Page 30 of Her Rustanov Husband (Ruthless Bullies #2)

Chrysanthemum: Gotta admit, it looks like Yom’s definitely got this one on lock.

I wasn’t so sure, and I typed into the volley of changing bets…

Tasha: I’ll let my bet stand.

Because the thing was, from what I could see, Yom hadn’t changed in the six years since he’d iced me and Suro out. And if he’d somehow convinced Lydia he had, it would only be a matter of time before that mask fell off.

Rustanovs don’t forgive.

Which is why my eyes went wide a few weeks later when an email popped into my inbox. Polite, crisp, to the point:

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Nakamura,

I am Ingrid, Lydia Rustanov’s personal coordinator, writing on behalf of the Rustanovs….

I read the rest of the email, then I didn’t walk but ran to the personal gym I rarely set foot in but where Suro could be found every morning right after breakfast doing what Gracie jokingly called “Weapons Chi,” because it wasn’t quite Chinese tai chi and it wasn’t quite Japanese weapons training.

My half-Japanese, half-Chinese husband lowered the staff he was using for today’s workout the moment I blew in, his eyes lifting in question. Suro never wasted words when a look would do.

And usually, I took a few extra moments to appreciate how good he looked, glistening with sweat in nothing but a pair of black keikogi pants. Mmm-mm- mmm !

But today, I was too excited to get in a good ogle.

I held up my phone, breathless. “Yom and Lydia… they just invited us to Thanksgiving.”

One eyebrow rose. Barely, which was Suro’s version of a gasp.

Of course we had to go.

I RSVP’d yes before I even set the phone down, and at exactly four o’clock on the dot Thanksgiving Day, after checking in with a gate guard, we rolled onto the circular drive of a white-and-ivy mansion in Orono—a tony suburb about twenty-five minutes outside Minneapolis—with four of our five kids in tow.

Plus Dale, Spidey’s latest boyfriend, a thick-necked, barely out of college football player.

Spidey was a world-class gymnast and smart as a whip, but his type had always run to guys two to three times his width with…

well, I’d just call it “not a ton of intellect.” But Gracie had once unkindly summed it up as “dumb AF with steroid details,” and I couldn’t find the lie.

“Do you think they invited us here just so they could poison Mom and Dad in front of the whole family?” Spidey asked from the front pilot seat as we parked in a circular driveway filled with custom armored Titans. “Punishment for helping his wife almost escape his Rustanov clutches?”

“Spidey!” I turned in the front passenger seat to give him a flared cut-it-out look.

The Twins—as the music world called Sparkle and Kenji, our autistic opera-composing prodigy step-siblings—both tipped their heads in the third row at identical considering angles.

Suro’s eyes flicked to Spidey in the rearview mirror with a flat warning look, and Gracie smacked her brother on the shoulder.

“Ow!” Spidey rubbed his arm but doubled down. “I’m just saying, Yom hasn’t talked to me since The Lydia Incident, and I was only adopted into this family. We’re going to eat at these people’s incredibly nice house. I’m thinking we should be a little bit more concerned for Mom’s and Dad’s safety.”

“Our father is a retired hitman,” Kenji pointed out, pushing his thick-framed black glasses up on his nose. “I doubt he will be felled that easily.”

“But what about Mom?” A note of distress seeped into Sparkle’s usual monotone. “Mom isn’t a hit woman. She doesn’t even exercise.”

“I’m just kidding, Sparks, she’ll be fine.” Spidey turned his head to reassure his adoptive older sister over his shoulder. “Unless Yom offers her sweet potato pie. Then she’s dead, for sure—ow! Ow! Ow! C’mon, stop hitting me.”

Spidey shielded his face from another volley of smacks, this time from Gracie in the row behind him and me in the front seat. He deserved it.

Though, to be fair, he wasn’t wrong. Sweet potato pie would be my undoing if this was really a plot from Yom to get rid of his meddling aunt once and for all.

So yes, I had a little trepidation stirring in my gut when a sweet little old lady named Pesya escorted us through a couple of wide hallways into a den full of milling Rustanovs. Conversation stilled; everyone turned to face us with shocked stares.

I lifted both hands to say, “I swear, we were invited, and we’re just as surprised as you are.”

“Maybe this is the big announcement Tyoma called us all here for,” Nikolai suggested. “He is finally deciding to forgive the Nakamuras, even though Alexei didn’t force him to, like he did with me.”

“ Or …” Spidey stage whispered beside me.

“Spidey!” Gracie and I hissed before he could finish that sentence.

“Just saying, this scene is really giving incoming public execution ,” he muttered. “I only hope you all remember who got you the Nakamura family discount on all those Titans parked outside when the time comes to defend Mom and Dad against The AudacitYom.”

A hush suddenly fell over the crowd, and no one answered him. Which let me know who had arrived even before a still heavily accented—but much more grammatically correct—voice said, “Good. The final guests are here.”

I turned, along with my whole family, to find Yom standing in the den’s open archway. With a special guest.

Three realizations hit me in quick succession:

For such an uber-serious guy, Yom really did have a thing for big reveals.

Their coordinator had clearly told everyone else an earlier time; we’d been set up to arrive last, on purpose.

And the biggest dun-dun-DUNNNH of them all:

They had a son. Who looked to be around six-secret-baby-years-old.

Yom rested a hand on the shoulder of a light-brown-skinned boy standing between him and his new wife. He looked to be around six and had Lydia’s dark eyes and the Rustanov knife-cut cheekbones.

“Everybody,” Yom announced, “I would like you to meet my son, Dmitri Rustanov.”

“Alright, maybe killing Mom wasn’t why he gathered us all here,” Spidey conceded behind us,