Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 79211 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 396(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79211 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 396(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
“What?” he says, as he flicks the directional. “You don’t fuck around with that shit, Harper. Needs to be installed safely.”
The police station looms ahead.
“You’re a mobster, that’s what.”
He curls his lip. “In your world you call those fucking men mobsters.” He lifts his chest, his accent thickening. “I’m Bratva.” Another cut of his eyes. “We’ll have a talk about that later. You’ll have to practice saying it correctly.”
Another heart somersault. I keep it together. “I don’t think we’ll have time. We’re bringing home a child.”
“A child who will have a nanny and the endless attention of her Auntie Polina. We’ll have plenty of time.”
I frown at him. “Not sure I want a nanny.”
“You can spend as much time with her as you like, but the nanny’s not optional. As my wife, you’ll be expected to attend events with me, and we have hours of practice ahead of us.”
It’s a lot to take in all at once. “What if I want to be the one to soothe her when she cries?”
Why does my voice sound all shaky? Why is it that the only thing I can think of is the way my mother used to send me to bed and lock the door and I would cry myself to sleep?
Am I crying?
I turn my head away so he doesn’t see.
“Harper.” His voice is the slightest bit softer now. “No one is saying you won’t get a chance to mother your child.” We pull to a stop outside the police station. The weight of his hand is heavy on my knee, but I don’t look around yet. “I wouldn’t have planned on bringing her home to you only to deny you that. But devoting every minute of your time to her won’t work in our world.”
There are many things that won’t work in our world.
He parks the car and taps a text out on his phone.
“Telling Anton we’re here.”
“So you have a friend here.”
“Of course. Didn’t your father?”
When I left home, all he had left were enemies. I don’t answer.
The door to the station opens and a tall, fit man in his early thirties strides out. He nods to Aleks. Aleks pops open the back of the car and takes out an enormous box.
“Wow, did that materialize out of thin air or what?”
“Aleksandr has a way of getting what he wants when he wants it,” Anton says, and I can’t tell if it’s only a statement or a warning.
“Anton, meet Harper.” Aleks stands taller. “My wife.” I don’t miss the surge of pride in his voice when he says my wife.
My heart melts a little.
Anton extends his hand to me but one look from Aleks and he pulls it back and gives me a little wave. Ha.
“Now let’s get this going, we’re on a schedule.”
“Not even sunrise yet and you’re on a schedule,” Anton says with a shake of his head. “Alright, we begin by making sure we’re on level ground.”
The two of them get all sweaty and breathless anchoring the seat into position. It’s one of those fancy ones. Finally, Anton points to a little bubble on the base of the seat like a mini level. “When that’s in the center position, you’re good to go.”
They do some kind of brotherly fist bump thing, and we’re on our way.
I wouldn’t ever tell him, but it’s absolutely adorable that he got a car seat.
His phone on the dash has the directions I gave him on it. It says we’re only fifteen minutes out. This feels so different from other times. I’ve been here before, but always surreptitiously, never with the intent of taking Ivy back with me — and never with a dangerous man by my side. Some of his brothers look like they could pass as normal civilians, with some effort. But when Aleks leans slightly to the side to crack his window, the outline of a gun bulges under his tee. There’s nothing normal about him.
“I still feel guilty we’re taking her. It’ll wreck them.”
Aleks raises his brows. “This is the right thing to do.”
“So right, and I get that.” A part of me’s elated not to leave her again. “But I— they’ve had her since birth.”
“But she’s your baby. That’s the risk a foster family takes. The goal is usually reuniting the child with the birth mother, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know about usual but… well, yeah. It’s what they sign up for, I guess.”
He squeezes my hand. “It is.”
There’s more than that, though. I have so many fears. And even though I’ve already talked to him about being a mother and it helped, all of that worries me.
“What do I do if she doesn’t sleep in the middle of the night?”
“I think you’d… well, probably, maybe rock her. Give her some milk. Soothe her until she’s sleepy.”
I nod. Okay, I can do that.