Chapter 10 #2
“Yes, it’s pretty easy.” Dora lifted Sebastian, and I followed her to the kitchen. “I’m glad you guys remembered to bring over the automatic formula dispenser. It takes the guesswork out of the water temperature.” She nodded at the machine. “The formula and water are already loaded.”
She pointed to where the water bottles were and the importance of sterilization. Then I put it underneath the machine and pushed a button.
“This thing is idiot-proof,” I chuckled.
“And a godsend for nighttime feedings,” Dora said.
“Why don’t you turn in,” I said. “I got him.”
I’d done this part at least during one of my custody visits. Gave Sebastian the bottle while he lay on the bouncy pillow. The little guy didn’t want to be held when he was hungry.
“You sure?” Dora yawned.
“I’m sure.” My usual confidence faltered a bit, but I held Dora’s gaze.
“Just holler if you need me.” She handed Sebastian to me.
My kid tried to grab the bottle from my hand, but I held it away from him. “Easy there, killer.”
He made pitiful baby sounds.
“You’re starving, aren’t you?”
Tears streamed from his eyes and his face was red.
Shit. Is he turning purple? I hurried over to his playpen and set him down.
What if it wasn’t hunger plaguing him? But as soon as I set him down on the pillow inside his playpen and handed him the bottle, he immediately latched on to it and started sucking.
I sat cross-legged, internally collapsing in relief. Funny how I was used to scoping out a mark and the timelines for a mission. I knew how to end lives, but preserving one? Debatable. I stared at Sebastian happily sucking away on his milk.
I sure as fuck didn’t know Sebastian’s feeding schedule.
With the three of us in rotation for his care, I should ask Chloe to stick a note on the fridge.
I glanced around the cottage. I’d already tapped into the surveillance and needed to add more cameras once we decided on the room configuration.
Dora talked about moving into the main house so we could use her room as a nursery.
My phone lit up from a number I didn’t recognize, but I had a feeling who it was ever since Chloe and I went public.
I’d picked up calls while I was on a job, but I wasn’t multitasking while I was in charge of Sebastian.
When he finished feeding, and I removed the bottle, he burped on his own. He then blinked a few times before his mouth grew slack and then he closed his eyes.
He was asleep.
The phone rang again. I still didn’t answer it. I needed to settle him in his crib.
I lifted Sebastian carefully, careful not to wake him and have him screaming bloody murder.
I’d heard him before, and it was more nerve-wracking than defusing a bomb.
My boy had lungs in him. I walked stealthily, holding him level, cradling his neck and bottom.
When I reached Chloe’s door, I nudged it open and tiptoed into the room. I lowered him into the crib.
I realized I was putting him to bed at night for the first time. I glanced over at Chloe. She was lost to the world and snoring adorably. She was on her back with her right arm crooked at the elbow beside her head.
I went back to the entrance of the cottage where we dropped most of the things we retrieved from the apartment and fished out the baby monitor.
This was so basic. I didn’t want to make so many changes while we were in this cottage.
I wanted to buy a house for Chloe and Sebastian.
They shouldn’t be living in an apartment.
My boy needed a backyard and a playset. Brief amusement passed my lips.
Playset? Where did I get that idea? I didn’t grow up with any playset.
I remembered hanging off monkey bars at an early age, but somehow I wanted different for my boy.
Maybe I wanted him to have the childhood I never had, but also to temper in the training needed to survive in the bratva.
My phone went off again. Goddammit. Clenching my jaw, I walked back to the room and positioned the baby monitor close to the crib, and walked out with the receiver, grabbed my phone, headed to the French doors in the living room, and exited onto the patio.
I waved at one of the night patrols. They knew to keep their distance—twenty feet away from the house.
On the fourth ring from the same anonymous number, I answered, “Da.”
“Nikolai.”
“Dimitri. It took you weeks to call me back.”
“Fuck you, mudak. The brotherhood is pissed at you.”
“Really?”
“From what I heard, the Vozhokari is out for blood. Your firstborn belongs to them.”
“I never agreed to that bullshit. It’s an ancient order that should have been eliminated long ago. How about you, Dimitri? We share the same blue eyes.”
“I’ve paid my dues and fucked their vessel. She miscarried. I’m not considering marriage again.”
Dimitri had a girlfriend whom he loved enough to consider marrying. But she couldn’t stomach the Petrovs’ duty to the Vozhokari. Her love died the second Dimitri fucked another woman. At least, that was the story Grigori told me.
Two hundred years ago, the Petrov clan left the Vozhokari order of assassins with the condition that each descendant male with piercing blue eyes would fuck one of the Vozhokari vessels to produce the next undying assassin.
“They killed my parents,” I said. “You think I owe them anything?”
He sighed. “I’m just giving you fair warning. It’s all over the financial news, and you know Uncle keeps an eye on that.”
I wondered now if the Vozhokari found out even before the news broke and they could be behind the apartment attack. But how?
“So clan Petrov is pissed, huh?”
“They don’t want a repeat of what happened to your parents. And they don’t think they can gain custody of your child if anything happened to you.”
“Good luck with that. I trust Kirill more than having my child be raised by any of you.”
“Ouch, cousin, you didn’t turn out terribly.”
“That’s debatable.”
“Anyway, I thought you should know.” He paused but didn’t end the call.
“Anything else?”
“So the news was speculating…it’s a boy.”
“You think I’m going to answer you?”
He gave a derisive laugh. “We breed boys.”
“You make it sound like we’re studs.”
“Aren’t we?”
“Well, time to change that idea. And next time, call me ASAP when I leave you a message.”
“Fuck you,” he replied with a laugh before the line went dead.
So the news had reached Moscow at light speed.
Dimitri and the rest of the Petrov family worked for the Moscow mob.
It was Grigori, my cousin, who took a bunch of the clan across the pond and joined the Zahkarov bratva.
My cousin, who suggested that I honor the tradition of copulating with a Vozhokari.
One would think that kind of ritual had died out with the Dark Ages.
I refused and called him a pimp, so he framed me as the Mistress Strangler.
He thought a few months in prison would make me change my mind, but by that time Grigori had become persona non grata, hunted by the bratva and the feds, I was stuck in prison.
But Grigori made a deathbed confession to clear my name.
Kirill asked me to stay in prison for a year and then, right before the election for a new DA, our lawyers produced the evidence.
Kirill’s candidate won. A wrongfully imprisoned man—me—always won the court of public outrage.
Grigori had blue-gray eyes that were considered inferior for procreating with the Vozhokari. There were only a few of us left with the shade of blue eyes the assassin order coveted.
And my son was one of them.
I’d fallen asleep on the couch. Hell, I didn’t think I slept at all; my mind trying to find a solution to my predicament. The threat seemed so far away, but if Dimitri called me, that was the first sign I should take them seriously.
The baby monitor crackled. Sebastian was cooing and making those bababa noises. That was the sound that woke me. The clock said two a.m.
I pushed up from the couch and made my way back to Chloe’s room. He had pulled up to standing. It was quite dark with minimal moonlight coming through the curtains. I caught movement on the bed. Chloe was stirring.
“Hey, Seva.” My nose twitched. “Oof, what’s that stinker?”
“I can get him,” Chloe croaked.
“No, I got him.” That seemed to be my line for the night when it came to Sebastian. I lifted him out of the crib. “Don’t move,” I ordered Chloe.
“Not moving,” she mumbled, or at least that was what I thought she said.
I carried him to the bathroom where the baby-changing pad was propped up against the wall. Changing diapers was something I realized I was good at since I was an expert at managing flailing limbs and cleanup.
I impressed Chloe when I took to changing baby diapers so quickly.
Sebastian was once again a satisfied baby and seemed content to go back to bed and coo at the crib mobile circling above him.
That stabby feeling in my chest returned.
“Thank you,” Chloe whispered behind me.
I crouched in front of her. “Not a problem, princess.”
Judging from the sleepy sounds she was making, she was fighting to stay awake, but the sands of sleep won and sucked her under.
A beam of moonlight revealed the smile curving her bow-shaped mouth. And I couldn’t resist lowering my head and feathering a kiss over her lips.
And when I rose, I’d made a decision, but I needed a plan.
Funny how when the threat to them morphed into a tangible shape, it erased all procrastination and bullshit excuses.
Chloe and Sebastian are mine.