Mikhail saved the child from sleeping on the streets.
Her bright smile was a violent contrast to the lethal darkness in his life.
What should have been days under the same roof somehow turned into years.
She was only ever supposed to be a small distraction, but the years passed and stole the young girl with the grateful smile leaving him with something worse. Someone soft and tempting.
She thought he didn't know. She thought he couldn't feel how her eyes tracked his movements or how her forbidden longing for him didn't spark against his skin like electricity.
He knew. And it made the fight inside of him that much harder.
She was someone he should not want. Should not touch.
His little Misha did not deserve a hardened criminal. But he would be damned before he let another man have her.