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“A shame. Really would have been a mutually beneficial solution to both our problems.” His words were calm, measured. His demeanor was not. The fucker was pissed.
Good.He and his nephew could both go fuck themselves up the ass with the vodka bottle they rode in on.
He pushed up from his desk in a movement that told us this meeting was over without ever having to say the words. Which was no skin off my back. I’d heard about enough of what the fucker had to offer.
I grabbed Dani’s hand, prepared to tug her out the door behind me, when she dug her heels into the carpet, causing us both to turn and look at her. “I thought wolves were supposed tobe clever,” she mused, and he lifted a single brow as if daring her to say otherwise.
“The same could be said for you,kotenok.” His palms landed flat on the desk in front of him with so much force there should have been an audible thud, but somehow the fucker’s precision had him stopping short as his fingertips barely brushed the surface. “But I am curious as to what’s churning in that shattered little mind of yours.”
I was vibrating in my skin, itching to do something stupid, while Dani’s hand on my wrist begged me to do nothing at all.
“Marriage ain’t the only thing I have to offer. At least not my own.” Her voice was dry, emotionless, and I didn’t like the sound of it. “I heard you were the type of man who saw the bigger picture. Played the long game.” She shrugged. “But if I’m wrong, that’s on me. I’ll just have to find someone with a little more… tact.”
His glare dropped to her stomach before trailing back up to her face. All the while his lips curled into a slow grin. “How far along?”
My head snapped in Dani’s direction. She dug her nails deeper into my wrist. “I’m not,” she huffed. “Not yet. But I will be. Soon.”
The Russian clapped his hands together with a curt nod. “Pozdravleniya!Your firstborn daughter to my firstborn son?—”
“No!” Dani was quick to interject, and I felt like I could finally breathe again before she added, “Son. My firstborn son to your daughter.”
“Soglasen. Done.”
54
The weird thing about lying was when you started to believe it yourself. The idea that I was selling children that would never exist didn’t sit well with me. Though I had yet to figure out what was leaving me with this fucked-up hole in the pit of my stomach. Like I ate something sour and it was ready to travel back the way it came.
I wasn’t motherly material. Never had been. I didn’t ask for dolls or Barbies as a kid. Never cared much for playing house neither. I just didn’t have it in me. Long before everything that happened with Leo, I knew the Rossi line would end this go-around… if my baby brother didn’t keep his little prick in check.
But that lie was tomorrow’s problem. The Russian bastard couldn’t fault me for being barren. And I’d make sure it looked that way. At the very least I’d buy myself a few years. Earn myself a few more favors with the right people that would hopefully come in handy when The Wolf came looking to collect. That was assuming he ever had kids himself. At the end of the day, we were negotiating with lives that didn’t exist. On either side.
“What the fuck was that about?” Connor hissed the moment we were behind closed doors with a shit-ton of heavy artillery intow. “Did you really just sell off our future kids like they were nothin’?”
I pivoted on my heel to face him, the barrel of the empty nine aimed at his forehead. Because why the fuck not? It had been one fuck of a day, and I was over dealing with another man withanotherfucked opinion about what I should do with myself and my body.
“Not kids. Kid. My kid. Not yours,” I ground out between clenched teeth. “A bouncing baby boy who has no chance of ever existing in the first place.”
His eyes flicked downward before meeting my face again. The cocky son of a bitch really thought his swimmers were Olympic level or somethin’.
“Ourkid, dollface. And why a son versus a daughter? What’s the difference? Either way shit’s just fucked.” He raked a hand through his hair.
It was evident themake-believewas getting a little too real, weighing heavy on the Bible-thumping morality that was so ingrained in him the fucker was sweating. And for some reason, the muzzle I had trained in his direction had nothing to do with it.
Which was just another kick to the lady balls.
I tucked the nine into the waistband of my jeans, then dropped the gym bag loaded with ammo and a couple of cases of hand grenades onto the small table in the corner. “Because women get fucked enough as it is. Wasn’t 'bout to trade my imaginary daughter like livestock.”
“The same rules don’t apply forhisdaughter I’m guessing?”
“Nope.” I popped my lips with the word. “Sounds like a Russian problem to me.”
“You do know none of that makes sense, right? Your logic’s fuckin’ flawed, Dani.” Connor sighed, and I shrugged a single shoulder in his direction.
Never said it had to work for anyone but me.
“Doesn’t matter. I traded a whole lotta nothing for a fuck-ton of something.”
He stalked forward, grabbing me by the waist and tugging me forward. Forcing my chin to tip up in order to level my gaze with his. “I thought I already told you our future kids ain’t nothing, baby girl.”
