Page 25 of Bratva Daddies for the Single Mom

“I’m tired of this one.” Hailey used her finger to push the gameboard. After four hours and countless games, she yawned and rubbed her eyes. “Can we play Jenga?”

“Sure.” I scooped up the box and packed away the pieces. “You can get it from your room.”

“I want to set it up.” Hannah leaped up and ran down the hall, her steps shuddering through the room.

“No fair. It was my idea.” Hailey ran after her sister, their squabbling rising in pitch.

“Girls,” I admonished them softly. “You can take turns setting up the game. We’ll play more than once.”

That quieted them enough to carry the game into the living room and empty the pieces out on the coffee table. They built up the tower, giggling when they toppled it before making it all the way to the top.

Tina joined us for a few games, with each of the girls toppling the tower of stacked bricks twice each before I swept the pieces aside. “Time for bed.”

Hailey pouted, her bottom lip pooched out and her thin arms crossed. “I’m not tired.”

“Well, you might want to sleep anyway. It’ll be hard to practice riding your new bicycle if you’re so sleepy you can’t sit up straight.” I hid a laugh behind my hand when she bolted upright and grabbed Hannah by the arm.

“Come on. It’s like Christmas. The faster we go to sleep, the faster we can get our bikes.” Hailey practically dragged her sister into the bathroom.

I trailed behind, giving them a chance to be independent while staying close by until they needed me. The bedtime routine settled the girls, and by the time I tucked them into their beds and pulled the covers up to their chins, they’d gone limp and droopy-eyed.

“I love you, Hailey.” I kissed her forehead, then turned to Hannah. “I love you, Hannah.” One of the things I’d always tried to remember was to give each of my daughters her own good night, her own ‘I love you’ to hold in her heart.

“Love you, Mama,” both girls called back.

I turned off the light and made sure the nightlight in the hallway shone through the small opening where I left the door cracked. Fatigue took the place of my earlier tension, causing my steps to drag on the carpet.

I turned the corner into the living room and stooped to pick up a discarded sock. A steady knock rapped on the thin door, startling me upright with the sock clenched tight in my fist. “I’ll get it.” For reasons I didn’t understand, I had a gut feeling who stood on the other side. I shoved down my anxiety, threw the sock into a basket behind me, and used my body to block the gap as I opened the door.

Viktor stood on the other side, his suit dark as midnight and his face reminding me of granite.

A spark of panic pushed me tighter to the door. If he looked over my head, slightly to the left, he’d see the games, the girls’ shoes, all the things that were part of me but I’d never told him about. I made a split-second decision, my unwillingness to disclose the girls’ identity driving me to put a hand on his arm and push, silently asking him to move backward.

He did so, curiosity lighting his eyes as he backed into the hallway lit with nothing more than moonlight from the window at the end of the building and a single bulb that flickered inconsistently across the hall. If our neighbors looked out, they’d see little more than twin shadows. Which was how they liked it.

“What are you doing here?” I closed the door behind me, the audibleclickechoing. I should’ve known Ilya would follow me. With every hour that passed since I left him standing in the parking garage, I’d let myself believe he would wait, that I would not see any of them again untilIchose. My uncertainty about pursuing any sort of relationship with Viktor, Fyodor, and Ilya drove me to keep the girls a secret. Until I knew I could trust them, they did not get a peek into my private life.

14

VIKTOR

Igrinned at the command in Annie’s tone. Gone was the pale, fragile woman who’d left our office. The woman in front of me stood with a rigid spine, stiff arms, and a mutinous glare on her gorgeous face. Even the dank hallway smelling of mildew and rat piss couldn’t ruin the sight of her regaining color in her cheeks and that spark of defiant confidence that had drawn us to her at the auction. She rode such extremes that it left me more curious than ever. How did she fall apart, defeated and uncertain, when faced with Ilya’s method of protection, yet face me down without a shred of fear in her willowy frame? It was a conundrum, a puzzle I could not wait to solve.

“You’re looking better.” I strayed a step closer, checking her body language as I moved. Her paleness was the only reason I’d let her leave earlier. When Ilya asked if I wanted Annie followed after leaving Kent’s office building, I’d said no. Regret set in minutes later, and by the time Ilya returned to the office and showed me Annie’s business card, I’d changed my mind about letting her have time to herself before we made another move.

Annie tipped her head back, her chin jutting upward and the look in her eyes hardening. “Did you have Ilya follow me?”

“No.” I answered honestly. I’d tasked Ilya with using the card to find her address. “We wanted to see how you were doing.”

“Fine.”

Her rapid assurance blunted the agony I’d felt during our hours apart, though I had the distinct impression that she hid things from me, as I had her. I’d examined every inch of the hallway, the mailboxes outside, and the doors leading to every other apartment before I knocked on her door. Ilya had performed background checks on every resident in the building, reassuring all three of us that she was as safe as possible with the people she knew as her neighbors. She would be safer with us.

She leaned to the side, peering past me toward the blacked-out glass door leading to the parking lot. “What do you mean,we?”

“Fyodor and Ilya are in the car.” I stepped aside so she’d have a full view of the limo parked beneath the single working streetlight.

Ilya had spat every curse word in both languages when he’d realized I wouldn’t let him or Fyodor walk with me into the building. I’d reminded him that he was the one who’d declared it safe, shutting him up for all of five seconds before the rampage started anew. He was probably annoying the shit out of Fyodor as the two of them waited for me. I couldn’t risk the three of us together intimidating Annie when I had every intention of luring her out to the car so we could finish what we started in the office. If she was feeling well enough. Her wellbeing had become a priority, right beside her safety.

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