Page 29 of Ruthless Daddies

The office is dark except for the glow of the monitors in front of me. The grainy CCTV footage plays out, the angles awkward but enough to catch every damning detail. Dmitri. Alice. The hallway.

I grit my teeth, my hands gripping the edge of the desk as I watch. Dmitri presses her against the wall, his body blocking most of her from view, but there’s no mistaking what’s happening. Her head tilts back, her lips part in a silent moan, and Dmitri’s hand moves beneath her dress, his posture unmistakable.

My chest tightens with anger—or is it something else? I push the thought away, my eyes fixed on the screen as Dmitri leans in, his mouth brushing against her neck, his movements calculated, deliberate. Alice’s hands clutch at his shoulders, and then she’s trembling, her body shaking against him.

I should stop watching. I should shut off the feed and let my rage focus on what matters—that Dmitri is toying with her, that he’s dragging her into something she doesn’t understand. But I don’t. I can’t. My eyes stay glued to the screen, my chest tightening asI watch her come apart under his touch, her face contorted in pleasure as she clutches at him.

Anger surges again, hot and consuming. But beneath it, there’s something else, something darker, something I don’t want to name. The silence in the room is deafening as I sit there, trying to collect my thoughts.

Dmitri.

He’s always been the difficult one. The unpredictable one. The one who refuses to follow rules or bow to expectations. Even as children, he had a way of testing limits—ours, our parents’, the world’s. If there was trouble to be found, Dmitri was always in the middle of it, smirking as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

I hit pause, the image freezing on Alice slumping against the wall, her face hidden against Dmitri’s chest. The room is quiet except for the faint hum of the computer, but my mind is anything but.

“Damn it, Dmitri,” I mutter, running a hand through my hair. This is reckless, even for him. Getting involved with the nanny? It’s a complication we don’t need, especially not with everything else hanging over us.

And yet…I can’t deny the pull I feel watching her, the way her body responds to him, the soft, unguarded look on her face. It stirs something in me, something I don’t understand, and that only makes me angrier.

I shove back from the desk, the chair scraping against the floor as I stand. I need to handle this before it spirals any further. Dmitri has always been a problem, always pushing boundaries, always testing limits. But this? This is too far.

The maids tell me he’s at the dining table, having breakfast.

Sure enough, he’s there, seated at the dining table, buttering a piece of toast with a carelessness that grates on my nerves. He’s dressed casually, his shirt unbuttoned at the collar, his dark hair still slightly damp from a recent shower. He looks up as I approach, his expression calm, almost amused.

“Morning, brother,” he says.

I stop at the head of the table, crossing my arms as I study him. As kids, he was the one sneaking out late, the one picking fights, the one who always seemed to attract trouble like a magnet.

And now, years later, nothing has changed.

“You want to tell me what the hell you were thinking?” I say. My voice is low, controlled, but the edge is unmistakable.

Dmitri looks up, his expression not shifting a bit. If anything, his smirk widens slightly. “You’ll have to be more specific, Ivan. I think about a lot of things.”

I lean forward, my hands braced on the table as I glare at him. “Alice,” I say sharply.

His smirk falters just slightly, and I see the flicker of recognition in his eyes. “Ah,” he says, leaning back in his chair, his tone casual. “You’ve been watching the cameras again. Should’ve known.”

“Don’t deflect,” I snap. “You’re crossing lines, Dmitri. Lines that will only complicate things for everyone.”

“Lines,” he repeats, his tone mocking as he takes a bite of his toast, chewing slowly before swallowing. “You always wereobsessed with lines, weren’t you, Ivan? Rules. Boundaries. But here’s the thing—lines were made to be crossed.”

My jaw tightens, the anger bubbling closer to the surface. “This isn’t just about you,” I say. “It’s about the family. About her. The nanny, Dmitri. The one who’s here formychildren. Do you have any idea what kind of mess you’re creating?”

He chuckles, shaking his head. “Mess? I think you’re overreacting, brother. She’s not exactly running away screaming.”

“That’s not the point!” I bark, slamming my hand on the table, making the plates rattle. “She’s not part of this. She’s not part ofus.”

Dmitri leans forward now, his expression hardening, his smirk replaced with something sharper, colder. “And what are you so worried about, Ivan? That she can’t handle it? Or that she doesn’t belong toyou?”

The words hit like a punch, and I take a step back, my jaw tightening. Dmitri watches me, his gaze unflinching, challenging, as if daring me to admit the truth.

But I won’t. I can’t.

Dmitri’s eyes narrow. “I know exactly what I’m doing,” he says, his voice soft but sharp. “Can you say the same?”

His words hit harder than I expect, and for a moment, I can’t speak. I realize that he knows. He knows about the flicker of jealousy I felt watching that footage, the way my anger isn’t entirely about him.

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