Page 28 of Immaculate Deception (Romanoff Bratva)

“Stop the car!”

Dima ignores me. In fact, he pushes down on the gas a bit harder to make a point.

Like I said—asshole.

I reach over and grab his sleeve—which is actually my sleeve, if I’m not mistaken. Yes, I can tell from the bleach stain on the cuff that he’s wearing my favorite oversized sweatshirt. I file that away to ask about later.

“Stop the car right now!” I yell. “Or slow down, at least. We need to go back to my house.”

“I don’t take orders from you. Or from anyone, actually. Besides, it’s not safe.”

I blink at him. “What do you mean it’s not safe? It was safe enough for you to go there and raid my closet.”

His square jaw clenches, muscles working in his neck, but he doesn’t say anything.

“Do those guys know where I live? Am I in danger there?”

“They probably know everything about you by now,” he says with a shrug. “They want to get to me. Now that they’ve seen us together, they’ll want to get to you, too.”

“But… but I didn’t do anything,” I stammer lamely. “Just tell them I don’t have anything to do with this. Tell them I’m normal.”

“Oh, okay. Sure.” Dima pretends to reach into his pocket and pull out an imaginary cell phone, which he holds to his ear. “Fyodor, Zotov, hello! Big misunderstanding. I know you want to kill me and anyone who gets in your way, but there has been a miscommunication. Arya is ‘normal,’ so—”

I slap his fake phone right out of his asshole hand. “For fuck’s sake, you’re a dick. I just gave birth, okay? None of this makes sense. You told me you’d explain in the car, so…”

“So what?”

“So start explaining!”

He twists his neck one way and then the other, cracking it, and takes a deep breath. “Those motherfuckers are after me, and—”

“Go to my house first,” I say, interrupting him.

“For fuck’s sake, are you stupid?No.It’s not safe.”

I point to Lukas in my arms. Miraculously, he’s still asleep. “Neither is driving around with a newborn in a car without a car seat.”

Dima looks over at him and his gray eyes seem to darken. Then he pulls over without another word. I’m confused until he gets out and opens the back door. When I twist around to see what on earth he’s doing back there, I notice that the car seat has been installed behind us.

I gape at him. “How the hell did this get here?”

“It was in your apartment. I grabbed it before I came back.”

I don’t know what to say to that. It’s so tender, so sweet—and so wildly out of character, even for what little I know about this guy. I feel like I’m seeing a dog walk on its hind legs.

But when he reaches for Lukas, I hesitate.

Sure, he did one nice thing by installing the car seat. But lest we forget, he did that right before coming to the hospital to save me from armed thugs that were after him in the first place.

He’s no Good Samaritan. No guardian angel. He’s a piece of shit and a mobster.

Nothing more. Nothing less.

That all being said, I’m also in extreme pain. The idea of climbing into the backseat to buckle him in is enough to make me want to cry. So after a few seconds after flip-flopping back and forth in my head, I pass my precious baby to him.

“Why did you come back?” I ask softly.

Dima nestles Lukas into the seat. I get the impression he’s trying not to look directly at him. Like he’s afraid to make eye contact.

---