Page 176 of The Enemy Protector
When we finally break apart, I’m breathless. “I’m trusting you to handle it. Just tell me when you do.”
He arches one brow.
“What?” I shrug. “I know you will.”
He grabs my ass and squeezes, jerking my body against his. “I love it when you’re demanding.”
“Yeah?”
He nods slowly.
I twist my hand in the front of his shirt. “Good, because tonight, I will have plenty of demands.”
42
Sergei
I stare at the instruction manual like it’s written in ancient Greek. Step twelve makes no fucking sense.
“This is bullshit,” I mutter, tossing the manual aside.
I’ve orchestrated hits across three continents. I’ve dismantled rival operations. I’ve built an empire and killed men with my bare hands.
None of that matters in this room.
I’m being defeated by Swedish furniture.
I pick up the rail again, examining the connection points. There has to be a logical sequence here. Everything has a pattern, if you look hard enough.
The Moscow situation wrapped up three weeks ago. The last brother went down in a café in St. Petersburg. Clean. Quiet. No witnesses. The other two had been equally efficient. A car accident in Moscow. A heart attack in Minsk.
Natural causes, as far as anyone can prove.
The Ghost isn’t as difficult to manage as his reputation suggests. He values money. It’s never personal. And I have plenty of money. After paying out the contract on Sofia’s head, he walked away. Moved on to Italy.
When it came to handling the brothers, I knew who to reach out to. I hired the best. He could retire and live comfortably on his own island with the money I’ve paid him in the last six months.
But he won’t. Men like him don’t retire. They wait for the next job and tempt fate all over again.
The families meeting happened ten days ago. Castellano spoke first, as he always does when he wants to appear reasonable. The others fell in line. Sofia's name at the head of the Baranov table, backed by mine, was enough. The city is stable. For now that's all anyone can ask for.
I haven’t told Sofia the details. She hasn’t asked. Which means she’s already figured it out and chosen to let me handle it without her input. That’s growth. That’s trust.
Or maybe she’s just too exhausted from growing two humans to care about the logistics of eliminating threats.
I finally get the rail to click into place. Progress.
My phone buzzes. I ignore it. Kirill knows not to call unless it’s an emergency, and anything short of nuclear war can wait until morning.
I sit back on my heels, looking at the partially assembled crib. Sofia picked it out three weeks ago. Our evenings are spent browsing websites that sell everything related to babies. And apparently, babies need a lot of shit. Multiply that by two. And that’s why it’s midnight and I’m building a crib.
At the rate I’m going, I’m going to need five years to build these fucking things.
I’ve never done anything like this. Never prepared a nursery. Never built furniture for children I helped create. My father certainly never did. He had people for that. Staff who handled the domestic details while he focused on running the empire.
But I want to do this.
I need to prove to myself that I can be more than what he was. More than a pakhan who only knows violence and strategy. I can be a father who assembles cribs because he wants his sons to have something he built with his own hands.
