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I had mentioned my worries to the others a few weeks back, shortly after the simple wedding and lovely celebration after it.

Brady was alone, though, in age. He didn’t have peers and it would be hard for him to meet boys his age. Elena had a ready solution for that. A gardener who lived at the mansion had just gotten custody of his grandson, Nate, who was a year older than Brady. Nate’s father had recently been killed—a Volkov guard that one of Gregori’s attacks had claimed. And his mother had been raped and killed a few years ago—also due to one of the members of Gregori’s network.

Since I’d been settling into my life in the Bratva, it had become more and more apparent how Gregori was a great force of evil. The villain. The nemesis. The sum of all the sins that the Volkovs had to fight against. I had no doubt in my mind that if Gregori could ever succeed in assuming the power of the Volkov throne, to call himself the boss and Pakhan of this empire, he would destroy it all.

But we won’t let that happen.

This gardener’s boy was lonely on the estate, though, and when Elena noticed him, she mentioned extending the tutoring to him, too. All so Brady could have a friend and Nate could have an education. That, among so many other things, showed how the Volkovs did good. How they cared and gave back to society. They were the ones I would always stand by and work for.

“I can’t believe he bought all those already,” I muttered of the piles of baby clothes Paloma was folding. She kneeled on the floor in front of where Brady and I sat to go through his baby book.

“Oh, these are the hand-me-downs from Carina, too,” Paloma said. She raised her brows. “But I think he went a little overboard.”

“I heard that!” Nikolai called from the room that would be the nursery.

“We’ll be sharing and swapping baby clothes for years,” I joked.

Elena and Carina were both pregnant again. I’d never forget the dumbfounded expression that Alexei made when they announced it. All five of us women were expecting at the same time. It seemed to trigger him into panic that he’d be next to find a woman and have a child.

“But why can’t it be a baby brother?” Brady asked again.

I held in a groan. He was sweet, so curious and persistent.

“Hey, Brady?” Nikolai called out. “Can you come help me for a sec?”

“Okay, Daddy!” He bounded off the couch and ran to the nursery.

I smiled, watching him go.

“He’ll come around to the idea of having a sister,” Paloma said.

“He will,” I agreed.

Because of the complications I had when Brady was born, my first checkup with the doctor happened shortly after the short and sweet wedding that united me in marriage with Nikolai.

He wanted to take no chances with my health, and I was pleased that I’d never have to worry about insurance, making ends meet, or anything else I had dealt with after I had Brady and when Kaleb passed away.

At that appointment, they ran every possible test with the slight concern about the placenta placement. There was no need to worry, though. Which was good. It also gave us the gender and confirmed that we would be welcoming a baby girl.

“I can’t wait to fill this up,” I said as I picked up the empty scrapbook that Wren bought me. She had gotten a similar one for me and Mila.

“It’s all so exciting,” she agreed. “I can’t wait to smell that newborn baby smell. All these cute little dresses…” She tilted her head side to side. “Of course, I love Isabel, but this will be different.”

I watched her, loving how she always favored Nikolai. He was the youngest of the six men, and when his grandmother died, he had to have suffered her loss acutely.

“I just hope this delivery goes much better than it did with Brady,” I admitted.

“Perhaps you will just have a C-section in the end.”

“I know, and if that’s the case, that’s fine. I really don’t have any specific requests.” I set my hand on my small baby bump as I reached for Brady’s baby book. “I just want this little one to be healthy and happy.”

As I continued to flip through the pages of Brady’s scrapbook that commemorated all his firsts, I realized that I’d need to add more to it. I wanted to celebrate when we’d moved in here, to his real and forever home. He lost his first tooth recently, too, and I could put the picture of the goofy smile in here on the right page for those milestones.

Looking through all that Brady experienced in the first few years of his life, I didn’t allow a trace of guilt or regret to enter my mind. I’d done the best that I could do with him. Those hard years of being a single mother with limited income were trying, but they had shaped me into the woman and mother I was now.

Meeting Nikolai proved that I didn’t have to be so strong all the time. I didn’t have to be overly guarded and protective with his love and support now.

Brady had a mother and a father, and this time, I knew that Nikolai was a good one.