This is my life.
And I don’t want to go anywhere near the bratva. They’re the Russian Mafia. They’re cunning, cruel, ruthless, and will kill anyone who gets in their way.
It’s why I jumped at bringing Clare into my home, to protect her. She was a pain in the ass when I first met her and still is, but she doesn’t deserve to be around men who slaughter innocent people and probably hang their heads like trophies on the wall.
“Where is this going?” I grit my teeth and shut the door behind us.
Douglas leaves, giving us plenty of privacy, but then again, Amelia is staring at the two of us.
“Amelia, go in there. Clare bought you some new toys yesterday.” I point at the room where I shoved all the presents. There’s enough for it to be like Christmas for the kid. And while I’d like to see her surprise, I’d rather her not witness the two of us arguing.
Amelia skips off into the room that will be designated as a playroom after I shuffle the furniture around and paint the walls. Not to mention unbox all the toys. I’m not sure Amelia will be able to open all of them, but there was at least one stuffed animal I saw that wasn’t encased in plastic and cardboard.
Clare shuffles her feet and folds her arms across her chest. “Now, what was this about the bratva?” I angrily whisper, grabbing Clare by the arm and pulling her closer. I don’t want Amelia to overhear a word of our conversation.
The nanny stares back at me, her gaze never wavering. “My friend,” she says, careful not to reveal the woman’s name or identity, “lives with the bratva. Her boyfriend is bratva. Well, technically, fiancé. They’re engaged.”
“I don’t want you going anywhere near the bratva,” I warn.
“Or what?”
“I’ll fire your ass,” I snarl. “If that friend of yours or any of his buddies are within eyesight of my daughter, you’ll regret the day you met me.”
“That’s a big threat,” Clare says.
I half expect her to mutter that she already does regret meeting me, but I’m grateful the conversation doesn’t go in that direction.
“And I mean it,” I say, dropping my hold on her. My hands bunch into fists at my side. “Those men are monsters, and I don’t want my daughter anywhere near them.”
“I promise you that she’ll be safe.”
“You let me be the judge of that,” I say. If she thinks being friends with anyone associating with the bratva is safe, she’s wrong.
Dead wrong.
EIGHT
Clare
I’d love to avoid Levi’s heated stare, but it’s impossible. We’ve both agreed to put a pin in the discussion about my friend Sadie. Not that I’ve given him her name.
I also make sure to erase the text messages she sent me when she asked me to meet her for drinks several months earlier.
It’s not that I don’t trust Levi to respect my boundaries and leave my phone alone, but, well, I don’t know him that well.
And after being married to a man who would grab my phone and enter my passcode, which was my birthday, to view my texts and photos without my permission, I have difficulty trusting people.
I want to trust Levi, but we’ve been on rocky ground from the start. My fault. I rightfully earned the name Airplane Girl, and I’m lucky that it wasn’t something harsher. I deserved his anger, but instead, he allowed me into his home.
I still can’t make sense of how I got here, working for a billionaire and his amazing little girl.
We’re only a few days in, and it feels oddly like home.
The following afternoon, Amelia helps pick out the paint for the playroom. Levi and Douglas shuffle the furniture around, some of it making its way out of the room. I cover what’s left with drop cloths before we break open the paint.
Perpetual Petal. That was the color Amelia picked for the playroom, a very rosy and bright shade of pink.
I thought Levi would have a fit and insist that any other color but pink would be acceptable. Instead, he bought a can, a set of brushes, and rollers.