Page 79 of Stay Toxic

But I could still hear movement in the other room, indicating someone was up and moving around.

I took one last look over my shoulder at the woman who was looking disappointed yet satisfied in the bed behind me and left.

When is too late to have a baby shower? Because Mom didn’t have one with me, and I’m in need of some new clothes.

—Dima to Shasha

SHASHA

“What’s with that stupid look on your face?” Dima asked.

I looked up to find him standing in my open office doorway, staring at me like he’d never seen me before.

And maybe he hadn’t seen this particular side of me before.

Because I was, indeed, smiling.

I’d also made the decision to take the step forward with Brecken into a relationship that could very likely get her killed.

I was so going to hell.

“You mean the smile?” My sister pushed past him into my office.

“Yes, the smile.” Dima turned to Milena. “Why do you have to be so pushy?”

“Why do you have to take up so much space?” she asked.

“He’s put on twenty pounds since we last saw him,” Nastya said as she came into the room in sweatpants, an oversized hoodie that was mine, and UGG boots.

“You look so basic right now,” Dima teased.

“Fuck you.” She winced. “It’s cold. I don’t do well in the cold, okay?”

“Okay.” Dima rolled his eyes. “But just sayin’, it’s fifty degrees. That’s not even that cold.”

“Cold enough that my toes and fingers are icicles,” she countered.

“Why are you all in my office?” I asked after a while.

“We saw you smiling in here all by yourself, and we wanted to know why,” Milena offered. “But Artur already told us it was because of a girl.”

My brows rose. “He did, did he?”

“I told them that they needed to mind their own business, actually,” Artur said. “Do you want me to come back?”

I shook my head and gestured him inside. “What did you find?”

He came farther into the room and tossed some photos down onto the desk.

I narrowed my eyes at them.

“Is that Cayden?” I wondered.

“Sure is,” he said. “And he’s beat to shit and back. But that’s not why I’m showing you this particular photo.” He pulled a folded photo out of his pocket and unfolded it before placing it on my desk. “This is the dude you told us to keep a watch on a couple of weeks ago. Remember?”

The man that’d terrorized his wife to a point where she felt like she needed to give up her child to protect it by handing it over to a dangerous criminal.

“Fuck.” I leaned forward and took it all in. “It’s him?”

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