Chapter 25
ROMAN
After how much trouble the twins gave Amber yesterday, I made sure to get to them first. Letting Amber sleep in, I yawned as I headed over to the crib and smiled at Henry. He sat up and grinned back up at me.
We’re going to need to lower—
I frowned, looking at the railing. It looked like Amber was one step ahead of me. She’d already lowered the level for the crib so Henry couldn’t pull up and climb out.
Emily was still sleeping, so I picked up Henry and carried him out of the room.
“We’ll have a boys’ breakfast, huh?” I asked him as I held him close. “The girls can sleep in.”
He babbled and bounced as I went into the nursery to change him.
“Shh,” I reminded him.
Amber had been just as testy as I had been in the middle of the night, and I knew that she must have tried everything she could think of to get them to cooperate and be happy. Sometimes, it just wasn’t in the cards.
If I hadn’t been out with Sergei, I would’ve tried to help her with them too.
But I’d been stuck at that stake-out near the park.
Once Uncle Mikhail and Andre agreed with me to lay a trap for the Popovs, we immediately got to work putting it together.
We had a woman wear a wig that would resemble Amber.
In a coat with a hat and scarf further shielding her face, she looked like a doppelganger.
With Lorne at her side as she pushed the twins’ empty double stroller and a few guards behind them, they looked like the real thing.
And for two hours, they’d walked around Central Park, slowing down and looking like an easy capture. Lorne and the guards slightly split from them a couple of times to make it even more believable.
Nothing happened.
No one was following them.
No one approached them.
And not a single thing indicated that anyone was paying attention to the Amber decoy.
That was why I was so damn frustrated in the middle of the night when I came home. Anyone would be irked and pushed to the limits of their patience with two fussy babies when sleep was needed.
But I felt like I was failing her. I had thought of that trap, that trick, as a way to prove that someone was actually targeting her. It was the loophole I’d wanted before being forced to ask her about her relationship with William. And why she wanted to hide it.
Now, I had no choice. Uncle Mikhail was suspicious of her past that had too many questions in it to begin with.
I’d be expected to ask her about those IDs and name changes, and I’d need to pull it out of her that she was associated with someone we didn’t want to be affiliated with.
William Rossen was the Popovs’ pawn. Or maybe it worked the other way around between them.
All I knew was that I needed answers from Amber—sooner than later.
So much for giving her time to want to open up to me.
All these weeks and months she’d been living here as my nanny, she’d had plenty of opportunities to bring it up. I’d asked, too, here and there, about her family and past. Nothing invasive because I hadn’t wanted to push her or spook her, but I’d tried to find out more about who she was.
By the time I had Henry cleaned up and had a bottle ready for him—and a cup of coffee for myself—my phone rang.
The screen showed that it was Andre, and I didn’t want to miss this call.
“Hey,” I answered as I brought Henry into my office and closed the door. Setting him on the blanket spread out on the floor, something I’d left in place specifically for any times the twins could join me in here, I sat on the floor and shook a baby toy for him to grab for.
“Hey. So, it didn’t work, huh?” he replied.
“No. It did not.” I yawned.
“That could mean anything, though. Maybe Niko had other things going on. Or maybe we should’ve waited awhile.”
“As in he knows it’d be too stupid to try to grab Amber or the twins again so soon after the funeral?” I said.
“Maybe. And it’s hard to say if someone was going for Amber at all, since he told her to give him Henry.”
I watched my son as he teethed on the toy.
I couldn’t imagine ever losing him. I couldn’t imagine ever losing Amber, either.
Last night, when I had her in my arms, I just knew it.
I had to admit to myself that things were changing between us.
In the good times and bad, she was the one I wanted at my side.
But if I were to claim her, I had to set this bullshit about William to rest.
No. I have to eliminate him from ever being a condition of her happiness again.
I recalled how scared and skittish she was in the beginning of working here. I would erase any worry from her mind about her past where he was concerned.
“I can’t let any threat linger,” I told him seriously.
“You mean to take him out?” Andre whistled lowly. “First, you need to talk to her and understand why she’s running from him in the first place. If that’s what she’s up to.”
I nodded.
“And then we can reassess.”
“Wrong.” I shook my head. “If William’s the reason she was so scared when she started as the nanny, he’s got to go.”
“That won’t be easy to pull off, Roman.”
“Of course, it fucking wouldn’t,” I replied. “But nothing worth having in life is easy.” I looked at my son again, knowing he was another example of that. He was worth all my love, same as his sister, and they hadn’t come to me easily.
“We’ll talk about how to address William Rossen when it comes down to it,” Andre said, proving he would never lose his negotiation skills. “But first, you’ve got to get her to explain it all.”
I nodded and cringed, hating to have to force her or convince her to open up and trust me. She did—with her body. But that was no longer enough. I needed her to be honest with me.
To trust me with her truth, her past.
And then… maybe you’ll trust me with your heart, too.