Page 36 of Her Rustanov Husband (Ruthless Bullies #2)

Surprise

YOM

As Stepan steered Yom’s Maybach out of the private airport’s small parking lot, the short message from the Havermore Institute popped up on his screen.

Cursing under his breath, Yom rubbed a hand over his face. This was the final nail in a shitty twenty-four hours.

It was the Saturday morning after a brutal away game. They’d lost to the Charleston Knights, and even an overnight visit with his brother—who hadn’t been able to make it to Thanksgiving because of Yom’s newborn nephew—hadn’t helped with the sting.

Even at only a few months postpartum, and complaining that Chess’s next doctor’s appointment would need to be a vasectomy, Billie had been so genuinely happy and looking forward to their first Christmas as a family of four. Their nuclear family was complete, thriving. Loving.

The complete opposite of Yom’s, which at this rate would soon be dissolved.

You can’t make a baby out of hate….

As Stepan merged onto the highway that would take them home to the Orono mansion, Lydia’s words from nine days ago blew like a harsh wind across his mind.

Along with the conversation he’d had with Dmitri the Friday morning before he left during what had become a habit of taking a morning jog for three laps around their pond.

Well, Dmitri ran. Yom walked fast while pumping his arms and marching a little, so the boy could keep up on his much smaller legs.

That morning, he’d noticed that Dmitri was noticeably less doggish. No barking at squirrels, no growling threateningly before he answered simple questions like, “Do you think you should take a bath after such a big run?” with “NO!”

“Have you given any more thought to what we talked about on the last run?” Yom decided to ask on the third lap of Dmitri not running off to bark at the pond ducks. “About what you want for Christmas?”

“Yeah.”

To Yom’s surprise, the little boy stopped running and tugged at the sleeve of his running shirt, the way he did when he wanted an adult to “come down.”

Yom obligingly crouched, so they were closer to eye level.

And to his further surprise, the boy petted his hair. In the same way Lydia used to when she wanted to communicate something important to him. Like he was a bunny. And not a wolf.

Not for the first time, Yom’s heart ached in his chest for the five and a half years that he didn’t know about his son’s existence.

Then came the usual spike of rage toward the woman who was responsible for that. The soon-to-be ex-wife who had failed to pay her required penance for what she’d done.

You can’t make a baby out of hate….

But now Dmitri—who was half of her—had that same hesitant look in his dark-brown eyes.

“Hey, do not look scared,” Yom commanded. “Whatever it is, you can have it. Anything you want.”

“Anything?” Dmitri asked, hope widening his face.

And Yom sensed another request about seeing “Mama Merry” and his honorary brother, Chris, again, even though they were currently in Germany.

But it was looking like he’d be sending Lydia away this weekend, per their updated marital agreement. Maybe offering him a trip to Germany would take away some of the sting of having her replaced by Ingrid, who’d already agreed to stay on as Dmitri’s nanny.

“Anything,” he confirmed, meaning it.

Until Dmitri lowered his hand to Yom’s shoulder to say, “The Christmas Anything I want is you to stop making Mommy sad.”

Yom froze, and his brow furrowed. “Why do you believe I am making your mother sad?”

Despite what Lydia had done, he’d gone out of his way to maintain civility whenever they were in the same room—while also making sure the number of times they were ever in the same room were few and far between.

And for Dmitri’s sake, he’d even pretended he was not still enraged at his mother for what she did… what she stole from him.

Dmitri pulled his hand from Yom’s to tick off the reasons on his fingers: “She never smile at you. She smile at everybody—even the mean grandpa at old people home who asked her to change his diaper. She never eats with us, like when we live with Mama Merry and Chris. And once…” He hesitated, lower lip trembling with the weight of a secret.

“Once, I had a nightmare, and when I went to sleep in her room, I hear her crying.”

“When was that?” Yom asked, even though he suspected he already knew the answer.

“Night after Thanksgiving,” Dmitri confirmed. “You was nice to her on Thanksgiving, and she crying because Thanksgiving over. Like Chris when it’s not Christmas anymore.”

Christmas… He hated that holiday. The cold Russian wind that pummeled his body after his mother left him on his father’s doorstep rushed through him. Freezing him to the bone over fifteen years later.

“Please!” Dmitri begged. “Mommy’s so nice. She help people and dogs. And she smile at everybody. You should make her smile at you, too.”

Little did Dmitri know that making Lydia smile used to be his only goal in life.

But that was then. This was now.

Yom stood up. “Tell you what. I will think about another better present for you, and now we will go back to house to see what Pesya is baking for us this morning.”

Dmitri stared at him with those unbearably Lydia eyes. Then growled low in his chest.

“Not nice to not keep promise !” he shouted before running toward the pond to bark at some ducks.

Eventually, he came back to the house with Yom because Pesya’s pastries had become a favorite breakfast habit. Forgetting his anger, as children were wont to do.

But the thing about keeping promises lingered in Yom’s head. Along with Lydia’s prophecy. You can’t make a baby out of hate.

And, the following Saturday morning, the vibration of his phone brought him out of the memory.

He frowned when he saw the name on the screen. “Why do you call me so much because you are too bored?” he asked the caller wearily. “You should find new hobby.”

“And you sound like shit,” Pavel answered. “What’s going on?”

Usually, he deflected Pavel’s annoying insistence on not being “that man who can’t emotionally communicate with other men” stereotype. But this morning…

“I am conflicted,” Yom admitted. The words tasted like the four-letter one he hated, which made him add, “For first time in my life” before giving his cousin a quick update on where he was on Day 90 of his contracted marriage.

“So let me get this straight. You thought you could just boot Bully’s mama out the second she didn’t get pregnant on your timeline?”

“Booting is letting her off easy,” Yom growled. “Normal penalty for crossing a Rustanov is death.”

“Not if it’s a secret baby, though,” Pavel insisted, as if he had some Rustanov rule book that Yom didn’t. “C’mon, man. That’s practically our brand. Secret babies, then the HEA! That’s how it’s supposed to go.”

Yom scowled out the window as the tree-lined road zipped by. “So you are advising I should contract with Havermore Institute and give her perhaps three more months on contract?”

Yom couldn’t say he despised this idea. Even if he now hated Lydia with the ice of several dead suns.

“I’m saying you’re delusional if you think Bully’s going to be okay without his mom. I mean, were you okay when?—”

“That was different.” Yom cut him off, his tone freezing over with warning.

A warning Pavel refused to heed. “I mean, she left you, right? And that fucked you up. So your master plan is to traumatize your son by doing the same damn thing if she doesn’t give him a sibling?”

“This is different,” Yom repeated.

“Well, here’s a different thought for you, cuz.

” On the other end of the line, Pavel sighed wearily.

“You ever try this new concept? Forgiving? And if not forgetting, at least joking about it over sweet potato pie at the next Thanksgiving—which, by the way, the family chain’s already decided you’re hosting again.

Actually made me kind of sad I missed it. ”

Yom let several cold beats pass before pointing out, “Rustanovs do not forgive.”

“Okay, Kool-Aid, that only applies to people they don’t love.

That’s what us Americans call the ‘exception to the rule.’ So do you still love her?

Because if that’s the case, I’m thinking three months of freezing her out while fucking her in a damn bedroom lab is enough punishment for one marriage. ”

The silence stretched. Yom wanted to answer nyet —of course he no longer loved her. Those feelings died the moment he found out about the secret she’d kept from him. He opened his mouth to tell Pavel just that.

But nothing came out.

“I do not like talking with you on the phone. You are only making things more confusing,” Yom muttered at last. “I am hanging up now.”

“Wait, Yom, seriously, c’mon.” Pavel’s voice sharpened. “I’m just saying, maybe you should talk to her, after Ruthie comes by for Bully—who I can’t wait to meet this weekend, by the way.”

Yom frowned, his eyes narrowing. “What do you mean, Ruthie is coming by for him?”

“The epic P.M.-Bully meet up?” Now Pavel sounded like he was frowning, too. “Ruthie said I had to come over because she’s bringing him to Mom and Dad’s for the weekend. Something about you having a thing?”

“Thing? What thing?” Yom asked as Stepan pulled into the circular driveway of the Orono mansion. “I have no things. No games this weekend.”

“Then maybe ask Ruthie,” Pavel suggested. “She should be there already.”

As if summoned by Pavel’s prediction, Dmitri came tearing out of the house as Stepan parked near the front door.

And Ruthie was right behind him with a roller board suitcase in one hand.

“I will not call you back,” Yom said before hanging up on his cousin.

“Papa! Papa!” Dmitri yelled.

Yom got out of the car just in time to receive his son’s enthusiastic hug with outstretched arms. “Dmitri! Dmitri!” he yelled back, scooping him up.

Dmitri loved to come running out of the house to give his newly found father welcome-home hugs. It was an uncomplicated love, unlike any Yom had ever known. And a certain peace fell over him as his son’s thin little arms squeezed around his neck.

But then he said, “Papa! Me going to see Ruthie’s real pit bull!”

“And you’re right on time,” Ruthie added. “I flew here commercial, but I’ll just take the jet back to Indiana. Maybe Stepan can give us a ride?”

As much as Yom loved to see his little boy happy, he frowned down at Ruthie over his shoulder. “I never approved this babysitting plan.”

“You didn’t?” Ruthie’s face fell. Then she grimaced. “Ugh, sometimes Mom and the aunties just decide something’s going to happen, then leave the rest of us to get on board with the plan.”

“No go see P.M.?” Dmitri asked, lip trembling. “But I thought… I thought…”

Unfortunately, over the last few weeks, Yom had discovered his boy was easily brought to tears by disappointment. And he did not know what was worse. That Dmitri cried so easily and without reservation, or that Yom could stand it so little, he nearly always caved.

He was beginning to see why the American-born branch of Rustanov children, like Nadia, were so very used to having their fathers wrapped around their fingers.

“I did not say this,” Yom assured his son before the tears could fall. “I am only saying I did not know of plan that apparently Aunt Sam is making by herself.”

Yom ground his teeth. Perhaps this was for the best. By the time Dmitri returned home from his visit, Lydia could already be moved out. Clean. Final.

No complicating things with more talk, as Pavel suggested.

Time to get rid of the boy’s mother.

Ten minutes later, Dmitri and Ruthie waved from the back of his Maybach, now sporting a child seat, leaving for Indiana with his full blessing.

Yom walked into the house, resolute. Still, his feet felt like lead as he climbed the staircase to Lydia’s room.

She would resist, of course. Maybe even beg him for more chances. But he would need to resist. Better a swift cut than more rot , he thought as he opened her soon-to-be-former bedroom door.

Only to find it empty.

Where was she?

His pulse quickened as he checked downstairs, then the backyard, then the other guest rooms, the library, the spa room. After thirty minutes of searching, he still could not find her.

But that was impossible. He had a 24/7 guard box at the house’s front entrance. And he’d had her ring chipped this time, just in case she tried to pull the old phone trick again.

That reminded him to pull out his phone and check the security app for the ring’s chip. But he furrowed his brow when he saw her current location.

“What are you doing?” he demanded when he opened the door to his own room.

To find her lying on top of his bed.

Completely naked.

Desire punched him low and dirty, his cock straining in a painful instant.

But he forced his face into neutrality as he crossed the room to confront her. “After seeing you are still not pregnant, are you thinking you can seduce me into letting you stay?”

“Okay, you got me. I thought I’d give it a shot.” She grimaced. “Since Plan B is so extreme.”

His eyes narrowed. “What is Plan B?”

Her answer came fast and hard—a jab into his upper arm, bare because he’d taken off his leather jacket while searching for her and was only wearing a T-shirt.

Yom caught her wrist instinctively, confusion flashing into alarm when he saw her fist closed around a syringe.

“What…?”

The world tilted. His grip slackened. And a sudden dizziness hit him like a tidal wave, sweeping him under. He tried to talk, but staggered forward instead.

And Lydia scrambled out of the way—right before he collapsed face-first on the bed in a sea of black.

Only to gasp awake, who knew how long later. He was still in his room. Lying in his own bed, even.

But he was on his back. Stripped completely naked, with cold metal shackles fastened around his wrists. And his ankles.

“What in the hell…?”

Cursing in Russian, he yanked and rattled the chains. But they held tight, refusing to let his arms or legs move more than a few inches from his spread-eagle position.

“Oh, thank goodness, you’re waking up!” Lydia’s voice said from somewhere he couldn’t see.

A hazy blur figure appeared above his prone body, her expression relieved. “I was so scared I gave you too much.”

He blinked against the haze until Lydia’s face sharpened above him.

“What…” Yom choked out. He was almost too enraged to form words. “What the hell do you think you are doing?”

Lydia’s face fell. Then hardened—right before she climbed onto the bed and straddled his stomach, her lush ass settling right above his dick.

“So, here’s the thing, Yom….” She regarded him with a frank look. “It’s time for us to have a rough conversation .”