PROLOGUE

The rain pounded against the hospital windows. Exhaustion lingered in my bones. Every single inch of me ached.

But the moment I held him in my arms, I knew he was my most beautiful creation.

Dark hair. Stormy eyes.

Though the latter could be the fact he was just born and they were more murky. It didn’t matter. He was utter perfection.

Kol.

It meant the dark one. It fit him. Kol Alessandro Corbin.

Mom, Dad, and Branka stayed with me in the hospital through twenty hours of labor and many hours afterward. But I finally made them leave.

They needed rest. And I needed alone time with my baby. To bury this longing ache that lingered in my chest.

All these months and I still hadn’t been able to forget him. Alessio Russo wasn’t a man that was easily forgotten.

Even with the words that still rang in my ears from our last encounter.

I SMELLED the nicotine before I was fully awake.

My heart latched onto it. Nobody I knew smoked. Except for Alessio.

The silver smoke wrapped around the room, stealing my breath and my dreams. No smoking in the hospital.

My eyes shot open. A shadow loomed over my son who slept peacefully, a burning red circle piercing the gloom. It was the tip of a cigarette but it wasn’t Alessio standing there.

Something’s wrong.

“Get away from my son,” I rasped, straightening up in the hospital bed. I ignored the pain in my abdomen.

His face turned from my son and my heart froze. Alessio’s father. I scrambled up the pillow reaching for the nurse call button. “Nice kid.”

His voice was full of disgust. Hate.

A bolt of fear shot through me, the terror soaking through my skin. His face was sinister, and the gun in his other hand didn’t escape me. He took a drag on his cigarette and then blew smoke into Kol’s face.

“Get away from my son,” I warned, my voice trembling. There was nothing I wouldn’t do to protect him.

His menacing, dark eyes met mine. “Now you listen to me, you Corsican trash. You and your son will never come around Alessio again.” I swallowed, fear thundering in my ears.

The adrenaline pulsed in my veins, making me lightheaded, but I refused to back down. I shifted off the hospital mattress, inching my way closer and closer to my son.

“And Branka?” I whispered. He shrugged. “She’s useless.”

This man was a fucking lunatic. A cruel, sadistic bastard. Just like Branka described him. “She’s not useless,” I spat at him. “She's an amazing, good person.”

Another inch closer to my son. I just had to grab him and get the fuck away from here. Nurses had been in and out of this room all goddamn night. But now that I wanted one here, they were nowhere to be seen.

“You, Autumn Corbin, and your family are a fucking plague. Stay away from Alessio, or I’ll make you and your family pay. Alessio has other women to fuck.” My heart shattered; pieces of the fragile organ scattered at my feet. Even after all this time, it fucking hurt like hell.

Alessio’s words still rang in my brain. I was just a good fuck to him. Nothing more; nothing less.

His eyes lowered to my son, his lips curving into a cruel smirk. “And this will be a dead bastard if I see you around.”

Before I could blink, he pushed his butt into my baby and a scream shattered through the hospital.

Kol’s and mine.

“Get away from him!” I had no idea how or when I threw myself on him, my fists hitting against his back.

He threw me off him easily, my back hitting the cold hospital tile. Black dots swam through my vision. A high-pitched scream from my baby filled the space. The scent of smoke. A cloud filling the air.

Horror tore through me.

This can’t be happening.

The cigarette still burned in my son’s cradle.