Page 67 of Nanny for the Bratva Daddies

“I don’t have any clue who you are! How did you even get in here? Security is just down the hall and I…I…” he trails off. The terror on his face melts into confusion. Then recognition sparks in his eyes and the trembling, bumbling act fades.

“Daniil? Daniil Drugov?” he asks, his tiny blue eyes scanning all over my face. “My God, I thought you were dead.” He almost greets me like a long-lost friend.

“That would suit you, wouldn’t it?” Lunging over the desk, I grab him by the collar and punch him square in the face.

Henricks grunts and his squishy face almost absorbs the impact. I punch him again, this time letting his shirt slips through my fingers so he stumbles backward. Tripping over his own chair, he ends up on his backside against the wall.

“They told me you were dead!”

“Well, they fucking lied, didn’t they?” I’m on him in seconds, winding his tie around my fist and using it to drag him upward a few inches so he dangles from it like a hangman’s noose.

“This can’t be?—”

“Oh it can. You got a little something to tell me, Henricks? Maybe why the fuck you weren’t where you were supposed to be ten years ago?”

Staring into his watery eyes, it’s painful to think that this man was the cause of my downfall.

“You had no problem taking the bragging rights for my kills, acting like you were there while taking none of the punishment that came with it. Ten years, ten fucking years I spent in prison because of you!”

I punch him again and anger swells. It’s not enough. It will never be enough. I want to smash his face in over and over, until there’s nothing but bloody pudding. If I give in to that urge, I won’t have my answers.

“I didn’t!” Henricks pulls at my wrist and tries to free himself. Each time he does, I punch him again until his blood sprays up the wall and my knuckles ache.

“Tell me!” I roar, shaking him violently. “Tell me why!”

“Help me!” He wails to Fyodor.

Fyodor doesn’t move. He doesn’t speak. He just waits and watches.

“Ivan ordered me too!” Henricks yells suddenly, finally cracking under the continuous assault. I hold my fist aloft, ready to land another blow as ice trickles down my spine.

“What?”

Henricks slumps, blood pouring from a split on his lower lip and the break in his nose. “Ivan,” he gasps, panting. “He ordered me to stay away so I did. Then I was sent on another job so I went, but afterward, everyone thought I was still with you and that I got away.”

My mind runs, processing what he was saying but unable to make the connections.

“I don’t understand…I was set up to go there alone?”

Henricks sniffs wetly. “Yes! Yes. That was always the plan, don’t you see?” He winces as blood trickles from the cut in his eyebrow down into his eye.

“Stop playing games and just tell me!” I ball my fist up once more and Henricks babbles at me.

“It was a setup! It was always a setup. You were the rising star of your family, the powerhouse of the Drugovs. You were legendary, an animal, and people admired you! And Ivan, he hated that. He wanted your family wiped off the map, but he couldn’t risk an open play because you were, well, you.”

My heart begins to pound in my chest. Slow, painful thumps that send tremors down my arms. “So you were sent there to kill those people. Did you think it was a coincidence that the cops found you within two blocks? No, you were arrested because Ivan wanted it that way. He left you to rot there because he wanted you to be a symbol of what he was capable of. And then?—”

He stops talking suddenly, and his eyes flick to where Fyodor stands silently at the door.

“And then?” I shake him violently. “And then what?!”

“Then…” He looks back at me and his face crumples. “And then Ivan sent me and…and a few other guys to kill your family. You were supposed to die in prison and I thought you had!”

My grip on Henricks fades and he slumps to the floor, panting. Straightening slowly, my heart continues to pound painfully.

Ivan had my loyalty. Every breath I took was in service to him and this is how he chose to repay me?

“Why?” I glare down. “I never spoke out of turn, I never acted out of turn. I was loyal, my whole family was!”

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