Page 39 of Born into Chaos

She gives me another sweet smile. “You’re welcome.”

“I’m pretty sure blending didn’t require you to slide your fingers down my pants.”

Sveta leans towards Samantha and tickles her tummy. “Daddy’s being dramatic again,” she says in a cutesy baby talk.

I groan and open the back of the SUV. After Samantha is buckled in, I unload the groceries while Sveta picks through them until she finds one of her boxes of sugary, processed snacks.

“You want me to find one of your bark bars?”

“What are you talking about?” I ask her while she keeps rummaging around until she finds my box of granola bars.

“They taste like bark,” she tells me.

“They’re actually quite good and, yes, grab me one.”

She smiles and digs a couple out before we both get in the front. After handing me my granola bar, she unwraps her moon pie and takes a big bite.

“I don’t understand how you can eat so much sugar.”

“It’s what keeps me so sweet.”

I laugh while I scan the parking lot. “In that case, better eat the whole damn box.”

“I’ll forgive you that rudeness because I understand that no one can be happy while eating a piece of bark. If you want one of my moon pies, all you have to do is ask.”

“No, thanks,” I tell her, because that’ll be the fucking day. “I work really hard to stay healthy.”

With her mouth full, she says, “You’re doing a bang-up job, Vitya. Your abs are rock hard.”

I almost laugh at the awe in her voice. “Thanks,” I tell her and then force myself to not think about how good it had felt to have her skin against mine.

When I don’t leave the parking lot, she looks over at me. “What are we waiting for?”

I jerk my chin towards the far corner of the lot. “I think that’s the same white truck I noticed earlier.”

Sveta looks over at it. “I’m guessing there are quite a few white trucks in the city. It can’t possibly be following us. Who the hell would want to do that?”

“You’ve been assigned a bodyguard for a reason,” I remind her.

She dismisses my comment. “I’m sure it’s nothing. Just leave and see if it follows us.”

Despite what she might think, I don’t take orders from her, so I wait for several more minutes before starting the SUV and pulling out of the parking lot. The truck makes no move to follow us, and when we’ve gone a few miles and I still haven’t seen any sign of it, I hear her give a small grunt of satisfaction at being right.

Instead of arguing with her about how important her safety is and that I’ll never not take every possible threat seriously, I go back to my normal silence. She does her usual thing of fidgeting until she can’t take it anymore and then turning on some music. She keeps it low so it won’t bother Samantha, and after a few minutes, she leans forward and digs around in her tote bag until she finds what she’s looking for. Soon she’s hiking her foot up again and bracing her large sketchpad against her leg while her other hand holds several charcoal pencils. She quickly loses herself in whatever she’s drawing, and I wish I could see it, but she has it angled away from me.

I’ve never met anyone as talented as Svetlana. Her mom is an amazing artist, but there’s something about Sveta’s artwork that I can’t seem to look away from. It latches onto me and refuses to let go. About six months afterI started watching over her, she’d thrown away an old sketchbook that she said was filled with subpar drawings that deserved death by garbage. She doesn’t know it, but I’d rescued the book on my way out that night. I keep it in my nightstand drawer, and I look through it all the time. It’s filled with an odd assortment of drawings, because Sveta will draw anything that catches her eye, but she also has a vivid imagination, so the book is filled with everything from sketches of Rasputin, her Aunt Alina’s German Shepherd, to drawings of fantasy worlds with dragons and fairies that look like they could fly right off the page.

She’s fucking amazing, and I’d love for her to design a few tattoos for me. She designed all of Lara’s and the image for the Bratva. I’ve wanted to ask her so many times, but it always feels like it would be crossing a line by having one of her images permanently inked onto my body. It doesn’t stop me from saving several patches of skin, though, just in case I decide to use one of the drawings I rescued. It’s not like she’s ever going to see me naked. I could have it done, and she’d be none the wiser.

The rest of the drive is spent with Samantha asleep and Sveta drawing, and when I pull onto the long, gravel road that leads to the house the Melnikov brothers bought over twenty years ago, Sveta yawns and puts her pad away. She stretches her arms out in front of her, and I catch a glimpse of her charcoal-stained fingers. Everything about this woman is sexy to me, but there’s something about seeing her stained fingers that always gets me, especially if she’s been painting. The tiny splotches of color on her hands and shirt always drives me crazy, but it’s the small bits that she always manages to get on her face and in her hair that threatens to undo me.

I really hope she didn’t pack her painting supplies. Being alone out here with her is going to be hard enough. I don’t need her looking sexier than she already does.

“Better text your dad,” I tell her once I’ve parked in front of the large house. The Melnikov vacation home is more like a mansion on several acres of beautiful property. Even though this is the place I was stabbed, I still love it out here.

She pulls her phone out and sends a quick text. “Done. I told him you were being a butt, so I made you stop and get me a box of moon pies. He gave me a thumbs up and texted,Way to keep him in line. Damn, a moon pie sounds good. I’m gonna pick up a box on the way home. Text me if you need anything. Your mom and I love you, sweetheart. Don’t stay gone too long.

I grunt at his comment about keeping me in line, but the truth is I’m thrilled she has parents who love her so much. Mine were shit and never around all that much. Seryozha was my family, and he was the only one I needed. A familiar ache hits my chest at the thought of my brother, and I do my best to ignore it while I start unpacking and Sveta unhooks Samantha’s car seat and carries her inside.

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