Page 79 of Nikola

I shrugged. “I couldn’t really see. The camera was covering her face and she was wearing a headscarf.”

He surveyed our surroundings, then gently urged me to turn around with a nudge on my lower back.

“Let’s get back home and deal with our parents.” I shot him a confused look. “Or I can throw you over my shoulder and carry you to the car.”

My cheeks heated and my heart fluttered. The sexual tension between us sizzled and the whole world faded away, leaving me with the world’s most intense male specimen.

“That would make quite the scene for the locals, don’t you think?”

He must have taken it as a challenge, because he picked me up and threw me over his shoulder as I squealed in surprise. I wanted to tell him I was joking, but as I wiggled, all I managed to earn was a slap on my ass.

And damn if it didn’t turn me on.

29

VASILI

Thanksgiving had gone to shit. What was my solution? Drugging my brother and Dante Leone.

Fuck, they might not wake up for days considering the amount of Ambien I sprinkled into their water.

“Will they die, Bella? That was an awful lot,” Alexei said as he returned from shooing Sasha and Dante into their respective rooms, along with their wives. When the two father figures started their bickering, their anger growing by the second, I called Alexei and had him join me.

Or maybe the better way to put it was: I had him help me drug them.

“They’ll be okay,” my wife assured him. “They’re both big men, so a little extra won’t hurt them.”

“At least we’ll have some peace and quiet for the remainder of the weekend,” he remarked.

“I love your positive outlook,” Bella teased, and his lips quirked.

“I’ll keep an eye out for Nikola and Skye,” Alexei stated, then as per his usual MO, he disappeared.

“Nikola is our only son, but I swear to God,malyshka, I’m tempted to murder him.” I shoved my hand through my hair, surprised there was any left from all the stress my family was putting me through.

“Maybe I should tell him not to come back home until you’ve calmed down,” she muttered.

I scoffed. “And is he supposed to take Dante’s daughter along? Maybe make another fucking sex tape?”

Bella glanced around the empty library room with wide eyes.

“Shhh, stop yelling before someone else hears you,” she warned.

“These children are going to send me to an early grave,” I gritted. “What have we done to deserve this? We were good parents, weren’t we?” I threw my arms out wide. “I like to think we were.”

“Vasili, you’re getting yourself worked up,” my wife said, her voice taking on a soothing quality. “Our children aren’t doing this to us. They’re just trying to find their place in the world, and it’s not for us to stop them. Nikola must have had his reasons for this… this… sex tape.”

“You don’t fucking say.” I shot her a dark look. “But was there a reason to send it to Skye’s papa, Sasha, and the Marchettis?”

“Well, maybe.” The hesitancy in her voice betrayed her. “Maybe he sent it to all of them by mistake.”

“A mistake,” I repeated wryly. “You don’t really believe that, do you,malyshka?”

She sighed. “No, unfortunately not. This seems like a rather calculated move.”

“For once, he acts with brains, and I can’t even be proud because he went and did”—I pointed at the cell phone seated on the counter—“this.”

My wife chuckled. “We have a thing or two to learn about kids these days.”