Chapter 33
“Who’s the father?”Nikolaj asks, a thread of demand lacing his deep, commanding voice.
Konstantin’s hostile gaze burns over me, never relenting, until I feel like one of those dead bugs, pinned in place, under the microscope, every single nuance studied and picked apart.
Every step I take today is agony in the best way. Not that I’ll tell him that. He thinks he punished me last night… and in a way, he did, but more than that, he tapped into something I didn’t even know I had inside me.
Something I want.
Something raw and primitive.
A potent, drugging euphoria I can only find with him.
I can’t afford to let my guard down in this world. To show weakness.
But when he touches me, when he’s brutal with me, I know I can enjoy the way he wields vicious control because to its core, it’s in direct response to the power I have over him.
“It’s not important.” The words come across as calm, dismissive… resolute, and I know there will be hell to pay when the truth comes to light.
One battle at a time.
It’s what I’ve done to Konstantin’s heart that has doubt looming like a bad omen inside me. It’s the realization I’ve fundamentally changed how he feels about me that left me lying awake with a cold, hard ball of dread lodged in my chest.
This is not the mother and father I envisioned for our little girl. I won’t let her suffer, trapped on a battlefield between us. She won’t be the object of a tug-of-war in some hollow fight, fueled by wounded pride and a sick need for revenge.
“Did you know about this?” The rumbling in Nikolaj’s question has my head snapping up to find him and Konstantin in a hostile stare-off that has my heart jumping into my throat.
Konstantin pins me with a hard stare and tilts his head like he’s debating just whether or not to throw me under the bus, knowing I’ll drag him right under the tires with me if he does. “Just found out myself. Your little sister just seems to be full of surprises.”
“You guys have been in this house for two days. How is that possible?”
“Ask the actress. While you guys discuss it,” Konstantin says, grabbing his keys, “I’ll look into that Emmy for performance of the year.” He’s out the door before anyone can say a word, his parting words only adding fuel to the fire.
The bastard.
Nikolaj winces and scratches his fingers through his hair. “You pissed him off good.”
“He’ll get over it.” I wish I believed the words, but more and more I have to wonder. It’s the shadows in his eyes, like something died. Something I can never get back.
“Letti, the father needs to take res?—”
“Nikolaj… stop.” Taking a seat on the couch, I pat the cushion next to me and as discreetly as possible open my dress just wide enough to bring Lexi to my breast. “It’s my business. My problem.” I peer down at her and watch the rapt fascination on her face as she barely nurses because she can’t stop trying to turn her head and stare at her uncle.
He turns to me, but quickly glances away with a pained expression on his face, his mouth pinched with tension. “So it is a problem?”
“Bad choice of words.”
“This changes things, Lettie.”
“Nothing’s changed. She needs the best protection I can get for her.” I glance around at the men in the room and desperately wish they were it. Because they’re a family of sorts. Powerful, but almost playful in a way at times. Especially Dimitri if last night was any indication. She might be half in love with him already.
Lexi would love growing up wrapping these big men around her little finger. It wouldn’t be the cold, strained life we had at my father’s estate with his ice queen of a wife and our menacing, twisted brother.
Every man here works for my brother, and by extension Konstantin, but something about them is more. Like an underlying current of friendship. A brotherhood.
The best kind of family, because blood and marriage don’t obligate them to stay. Ultimately, they’re here because there’s nowhere else they’d rather be.
“We slow the process down, then. Once Konstantin fills me in on all the details from last night, I’ll dig deeper into your options. She’s not just going off with anyone.” He reaches out and brushes a tattooed finger over her hair, the gentle smile on his mouth turning serious. His eyes narrow, his dark brows dropping low over his eyes. “He has to be a father to her… as good as he would be to his own. She won’t live with some cold fucker hell-bent on payback. She won’t have a stepparent like Elena.”
“No. She won’t.” Lexi detaches again and stares at Nikolaj. I sigh, my breasts getting harder by the second as they grow painfully full. My thoughts go to Konstantin for the briefest moment and my skin blazes hot.
Nothing felt the way he did when he?—
“You okay?” Nikolaj asks, his inquisitive gaze zeroing in on my face.
“Yup, good.” I force the image of Konstantin drinking from my breast out of my mind. As a matter of fact, I’m going to pump after this and march those bags of breastmilk to the freezer just to see his reaction when he finds out my breast pump got more action than him today.
I choke back a laugh, picturing the righteous indignation on his beautiful face. “Okay, Uncle Nik, you ready to hold your niece?”
He nervously glances everywhere but at her. “What? Now?”
Leave it to a tiny little girl to terrify a mafia badass to his toes. “Sure, why not?” He thinks this is bad, wait until she needs one of her uncles to do a tampon run.
“Well, you’re feeding her for one and no offense, but I’m going to keep a safe distance from my sister’s… you get the idea.”
“Oh my God. Big bad Nikolaj Romanoff, mafia mastermind, honorary prince of The Ophidian Order, afraid of a boob.” I roll my eyes and prop Lexi up. I’m pretty sure I might have just flashed Nikolaj a glimpse of said offensive boob in the process. Let that be a lesson to him.
“Not any boob, my sister’s boob,” he says, his voice strained. “Huge difference.”
“Well, my boob’s got nothing on her fascination with you since she won’t stay latched. So come on,” I hold her up and laugh as he adjusts his arms three times trying to figure out how to take her.
“Arms just like mine and I’ll do the rest. I promise, it’ll come naturally after that.”
He sits stock-still as I settle Lexi in his arms. When he looks down at her, she kicks her feet and lets out a giggle.
I prop my head on his shoulder and watch him soften under her adoring gaze. Her fist clutches the air, and he instinctually gives her his finger to grasp.
“Look at you. She loves you already.”
“Yeah, well, she doesn’t know me.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. Babies are pretty smart. We’re the stupid ones.” Warmth fills me as he relaxes into the moment. Peace settles through me, chasing away the fear I have for her as Nikolaj settles into his interaction with her. Even going so far as to turn her so she’s cradled between his forearms in front of him.
“You’re not stupid. Impulsive, for sure.”
I cock my head and laugh. “I guess I can agree with that.”
“I thought inadvertently buying my baby sister’s virginity was the worst thing I could imagine. Now, I’m just glad her father’s not some random fucker who bought your virginity at a cabaret.” He coos down at Lexi as if he’s been doing it his whole life. “If nothing else, having this little one ensures your reckless streak is behind you.”
I stay silent—my lying days behind me. I guess it’s a good thing Konstantin isn’t random.
“Letti?”
“Yeah?” I ask, grinning down at my little girl who has Nikolaj’s finger gripped in one hand and mine in the other while she shifts her focus between the two of us and squeals.
“Did you hear me? Your reckless streak is behind you?”
Okay, so maybe one more lie won’t hurt. “Sure, Nikolaj.”
An hour later, with Nikolaj finally gone and Lexi asleep in her crib, I pump what looks like it will be an obscene amount of breastmilk. Thirty minutes and eleven ounces later, the goods now sealed in plastic bags, I head for the freezer, keeping an eye out for Konstantin.
The living room is quiet and empty.
The door to the surveillance room is closed and there’s no sign of Konstantin anywhere.
Roddick stands at the counter, an almost empty bottle of water in one hand, his phone in the other.
“Where’s Konstantin?”
He doesn’t bother looking up and I’m pretty sure he’s still pissed at me for not listening in the hail of gunfire last night.
Too bad. I know I screwed up. He doesn’t need to know that.
“He took a walk,” he mutters.
I wave my hand between his gaze and the phone in his hand, tempted to smack the cell to the floor. “A walk?”
With an exasperated sigh, he finally meets my eyes. “Yes. A walk.”
“Within minutes of Nikolaj getting here, Konstantin decided to go for a walk?”
“Yup.” His lips pop with the pronunciation of the P poking at the last bit of patience I have at the moment.
“That’s the lie you want me to believe?”
Roddick shrugs, the dismissive gesture the last fucking straw. I’ve spent my morning being calm, reasonable, downright fucking sweet. I’m past my limit and my gut tells me Roddick’s hiding something.
My knife is out in a second, the tip pressed into his dress pants right next to his balls. “So let me ask you, Roddick, is he still taking a walk?”
“Shit! What the fuck is wrong with you? You don’t aim a knife at a guy’s junk unless you mean it.”
“Who says I don’t?” With a flick of my wrist, the blade slices through fabric, straight down to skin.
“Owwww! Dammit.” He leaps back and grabs his junk. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Stop fucking playing with me. Where is he?”
He tugs the crotch of his pants up, inspecting the damage. “You drew blood. Goddamn. You’re a piece of work, you know that?”
I take a step closer, my knife in hand, ready to go one more time. “Yes, and now you do, too. I’m not in a gown and heels today, Roddick. Do you really want to see what I’m capable of?”
“The den. Satisfied?” He growls, the tone like the one he used last night when he yelled at me. “He’s at the fucking den.”
Of course he is. After I made it clear those men are mine. Fury came over me in a hot wave, spiking my temper and annihilating the relief and happiness from no longer having to hide Lexi from the people I love most. From watching Nikolaj move from acceptance to getting to know his niece.
Konstantin will fuck me any way he wants to in order to pay me back, but this… taking this from me, knowing what those men could have cost Lexi? He knows what I’m capable of. He knows I can handle myself, especially in a room full of subdued men.
He only did this to knock me down a peg. He took it because he could. “Take me to him.”
The vein in his left temple throbs, his face turning red. “Oh, fuck no.”
How many are dead already? Is the guy who shot at me even alive still? If I get there and he’s killed them all, so help me… “So you want me to slice your balls off?”
“If I take you to the den, Konstantin puts a bullet in my head. So yeah, living sounds better.”
“Okay,” I say with a casual shrug. “But I don’t see the point of living if taking a leak means dribbling piss out a sad little hole until it runs down your taint, but let’s do this.”
He scoffs, but his gaze darts down to my blade. “You wouldn’t.”
Curling my fingers around the hilt of my second blade, I slide it free and dig the tip into the skin over his jugular. A drop of blood rises out of the tiny puncture, slowly growing bigger until it breaks free and trickles down his throat.
“Hear me and hear me good,” I say, backing him up a step at a time until he’s pressed against the island, his head cocked at a strained angle. “I’ll stick your cock and balls in a fucking pickle jar full of formaldehyde and make them the centerpiece to this kitchen island so every one of you has to see them day in and day out, reminding you exactly why you shouldn’t fuck with me.”
“Fuck it. If he wants you to stay put, he needs to put you on a leash. Let’s go.”
Taking the blade from his throat, I wipe the blood on his pants and slide it back in my sheath, keeping the other just inches from his junk. “I thought you’d see things my way.”