortress.”

“You would know.” He stepped behind her closely without touching, but not far enough to ignore the heat. “She’ll have guards, a panic room, and twenty-four-hour surveillance.”

Eva turned to him slowly, her expression unreadable but her eyes furious. “That’s what you think children need?” she said. “Steel and silence and secrets?”

“I think they need to live.”

Sophia let out a soft breath and a little whimper. Eva instinctively rocked her, murmuring something in Russian — too soft to catch, too intimate to question.

And fuck, that did something to him.

He wanted to strip her down and worship every scar, then shake her forever, leaving. He wanted to kiss the memory of him off her lips and replace it with now. “She’s better off here than in your shoe box apartment with busted locks and Bratva ghosts.”

“I trust my ghosts more than your guards.” She replied.

“Because your ghosts didn’t betray you?”

The silence that followed was deafening.

“I was a kid,” she whispered. “I thought you saw me.”

“I did.”

“You saw what you could use.”

“I saw you,” he said, stepping into her space. “Nineteen, brilliant, with blood on your hands and fire in your veins. And I knew—if I got close, I’d burn.”

“Then why did you fuck me?”

“Because I wanted to burn.”

Her breath hitched. Just for a second.

Then she shoved past him, laying Sophia in the bassinet.

He watched her. Always watched her. The way she adjusted the blanket. The way she lingered a moment longer than she needed to. The way her eyes dropped to Sophia’s face with something like awe, she’d never admit.

Then the hallway sensor blinked.

He went statue-still.. “Stay here.”

She didn’t listen. Of course, she didn’t. She followed because that’s what she always did, even when it broke them both.

The driver was waiting just outside the hallway console, face unreadable. In his gloved hand, he held something small.

A bug.

Tiny. Matte. Pulled from the vent above Sophia’s crib.

Alessandro stared at it like it was radioactive. “Above the crib?” he asked, voice low.

The driver nodded once, certainly, and just like that, the hallway felt colder like the air itself had teeth.

Alessandro’s stomach twisted. “Where the fuck did this come from?”

“Inside job,” his driver muttered. “High-end. Audio only. Long range. Might’ve been here before she even moved in.”

Eva reached out, plucked the bug from his palm, and turned it over in her hand — like she was holding something holy. Or cursed.

Her mouth stayed shut. But her eyes cut to him — sharp and surgical.

No drama. No raised voice.

Just the look of a woman who knew exactly whose fault this was.

Alessandro could feel it radiating off her, that quiet, surgical kind of fury that didn’t shout. It executed.

She handed him the bug, fingers brushing his palm.

“You’re slipping, Bianchi.”

He didn’t argue. Just stepped in, slow and deliberate, until he could smell the blood drying on her collar, the faint whisper of tea leaves in her hair, and something sharper underneath.

“Then maybe,” he murmured, voice dark, low, and way too close, “you should keep a closer eye on me.”

Her lips twitched.

Sophia let out a soft coo behind them, the only sound in the room that wasn’t charged like a live wire.

Eventually, Eva looked away — not because she was backing down, but because holding his gaze any longer felt too much like giving in.

“Fine,” she muttered. Clipped. Bitter. Like the word scraped on the way out.

“I’ll stay.”

Alessandro didn’t smile. But it was there, just beneath the surface — a flicker of something sharp and sour that tasted too much like victory.

“We’ll talk about Sophia,” she added, already bracing for war. “But don’t mistake this for routine.”