Page 11 of Secret Bratva Baby (Dubrov Bratva #16)

When I realize that she has been worrying about work, it immediately becomes the perfect opportunity.

I don’t hesitate to offer her a job. For me, it doesn’t matter if she works or not.

If she belonged to me, I would take care of her and Lily and everything they needed.

But if she wants to work, then I can use this to my advantage.

“Great. I’ll make a few calls tonight and arrange things.”

We both stand for a moment. I realize I’m still holding her. I don’t want to let her go, but it’s clear the mood has shifted.

I take a reluctant step away from her, brushing my fingers through my hair.

“Dinner will be served in thirty minutes,” I say, my gaze turning to Lily.

She’s sitting on the grass now, giving up with the butterfly hunting, digging a hole between the lush green blades.

“Lily, no, honey,” Rose says, worried when she sees the mess Lily is making of the lawn. “You can’t dig holes in the grass, baby.” She huffs, lifting Lily and her dirt-coated hands into her arms.

“It’s okay. Grass grows back. Don’t worry about it.”

“No, the place looks so beautiful. I’m really sorry about that,” Rose says nervously.

“I promise you, in a week or two, you won’t even see the hole anymore.”

I touch my hand against her lower back and gently push her towards the house. “Let’s go and get some dinner.”

***

I wake up excited to take Rose with me to one of our business operations.

I want to show her something—not quite what happens at the warehouses, but definitely enough to allow her to see what my life is like.

That’s why I was so eager to offer her a job.

It’s the perfect way to introduce her to my lifestyle.

To show her it’s not all shooting and kidnapping and things like that.

We do business. We work. There are good people around.

In the kitchen, Rose has made me a cup of coffee. She jumps, spilling some of it when I almost bump into her as I walk through the door. “Were you bringing that to me?” I ask, curiously.

“Yes, I thought you’d overslept. I just wanted—I was going to—I—" she stammers.

“That’s really sweet. I can’t remember the last time someone woke me up with coffee in the morning.”

“That’s something I don’t want to think about,” she huffs, rolling her eyes. I chuckle, sensing a touch of jealously. I don’t tell her that she was the last person to make me coffee in the morning. I haven’t let anyone else close enough since.

Her cheeks are flushed red after she realizes she hinted at being jealous. It makes me smile even wider.

“Are you ready?” I ask.

“What about Lily?” she frowns. “Surely she can’t come with us?”

“No, the babysitter is arriving any minute. She comes highly recommended by my brother’s wife, and Serafina is crazy strict about her vetting process when it comes to her kids, so I knew it was the only option.”

Rose nods. “Are you sure?”

“One hundred percent. And we have cameras set up in the house. We can check in on them at any time.”

Rose takes a deep breath. “Okay. Then I’ll grab my purse, and as soon as she arrives, we can go.”

Rose is wearing a tightly fitted gray dress with a gray blazer over it. Her black heels and black purse look slick and professional. She looks ridiculously sexy.

She talks to Mila, the au pair Serafina put me in touch with, when she arrives.

I’m waiting patiently, understanding that she needs to be comfortable with the girl before leaving Lily with her.

I trust Serafina—I know how pedantic she is about who she allows near her kids.

Niko would have investigated the hell out of that girl already.

Lily, on the other hand, has already chosen Mila as her new best friend. She’s trying to drag her towards the toybox I had set up in the living room.

Rose laughs, shaking her head. “Alright, and you’ll call if anything happens,” she says sternly.

“Of course, your husband gave me his number. I will call immediately if I need anything, or even if I have a question about Lily.”

“My um, my husband—um, yes, okay. Lily, honey, come say goodbye, Mommy is going to work.”

She didn’t correct the girl.

I turn away to hide my smile.

Maybe we are making progress in overcoming our issues. Maybe there is a chance for us to try again in the future. Is it stupid of me to dream of being a family with her and my daughter?

I can’t let go of the hope I’ve been secretly holding on to since I saw her again.

The moment my eyes took in her beautiful face, I knew I wanted her back. But it might be a lost cause to hope for things like that.

“I’m ready,” she smiles.

“Happy?”

“Yes. She’s sweet. And there are cameras,” she says, reassuring herself with a nod and a quick glance back at Lily.

In the car, Rose appears to be nervous and excited.

“What kind of work is it?” she asks, looking across at me.

“It’s one of our money laundering sites,” I say, fully honest with her. “It’s a coffee shop and laundromat. A niche idea that Niko came up with, and oddly, it’s incredibly popular.” I chuckle.

“It makes sense. Have a coffee, read a book, and wait for the laundry.” She giggles, a beautiful sound that immediately grabs my attention. “So, what will I do there?”

“It depends. For now, I just want to show you around, give you an idea of how everything works, and then you can decide if you even want to work there.”

“I’ll be fine working there, I’m sure?”

She says it like she’s asking me a question. I laugh and shake my head. “We’ll find out soon, we’re almost there.”

Luckily, we find a parking spot right outside the laundromat. It’s busy. I pull Rose’s door open for her, and she walks next to me as I lead her inside.

The coffee shop is playing good music, and there’s a nice energy around. We walk through the main area, her eyes taking in everything. She’s attentive and notices things I don’t expect her to.

In the office area behind the coffee bar, she sits down at the desk and takes out a folder of paperwork.

“This is how we take the money in and then flush it out clean on the other side.”

She asks questions and listens, and when she talks afterwards, I’m surprised by how much she’s remembered and understood. She’s sharp. She’s smart and an incredibly quick learner.

It makes me realize something else about her.

Yes, the first few days after I captured her, she was scared and tense.

She freaked out—anyone would after being thrown into that situation—but since then, she’s simply taken everything in stride and made the best of it.

She’s accepted that things are what they are for now.

She hasn’t made things more difficult than they needed to be.

She’s been graceful, and she’s even shown gratitude towards me for keeping her safe.

I wonder if she would show the same gratitude if she knew that I was, very specifically, the reason she was being targeted by my rivals. I’d mentioned that they might have wanted to use her to get to me, but I didn’t say it was because I’d purposefully messed with them. Taunted them.

Would she be so grateful then?

“And how many of these businesses do you have in the city?”

“Three,” I answer, enjoying her enthusiasm. “So, you would run the paperwork for all of them. You’d stop by each one, once a week, collect the paperwork, and make sure it adds up.”

“That sounds like a great job. I could collect the paperwork and take it home to work on it while I was with Lily? I could still spend time with her?”

“You can work wherever you like, as long as it’s secure.”

“How often do you come into these businesses?”

“I’m in and out during the week. I also work at the warehouse where the shipments leave.”

“I’d like to see that too,” she smiles.

“Are you hungry? There’s a great place across the road that has toasted bread with the most amazing pastrami on it. They put rocket, sweet mustard, and—"

“It sounds incredible. I’d love to have lunch with you.” She laughs. Then she stands up a little straighter, realizing what she’s said.

“It’s a date,” I tease her, knowing I’m pushing my luck.

I could get used to this. Talking business with a beautiful woman, laughing, sneaking out for lunch, and enjoying her company.

This is what I want.

***

“Luka Andreev. It’s been a while.”

His voice grates on my nerves before I’ve even looked up to see his face. Rose and I are still in the doorway of the laundromat. The smile drops from my face, and my eyes turn to hard stone as I glare at my rival. I push her slightly behind me, not making it obvious.

“Romain,” I greet him coldly. Every fiber in my body is on high alert. My hand is ready to reach for my gun if this asshole so much as blinks wrong.

He’s not as high up in the ranks as the family who is after Rose, but he’s high enough to have an ego. And high enough to try something stupid, mistakenly thinking he can get away with it.

“You never did apologize for what you did to my truck last month. I warned you that you’d pay eventually,” he sneers, obviously looking for a fight.

His hand is hovering over his hip, and I can see the bulge of his pistol beneath his jacket.

My heart is racing, my skin feels as though there are a thousand needles scratching the surface.

“I believe you brought that issue upon yourself, Romain. Next time, keep your nose out of other people’s business, and you won’t end up in my line of fire.”

He doesn’t like my answer. Was he expecting an apology?

I steal a glance up and down the street, looking for anything suspicious. Romain might be a distraction.

“Speaking of line of fire…” He brushes his jacket back to reveal his gun. A direct, unmistakable threat. It’s bold of him. Incredibly stupid, but bold.

I tilt my head, daring him to make a move. He knows I’m faster than him. We’ve played this game before, and his brother ended up shot in the leg while he stood there with his weapon removed from his grasp. I was lenient that day. Apparently, he took my leniency for weakness.

Romain glances around, noting for the first time that I have two security guards standing just inside the coffee shop in plain clothing, undercover to the customers sitting inside waiting for their laundry.

A normal person wouldn’t notice the weapons beneath their heavy jackets.

Or the fact that they’re wearing thin Kevlar jackets.

I don’t need their backup for just one guy. I can take Romain on my own. But if he has a team hiding somewhere, their presence will be enough to throw him off—I hope.

“Maybe next time, we can talk about this again.” He pulls his mouth tight, angry to be standing down.

Before he leaves, he takes a good, long, hard look at Rose, which angers me in ways I can’t explain.

I push her further behind me. She has nothing to do with anything that’s happened between Romain and me.

Suddenly, I realize that her presence here has me ten times more anxious than I normally am in situations like this. I don’t want her hurt. I don’t want a single scratch on her perfect body. She is my weakness, and now Romain might have noticed that.

I watch him walk away, keeping my eyes tight on him, waiting for him to spin around and take the shot he threatened to take a moment ago.

Dammit.

I shouldn’t have reacted when he looked at Rose. I gave away her meaning to me. He could see it in the way I tried to protect her from his stare. Sure, I could explain it away. But people in my world know how to recognize those we care about. They know how to use them against us.

My stomach knots. This is bad.

And he ended the conversation so abruptly, I’m wondering if he has something else planned.

I glance up and down the open street; sometimes meetings like that are just precursors to something worse. My heart starts racing faster. I’m not willing to take that risk. Not with Rose here. Any other day, and I would’ve climbed into my car, trusted the armored protection of the vehicle and left.

Today I’m not willing to do that. I quickly decide on a more cautious option.

Turning, I grab Rose’s hand and push her back into the coffee shop. “We have to get you somewhere safe,” I snap, pulling her along with me as I bolt down the stairs behind the washing machines, past the door that states ‘Employees Only.’

“Luka, what’s going on?” she huffs, out of breath, as I hurry down a passage towards a locked room, a built-in safe place for bomb threats or attacks.

I push her inside, walk in after her, and shut the door. It can only be opened with a code. My brothers and I are the only ones who know it.

My head spins as I pace up and down.

Should I call Yilian to come down here with a team? Or should I just wait this out for an hour or two?

“Luka,” she shouts. “Don’t ignore me. Tell me what’s going on?”

The urgency in her voice makes me turn towards her, sighing in frustration.

“I had to be sure, Rose. I’m sorry. Sometimes a meeting like that, with Romain—it’s just an arrogant ‘goodbye’ of sorts right before they execute you.

And the way he was taking note of you made my skin crawl.

I wanted to tear his eyes out.” The veins on my neck throb, angry and pulsing.

My head is spinning again, remembering how his gaze lingered on her.

Fuck. I’ve really messed up by showing him she means something to me.

“Hey,” she says gently, her voice immediately soothing me. “Look at me. Stop walking for a second. Just look at me.”

I clench my jaw, stopping my fidgeting and anxious movement, and look into her eyes. Beautiful, soft, doll-like ocean eyes. Her clear, bright gaze pierces into my mind.

For a moment, I am transported somewhere else. Somewhere peaceful and calm and far away from any danger.

She reaches up and touches my face.

“I’m completely fine, Luka. Everything is fine,” she whispers gently.

Her fingers trace over my jaw, delicate and slow, leaving a trail of heat and desire on my skin.