Chapter 14
Chapter
Fourteen
Kolya
I rushed home.
Sorcha called me in a panic. Actually, I’d spotted Ivan’s Mercedes on my way and debated cutting him off and ripping him a new one. The old man crossed a line. I didn’t care if he was once a pakhan: Chloe’s well-being came first.
The bratva and the Kings had caused enough damage.
Guilt pinched my chest. And I was going to add a few more if I didn’t fix the Vozhokari problem. Dimitri had been texting me, telling me that assassins were on the move or were already in the US.
Sleeper agents came in and out of the country.
Ivan knew this. He sent me to protect Renée the night two Vozhokari assassins went after mother and daughter.
I killed one of them; the other got away.
The bratva had to pay off their organization for our interference.
Once again, Duncan King informed Ivan that Esther had hired assassins to go after his mistress and daughter.
Renée hadn’t imagined the extent of Esther’s madness.
When I entered the house, they weren’t in the living room.
Sebastian must be sleeping because the house was too quiet.
I spotted the kettle on the counter with her box of calming tea beside it.
The used mug was in the sink. She’d been doing better since the thunderstorm, even with the announcement following Theo’s engagement to Aralina.
Fucking Ivan caused her to spiral enough she needed the tea to settle her nerves.
I found mother and son sleeping. Sebastian was in the bedside crib which he was going to outgrow soon.
My heart clenched. My family. Instinct was screaming at me to claim them, but with Dimitri’s recent warning, I had to be strategic.
Revealing the existence of the Vozhokari to an outsider was frowned upon, and I risked Chloe before I could give her the protection of my name.
She appeared pragmatic. Romantic love had lost its significance when she witnessed her mother’s disillusionment.
In some ways we were the same when my parents taught me that love for my kind brought nothing but death.
Hell, Chloe herself struck a covenant with Margo, and nowhere was love a requirement. And after witnessing the mismatched pair of Theo and Aralina, she would realize that marriage wasn’t about love; it was about protection.
Yes. That was the only solution.
I stared at her like a stalker watching his sleeping obsession.
Whether she was reading or playing with Sebastian, a nagging ache would throb inside my chest, and I had to massage the sensation away.
I was becoming attached to mother and son.
That was enough to be concerned about their welfare.
My thoughts strayed to them when the bratva wasn’t keeping me busy.
Plus, we had attraction in spades. After watching Chloe’s mouth rounding in an oh, after watching her throwing back her head as she came all over my leg, I let my dirty fantasies run wild.
I wanted her naked, on all fours. I wanted her on her back with her legs hiked up over my back as I drove inside her.
My cock thickened behind my jeans as my eyes traveled hotly down her body.
See? Most inappropriate thoughts at the most inappropriate moments for her. Our son was sleeping beside Chloe, and all I could think about was railing his mother against the headboard and putting another baby inside her.
Maybe the Petrovs had a mating instinct. But it had to be with the right woman.
I sat on the edge of the bed. She barely stirred while Sebastian started making waking-up noises.
“Hey, buddy.”
Sebastian rolled over and started whimpering. I picked him up.
“He needs a bottle,” Chloe groaned and shifted to her side, cradling her cheek. Sleepy, sexy eyes that in my delusional mind, invited me to fuck her. I stood to remove myself from temptation because...responsibilities.
“I’ll feed him.”
She yawned out her thanks.
Her resistance to my help had waned over the almost two weeks we spent together.
We’d fallen into a co-parenting routine.
I’d heard more than a few bratva soldiers lament how they’d prefer to be working than to be at home, and admittedly Sorcha was doing the heavy lifting of grocery shopping—a task that I detested because I didn’t like trolling down aisles in public places with boring lists—but I didn’t understand why they didn’t want to spend time with their boy and help the mother.
As I left Sebastian in his high chair with a sippy cup of milk, I checked the fridge for what to feed him.
I’d learned to fend for myself since childhood.
I hadn’t had a mother to dote on me, cook for me, or do my laundry.
When I lived with my aunt and uncle, besides working all day in training like a soldier, they expected me to help around the house.
My aunt also left the toilets for me to clean.
Sometimes she sent me to the market and ordered me to do the grunt work around the kitchen, like cleaning grease off the stove or sanitizing the butcher block.
That was why I had a level of OCD when it came to a job…
because I remembered the disgust I felt cleaning after people’s shitty messes.
This was all before I was ten and was sent to a wilderness cabin to help a bratva prince survive and learn toughness.
Kirill and I kept each other alive for three months before we were assigned to the Moscow mob’s brigade headed by Anya’s father where our rigorous training continued.
It was only when Ivan recalled Kirill to the US that I ended up coming here.
My cousin Grigori was already a rising member of the New York bratva.
Sebastian finished the milk and threw the sippy cup. My boy wanted the ground beef I’d mashed up with the brown rice and peas and unsalted bone broth.
Chloe shuffled out of the bedroom in one of her sleep shirts that hit mid-thigh.
She was wearing hot-pink socks, reminding me of what she wore during our weekend fling.
She even had messy hair. I pushed away my lurid thoughts and concentrated on feeding Sebastian the first few spoonfuls.
“I could have done that,” Chloe mumbled, coming close to us.
“I’m enjoying it,” I said. “Our son is growing like a weed.”
“He needs new clothes,” she said. “Who knew a baby could grow overnight? I thought that only happened with puppies.”
I chuckled. “Well, what else is he going to do when all he does is eat and sleep?” Satisfied that Sebastian had actually eaten enough of his food, I left him to self-feed, sat on the barstool, and dragged Chloe between my legs.
I detected slight resistance, but she seemed to be in a malleable mood and melted right against my erection.
Her eyes rounded in outrage. “Kolya Petrov, have you been feeding our son…” Then, as if remembering to lower her voice, she said by my ear, “While you’re hard.”
The way she said “hard” made me harder.
“I’ve been hard since I came into your room.”
“Oh my God,” she whispered.
I cupped her ass…groaning while filling my palms. I felt the coolness of silk and the edges of the scrap of fabric covering them. “But I’m not so unhinged as to make out in front of our son. Yet.”
“Control yourself!”
I stared at her with derision. “Oh, what’s this? You’ve been prancing around the house in sleep shirts and sleep shorts and expected no reaction? What do you think I’m made of? Stone?”
“I was not prancing. They’re comfy. But you haven’t touched me since Kirill interrupted us.”
“I knew it. It’s your way of torturing me.”
“Why haven’t you touched me since? It’s been a week.”
“You’ve been processing big news.”
“I’m not fragile.”
“Then why are you home early?”
“I missed Sebastian. Why are you here?”
I looked sideways to check how Sebastian was doing.
“You heard about the incident with Ivan, didn’t you?” she prodded.
“Yes.”
“You didn’t have to come home. Ivan is mine to deal with. I can’t avoid him once Theo and Aralina are married.”
“I’ll talk to him.”
“No. Absolutely not. I don’t want any conflict in the bratva because of this,” Chloe seethed. “I told him off. He doesn’t get to come here, build a relationship with Sebastian, and abandon him once Lucy or Aralina give him grandchildren.”
Something inside me cracked at the cards Chloe had to deal with at such a young age. The cruelty of being discarded by a father figure. But I had knowledge of Ivan’s regrets, and I felt Chloe needed to know the part where it influenced my involvement in Sebastian’s life.
“Listen.” I clasped her shoulders. “One reason I delayed starting my custody visits was because Ivan warned me to be undoubtedly sure it’s what I wanted. He knew he hurt you and Renée, Chloshka, and implored me not to make the same mistakes he did.”
“He did?”
I nodded.
“Seeing him holding Seb.” She was shaking her head. “A slew of emotions hit me. Anger came first, and it came fast and hard. I think because I’d kept it locked down for so long. But there was also the bittersweetness of what could have been.”
I brushed the hair from her face and kissed the tip of her nose. I was ill-equipped to offer empathy, and sometimes the best thing I could do was listen.
“Ivan’s face had blurred out from my memory, but today I finally remembered when that picture was taken. The one Lucy showed me in the cabin. The one Renée sent Ivan.”
“You did?”
“It’s still snatches of it. We were in a children’s playground and he had me on the slide and those spinny things.” Her eyes glazed over. “I fell, and I started crying. He bought me ice cream. I was so happy.”
The only way I could describe Ivan in the picture was contented. After he’d lost a son to death and sent another to Russia as punishment, he sought solace in a mother and child he knew could never be his. They eased his pain.
But Ivan wasn’t only to blame. Renée was as well. She’d fallen for two unavailable men, and I think Chloe understood this. Her mother wasn’t blameless.