Page 57 of Nanny for the Bratva Daddies

Daniil snorts lightly and rises, moving to the drink cart and my focus switches to the more pressing reason this meeting was called.

“Ivan,” I say, my attention sliding to Fyodor. “You spoke to him?”

“I did.” Fyodor slowly sits down. “Until I got a call about my father turning up here, so I didn’t get to spend as much time with him as I’d have liked.”

“Well?” Was Fyodor going to play coy the entire night? “The fuck did he say?”

Fyodor’s eyes narrow dangerously as if debating whether to rise to my irritation or not. The tension builds, then snaps when Daniil clicks his tongue and shoves a glass of alcohol into my hand.

“Shut up and drink.”

I obey as Daniil retreats to get his own.

“Ivan claims to know nothing about your disappearance and seems under the strong impression that you’re dead,” Fyodor explains. “He based this off of you vanishing and seemed overjoyed at watching the remainder of your family struggle to keep afloat under the onslaught of his own men.”

My stomach twists and drops like a stone. There wasn’t a lot of love between me and the family I led, not since the suspicion of an inside killer ran rampant after the death of my father, but they are still my family. My responsibility.

“Ivan seems eager to kill or absorb those he can get his hands on,” Fyodor continues. “So, naturally, I acted first.”

Anger snaps through my chest like a strike of lightning. “You did what?”

“Since the moment you turned up here, I began absorbing the stragglers from your family.”

“The fuck?!” I bolt upward as the snaps of anger melt together. “How dare you? You think you can just muscle in on people like that, absorb families like their fucking cattle?”

Daniil steps forward, his posture tense like a rod while Fyodor remains seated, unphased.

“Tell me, Zasha. What would you prefer? Your men to be absorbed into my family where they can continue to operate in peace, or have them die for sick sport at the hands of Ivan? We have no idea who tried to kill you or why you’re even here, so maybe it would be best just to kill every last one.”

Fyodor drinks lazily from his glass and I clench my hand into a fist. Daniil takes another step forward, but despite the surge in fury, I contain myself.

Lashing out will not do any good here, and Fyodor, as much as it pains me to admit, has a point.

I am useless to my men right now and I’m only alive by Fyodor’s grace. He could have killed me, but he didn’t, and that means something.

Slowly, I sit back down though I remain rigid.

“If it makes you feel any better,” Fyodor continues, tipping his glass toward me. “There is still a pocket of men loyal to you—no body means no death in their eyes.”

Oddly, that does make me feel a little better and I slump backward. “Alright.”

“We can’t trust Ivan,” Daniil spits, finally finishing pouring his own drink. “He could know everything about Zasha and we’d never know it because he’s a fucking scumbag. I did ten years for that shithead, and all it earned me were scars and PTSD. I wouldn’t put it past him to have a hand in this.”

Ten years? It’s almost unheard of for a Bratva to serve that long in prison. My eyes widen and I track Daniil as he returns to us and sits.

“What did you do ten years for?”

“The Avlinsky massacre.”

“Holy shit, that was you?” The Avlinsky massacre was a bloodbath turned legend. One man wiping out an entire family was the story of awe among lesser men and one of irritation rarely discussed by those in power.

“I ain’t proud of it,” Daniil says, draining his glass in one gulp. “But yeah. That was me. And it was a fucking setup because the bastard that was supposed to have my back never fucking showed. Easy to work out why considering we were on Ivan’s payroll.”

“I heard about that,” I nod slowly. “No one looked at Henricks the same after that, the fucking weasel. He bragged too often and too loud about how he was supposed to be there but wasn’t. It earned him a seat at the mayor’s table for sure, but I don’t know a single Bratva that still holds respect for the guy.”

“Hold up.” Daniil slid forward in his seat. “You know who was supposed to be with me?”

“You don’t?” I scoff, taking a drink.

---