Page 40 of Secret Bratva Baby
I turn away to hide my smile.
Maybe we are making progress in overcoming our issues. Maybe there is a chance for us to try again in the future. Isit stupid of me to dream of being a family with her and my daughter?
I can’t let go of the hope I’ve been secretly holding on to since I saw her again.
The moment my eyes took in her beautiful face, I knew I wanted her back. But it might be a lost cause to hope for things like that.
“I’m ready,” she smiles.
“Happy?”
“Yes. She’s sweet. And there are cameras,” she says, reassuring herself with a nod and a quick glance back at Lily.
In the car, Rose appears to be nervous and excited.
“What kind of work is it?” she asks, looking across at me.
“It’s one of our money laundering sites,” I say, fully honest with her. “It’s a coffee shop and laundromat. A niche idea that Niko came up with, and oddly, it’s incredibly popular.” I chuckle.
“It makes sense. Have a coffee, read a book, and wait for the laundry.” She giggles, a beautiful sound that immediately grabs my attention. “So, what will I do there?”
“It depends. For now, I just want to show you around, give you an idea of how everything works, and then you can decide if you even want to work there.”
“I’ll be fine working there, I’m sure?”
She says it like she’s asking me a question. I laugh and shake my head. “We’ll find out soon, we’re almost there.”
Luckily, we find a parking spot right outside the laundromat. It’s busy. I pull Rose’s door open for her, and she walks next to me as I lead her inside.
The coffee shop is playing good music, and there’s a nice energy around. We walk through the main area, her eyes taking in everything. She’s attentive and notices things I don’t expect her to.
In the office area behind the coffee bar, she sits down at the desk and takes out a folder of paperwork.
“This is how we take the money in and then flush it out clean on the other side.”
She asks questions and listens, and when she talks afterwards, I’m surprised by how much she’s remembered and understood. She’s sharp. She’s smart and an incredibly quick learner.
It makes me realize something else about her.
Yes, the first few days after I captured her, she was scared and tense. She freaked out—anyone would after being thrown into that situation—but since then, she’s simply taken everything in stride and made the best of it. She’s accepted that things are what they are for now. She hasn’t made things more difficult than they needed to be. She’s been graceful, and she’s even shown gratitude towards me for keeping her safe.
I wonder if she would show the same gratitude if she knew that I was, very specifically, the reason she was being targeted by my rivals. I’d mentioned that they might have wanted to use her to get to me, but I didn’t say it was because I’d purposefully messed with them. Taunted them.
Would she be so grateful then?
“And how many of these businesses do you have in the city?”
“Three,” I answer, enjoying her enthusiasm. “So, you would run the paperwork for all of them. You’d stop by each one, once a week, collect the paperwork, and make sure it adds up.”
“That sounds like a great job. I could collect the paperwork and take it home to work on it while I was with Lily? I could still spend time with her?”
“You can work wherever you like, as long as it’s secure.”
“How often do you come into these businesses?”
“I’m in and out during the week. I also work at the warehouse where the shipments leave.”
“I’d like to see that too,” she smiles.
