Page 53 of Bratva Daddy
The thought of having a dedicated space to be small, to not have to be perfect adult Clara, made my eyes burn with grateful tears. "That's . . . you'd do that?"
"I'd do anything to take care of you," he said, and the sincerity in his voice destroyed me. "All versions of you. The bratty submissive who challenges my rules. The woman who runs charities and changes lives. And the little girl who needs chocolate milk and Disney movies."
"What if I get stuck?" The fear spilled out before I could stop it. "What if I regress and can't come back?"
"Then I take care of you until you do," he said simply. "That's what Daddies do. We provide safety and structure and care for as long as our littles need it. Hours, days, however long."
"You really studied this," I observed, something like wonder in my voice.
"I study everything about you," he replied. "Your needs, your fears, your desires. It's my job to know you better than you know yourself. To provide what you need before you know you need it."
"Is that why you already had little supplies? The wolf and the blanket and the coloring books?"
A slight smile crossed his face. "I may have been optimistic. You've been calling me Daddy since day one, even sarcastically. I suspected you might need little space eventually. The way you seek structure, crave boundaries, need care—all signs of someone who might regress under the right circumstances."
"Or the wrong ones," I corrected, thinking of the news report.
"Either way, I was prepared." He reached out, fingers brushing over Little Alex's fur. "Though I didn't expect you to name him after me."
"It just felt right," I said, hugging the wolf tighter. "He's protective and soft and makes me feel safe. Like you."
Something shifted in his expression, vulnerability flashing across his features before disappearing behind his usual control. "You can keep him, you know. He's yours now."
"Really?" I asked, even though I was already attached, couldn't imagine giving the wolf back.
"He's yours, baby girl," he confirmed, then added with that intensity that made my stomach flip, "Just like you're mine."
The words settled over us like a blanket, warm and encompassing. I was his—his submissive, his baby girl, his little one, his to protect and care for and cherish. And somehow, impossibly, this dangerous man who ran half of New York'sunderworld was mine too. My Daddy, my protector, my safe place when the world got too big.
"Thank you," I whispered, meaning for everything—the wolf, the care, the acceptance of parts of me I'd never shown anyone.
"No, little one," he said, leaning down to kiss my forehead. "Thank you for trusting me with all of you."
Chapter 11
Alexei
Thesecuritymonitorcastblue light across my desk, showing Clara curled in my bed like she belonged there. Little Alex—the wolf she'd named after me—was crushed against her chest, and even in sleep, her fingers worked through his gray fur in self-soothing strokes that made my chest tight with something I refused to name.
I'd been watching her for twenty minutes, pretending to review construction contracts while really studying the way she breathed, how her face had lost all its careful guards in sleep. Yesterday kept replaying—finding her on my living room floor, thumb in her mouth, tears streaming down her face as she apologized for problems that weren't hers to solve. The trust required to let herself become that small, that vulnerable, in front of me—a man who'd kidnapped her, who'd laid out rules like prison bars—defied every logical explanation.
My phone sat heavy in my pocket, containing the message thread with Ivan from three days after Clara arrived. "Needitems for age regression," I'd typed, no explanation offered. Ivan never asked for one.
Ivan was a good man. He understood me. Didn’t ask questions, didn’t judge. I had thoughts about him, wondered if he was a Daddy Dom, too. We’d never discussed it, of course.
Within six hours, he'd sourced everything—the wolf from an estate sale in Connecticut, handmade by someone's grandmother forty years ago. The blanket from a specialty shop that understood the weight and texture littles needed. The coloring books and crayons, the juice boxes, even the specific brand of chocolate milk I'd remembered her mentioning once.
Some instinct had told me she'd need them. The same instinct that had me checking on her every hour, bringing her tea she didn't ask for, choosing her clothes each morning like a ritual of care. Twenty-three years old, but something in her eyes looked ancient and infant simultaneously—someone who'd been forced to grow up too fast and never got to be small when it mattered.
I turned from the monitor to the window, Manhattan spreading below in the early morning light. Somewhere out there, men I'd had killed were buried in concrete foundations. Their faces visited me sometimes—not in guilt but in inventory. Seventeen by my own hands, dozens more by my orders. The Kozlov lieutenant who'd threatened Dmitry. The accountant who'd stolen from us.
Their blood was on my hands. The same hands that had held Clara yesterday while she colored princesses with purple hair. The same hands that had cut the crusts off her sandwich, arranged goldfish crackers by color, tucked her and a stuffed wolf into bed for a nap.
The contradiction should have bothered me. The pakhan of the Volkov bratva didn't make peanut butter sandwiches or keep juice boxes in his penthouse. He didn't spend three hours researching age regression psychology or order custom furniturefor a little space room that would arrive next week. He didn't feel his heart crack open when a twenty-three-year-old woman called him Daddy with complete trust.
But maybe that was the point. Maybe the violence and the tenderness weren't opposites but the same impulse expressed differently—the need to control, to affect, to matter. With my enemies, that meant fear and death. With Clara, it meant safety and care. Both were power, just wielded with different intentions.
My phone buzzed—Ivan's ringtone, the one reserved for urgent family business.
