Page 88 of Nanny for the Bratva Daddies

“I warned you,” my mother says. She sits next to me and picks up the teapot. “I warned you what would happen if you turned your back on me.”

She begins to put the tea with the smuggest cat-got-the-cream look on her face that I’ve ever seen. What one earth did she mean by that?

Suddenly, a cold thought slivers into my mind.

No one knew Zasha was at the estate. No one but Fyodor, Daniil, and me. And my mother. I had given her that piece of information so long ago that it was barely worth remembering. Back when I’d been trying to appease her rather than standing up to her.

Nausea cramps my stomach and if I wasn’t already hunched over, I would have ended up that way.

“Mom … what are you saying?”

She sets the pot down and uses a small silver tong to pick up sugar cubes. “I told you, Naomi. Information is dangerous, and it doesn’t matter how much or how little you have. All that matters is how you use it.”

“You didn’t … ?”

It was her. I don’t know how, and I don’t know why but at this moment, I knew the truth. She is the reason Zasha’s men attacked the restaurant.

“You bi?—”

Suddenly, the side door to the kitchen swings open, and a tall man with sweeping gray hair strides in. His dark charcoal suit and golden tie scream wealth—far from anything in this house—and he looks incredibly out of place, like some kind of stolen ornate vase.

“Ana, we’ve run into an issue—oh.” He cuts himself off and his angular eyebrows dip down over his eyes. Despite his age, there’s a charming handsomeness about him that exists until he smiles. Then there’s nothing but a twisted coldness that turns my blood to ice.

I dart upward, withdrawing from the table and wrapping my silk robe even tighter around me.

“Who the hell is this?”

“Oh, relax, Naomi,” my mother says, sipping her tea. “This is Ivan. He’s an old friend. I’m sure you’ve heard of him.”

34

DANIIL

“Hold still,” I snap, grabbing Zasha’s arm when he leans away from where I’m working. He makes a noise of complaint, but it’s so low that it could be a noise of pain.

“Sorry,” Zasha murmurs. “It wasn’t as sore when the cold was numbing it.”

“Probably because you were under water for so long that half your nerves went and gave up.” Another swift stitch and the bullet hole in his arm pulls closed. It’s messy, but we don’t have time to make things look nice. I cover the wound with tape while we talk.

“Fuck,” Zasha whimpers when I press on the wound. A few rivulets of blood roll down his bicep, leaving a glistening trail over bruised flesh.

“Don’t be such a baby.”

Zasha repeats the phrase back to me in Russian, adding an obviously mocking inflection to the words. I cover the wound with gauze and tape it down, then toss two painkillers into his waiting palm.

“Take those and then we’ll go save Fyodor.” Sweeping the medical supplies off the kitchen counter, I open the trash and toss them inside. Only, something strange nestled in the garbage catches my eye and I freeze.

“How the hell are we going to get Fyodor to believe us?” Zasha continues oblivious. “We’ve already seen that he’s not in the right mindset—and I don’t blame him at all but if we’re not careful, he’ll kill us. And then Vladimir will kill him when there’s no one left to protect him. The strongest family in the Bratva will crumble and all the smaller families will end up fodder in a?—”

Zasha falls silent when I press my discovery into his open palm.

A pregnancy test.

It’s positive.

“Pregnant,” Zasha murmurs slowly. His eyes widen, and his fingers close over the test. Our gazes connect.

“Naomi?”

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