Page 7 of Single Mom's Daddies
She shrugs, picks up her teacup. “So, I give them real ones.”
“They’re children.”
“They are Orlov children. What do you want them to be? Soft in the belly and blind in the world? Like those pathetic American schoolboys who cry when their football team loses?”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “I’m not asking you to deny anything. Just…don’t make it so fucking obvious.”
“You want me to hide the best parts of myself again?” Her voice sharpens. “I spent a decade pretending to be the wife of a man who couldn’t tie his shoes. I wore pearls and smiled while I slit throats behind closed doors. I wiped your mother’s blood off my coat and taught you to read on the same night. Don’t talk to me abouthiding.”
“I’m not your enemy?—”
“No,” she agrees. “But you’re a fool if you think you can raise children without blood in the room.” Her eyes are pale gray. Sharp. The kind that cut through lies and memory. She sets her teacup down gently. “I’ll not remove one single thing from these shelves.”
I nod once. “Then I won’t ask again.”
“You never had to ask,” she says, voice softening. “You just wanted to forget.”
I leave before she can say anything else.
Outside, the air is warm and thick with the scent of sun on stone. Somewhere behind the garden wall, the kids are laughing again. The tension in my shoulders doesn’t fade—it sinks lower, coils tighter.
My office is tucked at the back of the mansion’s east wing, shielded by soundproof walls and a biometric lock. It’s not showy—just dark wood, polished concrete, and the kind of glassthat stops bullets but not sunlight. A few choice paintings hang on the walls, none of them Svet’s. We keep his work far away from where we sleep.
I settle into the leather chair behind my desk and tap the tablet awake.
One new email from the auction house. Evidently, a new party is showing interest in provenance records. I reread the message three times. There’s no direct mention of federal agents. No code words. But I’ve been in this life too long to miss the scent of rot under perfume.
I write a bland, “No worries, I’m sure. Keep me posted,” email back. Nothing belying the panic inside. Collectors and the feds are the only people who care about provenance records. Things have been quiet for a while. This could go either way.
A window reflection shows my jaw clenched tight enough to crack. I force myself to roll my neck, exhale through my nose, and scan the room for something I can control.
The stack of invoices from our shell corporations. The list of names waiting for clearance to bid on the next “Svet drop.” The agenda for the quarterly meeting Nikolai wants to cancel again.
All of it carefully arranged. None of it calming. The truth is, the art is the cleanest operation we’ve ever run. No blood. No tracks. Every purchase a wink and a nod between men who want favors without contracts.
We don’t only sell Svet’s paintings. We sell safety. Silence. Power. The art is the front. The frame is the door. The price tag is code.
Buy a Svet, get a favor from the Orlovs.
But if someone in the government is getting curious, that’s not a minor issue. That’s a crack in the hull.
A knock at the door pulls me back. It opens without permission—because only one man on this property ignores protocol. Nikolai steps inside, barefoot and shirtless, towel slung low around his hips. His skin’s still dewy from the steam room. He raises an eyebrow. “You look like you killed someone with your calendar again.”
I don’t smile. “What do you know about Mila asking Olenna about the rib?”
He groans. “She brought it out at lunch. Set it on the table like it was a goddamn breadstick.”
“Did you tell her to put it back?”
“I told her to ask Olenna.”
I close my eyes. “Of course you did.”
“She listens to her, Roman. You know that.”
“I don’t want her listening to stories about gutting people with piano wire before she’s old enough to multiply fractions.”
“You think you can separate them from this life?” Nikolai tosses the towel over the back of the couch and stretches. “You think we’re raising them in a villa in Tuscany?”
