Page 25 of Nanny for the Bratva Daddies

My lips part, uncertain of what to say. My cheeks flare warm on their own, and the heat creeps down my throat as he holds my gaze.

“Yes,” I say.

“She seems less…kind and somewhat stressed. Is everything alright?”

Shit. Did Daniil overhear us? Is Fyodor toying with me to see how honest I will be?

I can’t speak. The warmth seals around my throat like a collar, restricting all words.

Then Fyodor grasps my chin. The floor wobbles. He holds me there and I can’t look away. He’s like the sun, and I’m willingly caught in his gravitational pull. With eyes this intense and a touch that sears against my skin, I can’t lie. I can’t say anything.

“If your family is in trouble, if someone is ill or needs help, you tell me and I will help you.”

It takes all my strength to stay upright. He’s not playing games. He’s not toying with me. He’s offering me support because he thinks my mother’s stress is due to some family trouble that I’m dealing with alone.

He’s close, but on the wrong track.

“Thank you,” I croak out, fighting not to get lost in his touch. When he releases me, the chill that takes his place as he steps away is jarring and I instantly crave his closeness once more.

Get it together, Naomi!

“Thank you, sir.” My final words fly out in a blur, and I hurry from the room, nearly tripping over my feet. With a hammering heart and a full body flush so hot that I might as well be in a sauna, I stumble back to the kitchen.

How on earth am I supposed to betray a man like that?

9

ZASHA

Pain bleeds through me like a swirling fog. It invades my body, seeps down my limbs and weighs me down into a darkness I can’t escape. It’s all-consuming and so smothering that nothing else breaches my consciousness for the longest time.

Until now.

There’s a rhythmic beeping to my left, matching the sluggish thump of my own heart. Tightness constricts around my right arm and no matter how hard I try to flex my hand, nothing moves. I’m drowning in darkness. The beeping is the only way out.

I focus on it. Each beep is a step closer. I count each one, bundling them into groups of ten in my mind and each time I do, my sluggish thoughts become clearer. With awareness comes the expectation of the last time I dragged myself out of this murky darkness.

I await the stinging, burning pain of electrocution that comes like clockwork every time I wake up. Tension ripples through me. Muscles tighten, bracing for a wave of agony that, for some reason, doesn’t come.

There’s nothing but the regular rhythmic beeping that increases as my heart beats faster and faster.

I open my eyes.

A glaring white ceiling greets me, so bright that it forces my eyes closed once more. Taking a breath, I open them slower. Light glares all around, fuzzing the edges of my vision, but as I blink things clear and begin to sharpen. There’s a pattern on the ceiling above, and the glaring brightness is daylight spilling in through a window to my left softened by a singular curtain half drawn across the frame.

Various machines surround me showing stats and numbers I have no hope of deciphering, and several wires weave from my body to their metal connections.

Where the fuck am I?

How did I get here?

Wasn’t I just in the…? Stabbing pain lances through my skull as I try to remember and I wince, screwing up my eyes. There’s no one in here with me, but someone brought me here. Someone put me here.

I just … I can’t remember who.

When I glance down, panic starts to build like static. The tightness in my right arm appears to be a white cast wrapped tightly around my forearm. Bruises and more coat my bare chest, and stiffness in my hip makes itself known the moment I try to move.

The beeping increases, as does my panic. My chest constricts and breathing grows more and more difficult as I take in every inch of the bare room I’ve woken up in.

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