Page 38 of Bratva Daddies for the Single Mom

This was why she refused to let any of us walk her to the door. Fyodor told me about the last time, when he’d snuck in after her to guarantee her safety. I was not the sneaking sort. Annie was, apparently. Otherwise, why would she hide her motherhood from us?

Fury so deep and fathomless that it left me spiraling into the abyss dragged me forward a single step. I stopped there, taking note of the girls’ wide eyes before Annie nudged them deeper into the apartment and closed the door.

“I can explain.” She held both hands toward me, palms up like she approached a wild beast. “You’re upset.”

“Damn fucking straight I’m upset.” I locked my hands inside my pockets to hide their trembling. “You hid this from us. You’re a mother.” I choked on the last word and forced myself to stop and swallow. Bitter vitriol swarmed my thoughts, words I dared not say with little ears within hearing distance.

“Yes.” Her head cocked to the side. “And that makes you angry?” The calm expression fell into something dark and full of a matching fury. “Why? Because I’ve had sex with other men?”

“Because you did not trust us enough to tell the truth. I don’t give a damn who you slept with before us. I care about truth and honesty.”

“You keep secrets.” She waved off my reasoning.

“Of necessity. And if you want to know anything, all you have ever needed to do was ask.” The heat in my words forced me back a step. After all we’d done together, night after night of passionate sex and discovering each other, she hid this crucial truth. “We spent all evening with you.”

“Trying to win me over,” she snapped at me, closing the distance without fear of what I might do, how I might act.

Did that mean she trusted me? She said as much earlier when I had a knife in my hands, but there was no proof when it mattered most. Why not prove it in the most obvious of ways?

Her mouth twisted, words pouring out. “You wanted to convince me that you’re not terrible, violent men. Excuse me for wanting to protect my daughters in case it was all a lie.”

Every word landed in a series of blows that pummeled my already aching heart. I never thought I could care about a woman enough to reach this point, a point where said woman held the ammunition to hurt me.

“We are finished.” I turned and walked away. The glass door slammed open beneath the weight of my palm, crashing against the wall and swinging back. I caught it before it cracked me in the nose and strode through.

Every step toward the car wedged pain deeper into my heart. She’d betrayed me. Betrayed us. Annie didn’t trust us enough to let us into her real life, her world as a mother.

Truth mattered, even unto death. I never softened what we were. I only asked her to get to know us before she passed judgment and declared us unfit to be her lovers.

Was I being unfair that she’d done exactly as I asked? How long would it have taken her to tell us about her daughters?

20

FYODOR

Viktor’s office door opened with a slam, the man himself storming through with enough thunderclouds on his brows to narrow his eyes into slits. “She’s a fucking liar. A backstabbing, inconsiderate woman who cares nothing for us and wouldn’t tell us the truth if it jumped out of the ground and bit her in the ass.”

Okay, then. “I’m guessing something happened when you dropped Annie off? Or has something else brought this on?” I stood, freeing his seat, and moved to stand beside Ilya.

A quiet storm whirled around us in the few heartbeats it took Viktor to cross the room, fling his jacket across the back of his chair, and pace to the windows.

“What did she lie about?” Ilya rocked on his heels, thick arms crossed and attention locked on

Viktor.

He punched the glass, sending a reverberatingbongacross the room when it bounced beneath his anger. “She has children. Two girls. Maybe more. I was too angry to ask.”

“Ah, he admits to a mistake.” Ilya elbowed me and smirked.

I moved away from Ilya to stop the jesting and approached Viktor. “It hurts to think she lied.”

“I do notthinkshe lied. Lying by omission is still a lie.” He gripped the edge of the windowsill and rested his forehead on the thick glass.

“We have done the same.” I held up a hand to slow the tirade I saw threatening to burst from him. “She has reservations about us. About our lifestyle.” A caustic laugh burned my throat. “We are the fucking Bratva, Viktor. Any sane woman would worry about mixing up with us, especially with children involved.”

Ilya slapped a hand to my back. “Fyodor is right. We are not normal men.”

“We must try to offer grace and acceptance of Annie’s decisions.” I wanted to say more, to try and force Viktor to see reason, but he was the Pakhan. He had the final say. I did my best to be the voice of reason, as my father was for his father. We were as good as brothers in many ways. “Our lifestyle is not for the faint of heart. Of course Annie would protect her daughters. We knew from the beginning that she was a strong woman. This proves we were right. She held that secret despite everything we did.”

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