4. Pasha
4
I make another note to send to my new assistant once I hire one: Significant donation to hospital maternity ward.
It’ll be hefty. Enough to bring this whole place up to the standard my family deserves. The Tatyanna Chekhov Maternity Ward has a nice ring to it.
Fatherhood is really changing me.
“You’ve been a father all of two minutes,” Mak chuckles next to me.
“Remind me again why you’re here?”
“Uh-oh. Normal Pasha is back. I was really starting to enjoy Daddy Pasha.”
“Call me that one more time, I dare you.”
Mak grins and salutes me with his bottle of water. “Hey, come on, now. We’re all family here. I even brought you your favorite drink to wake you up.” He hands me another bottle of water—that is definitely not water—and sits down in the lounge chair next to me. “How are they doing?”
“Getting settled in their new room. Daphne’s still hurting from the stitches.” I try not to wince at the thought of her being torn up. It’s nothing that will ever turn me off; the fact that she’ll have battle scars from bringing my child into the world is actually giving me a boner just thinking about it.
I’m more put off by the fact that I indirectly caused her that pain. My seed, my baby.
I never wanted to hurt her—and yet here I am, ticking off all the boxes.
“Yeah.” Mak sips his drink and nods. “Kid’s got a big head. What?” he asks when I shoot him a glare. “She’s barely a day old and wicked smart! Frankly, I’m a little scared of her.”
“As you should be.”
My brother rolls his eyes but doesn’t hide the smile. “Anyways, back to business at hand. You know, the real reason I’m here that has nothing to do with the fact that I’m a brand-new uncle dying to see his baby niece.”
“Yeah, yeah.” I shift in my seat and pull out Daphne’s phone from my other pocket. “She gave me the code. Hold on.”
“So she just… gave you the code. To her phone. No questions asked.”
“She said she’s got nothing to hide.” I tap the code on the lock screen. Sure enough, it opens up to her home screen. Which, to my surprise, is a candid selfie she took of us together. “And she’s been open about everything.”
“So then why are we snooping?”
“Nothing is ever a coincidence,” I say, echoing Daphne’s painfully accurate words. “Not until we prove otherwise.”
Mak furrows his brow. “Come to think of it, things have been a little too perfectly timed. But you’re not thinking she has anything to do with that, are you?”
“No. I—” I open up the message inbox and immediately have to restrain myself from squeezing the phone until it shatters.
Ewing.
And Brittany.
And her parents.
“Someone is fucking with us,” I snarl. “Her, me, and now, our baby. I won’t let this stand.”
“Shit, neither will I,” Mak agrees. “Daphne’s family. Taty is blood.”
The text threads are all more or less the same. Daphne demanding an explanation as to how they got her number. Brittany attempting to gaslight her into thinking she’s the one who gave it out. The key difference is, Ewing has the audacity to suggest Daphne should take him back. The multiple rolls of laughing emojis she replied with almost make me laugh, too.
It’s the thread with her parents I find the most interesting.
DAD: Well? Did you get the info?
DAPHNE: No. I already told you, I’m not doing it. Please stop asking me.
DAD: Our family’s entire estate is riding on this. You’ll have nothing, don’t you understand?
DAPHNE: I have everything I want
DAPHNE: WITHOUT YOU
DAD: Just because you’re spreading your legs for the enemy, you think that makes you his wife?
DAD: You’re nothing to that man
DAD: Just some whore he knocked up. A drunken mistake
DAD: He’ll take your baby and throw you into the streets
DAD: This is for your own good
My fists clench on the lounge chair. Stewart Hamish is lucky he isn’t here right now. I’m about five seconds from beating his ass to a pulp before throwing him into concrete.
DAPHNE: He’s YOUR enemy
DAPHNE: Not mine
DAPHNE: I may not be his wife, but I’m way happier with him than I’ve ever been
If I thought I was proud of her before, I’m bursting with it now.
I knew I saw something in her that night the light of the flames danced along her skin.
“Anything good?” Mak asks.
I nod. “Everything checks out. The only thing she hid was her birth name.”
“Hardly a crime worth punishment.”
“Not a crime at all.” I flick open the text messages from her mother out of morbid curiosity. “The more I’m reading here, the more I understand it.”
MOM: I did NOT raise my daughters to be such sluts!
DAPHNE: Actually, you did
DAPHNE: Good thing we decided to ignore you
From what little information Mel has shared, it sounds like both sisters were raised to look and act a certain way so they’d snare the best match. “All to further the family,” she’d sighed over her tea.
I raise my eyes to Mak. “New rule: from now on, no one under my command or within reach of my influence will arrange for their children to be married. We won’t take any offers, and we won’t be making any. I’m not putting my daughter through that. And I’ll kill the man who tries.”
“I’ll paint the target on his head for ya, brother.” Mak grins. “It’s a new era for the Chekhov fam. Long overdue, if you ask me.”
We sit together in the lobby for a while longer, sipping our concealed vodka and watching other new and expecting families weave in and out of the various doors. It’s rare to have this kind of time with him; we’re usually tackling business for the corporation or business for the Bratva. I don’t remember the last time we hung out as just… brothers.
“I’ve been meaning to thank you.” I chug the last of my drink.
“For what?”
“For being there. For her. For both of them.” I clap a hand on his shoulder and give him the closest thing to a hug I’m comfortable giving. “And for keeping me in line.”
His lopsided smile is a hug in and of itself. “Hey. We’re family. I love my family. And you’re not so terrible.”
I laugh and shove him aside. “I’m going to go check on the rest of my family now. You go do your thing. Work your magic.”
“Yeah?” He glances over at the blond nurse behind the desk, who is definitely checking him out.
“Yeah.”
I know most new fathers hand out cigars as gifts to the men in their lives when a new baby is born. I couldn’t buy my cigars in time, so granting my younger brother a favor feels like something close enough. Better, even.
Freedom. That’s the gift.
Freedom to do what he wants when it comes to love. To pursue whoever he wants, no strings attached. As long as our family is safe, I don’t really fucking care anymore.
I just want him to be happy.
I stay as quiet as possible when I enter the recovery room. This one is more like a home than the birthing ward, with a wraparound couch and queen-sized bed, electric fireplace, flat screen television, the works.
Daphne is sound asleep in the bed. Next to her, in the bassinet, is our beautiful Tatyanna. I tiptoe over just to check on them, although I don’t really know what to check for. As long as they’re both breathing and peaceful, I’m happy.
I’m happy. It’s a new feeling. A new experience. It weirds me out at times and downright scares me in others, because how the hell have I lived this long without it? Can I even call that “living”?
Daphne softly murmurs in her sleep. I can’t hear it clearly, but it sounds very close to my name.
Her name… well, that’s inconsequential. Now, anyway. A rose by any name smells just as sweet. How could I have let some pathetic attempt to ruin her life threaten to ruin ours? Over a name?
Fuck that.
She’s mine now.