Hey, Daddy: Chapter 18

What the fuck, over.

—Text from John to Haze HAZE “I gotta go get my kid,” I declared as I stood up. “I’m going to go pack a bag for my daughter and me first, then we’re going to go to a hotel for the night.”

As much as I wanted to stay with the woman that’d been catching and holding my attention since I’d first seen her, I had a kid to protect.

She held up a hand. “You could stay with me.”

“I’m not thinking staying with your brother at his place is the best idea,” I admitted.

Shasha snorted. “They’re not staying with me. They’ll stay at Nastya’s place.”

My confusion must’ve been noticeable because several of the group at the table laughed.

“What?” I asked in confusion.

“The houses that I built after mine, down the street from my own. Those were built as safe houses for my siblings,” he explained.

I frowned. “I thought those were going to be tornado shelters,” I said.

At least, that’d been what they looked like the last time I’d seen them over six months ago.

How exactly had I missed that they’d built houses?

And why the hell wasn’t Nastya staying there?

An obnoxious beep sounded on both of our phones, and I reached for mine as she left hers facedown at the table.

Milena and Maven both growled.

It was Dima who said, “Jesus Christ, Nastya. At least act like you care.”

I glanced at the app and said, “It’s at sixty. You need something other than the rabbit food you fed yourself.”

“I have a honey biscuit in my purse,” Maven offered, reaching in to get it.

“How long has the honey biscuit been in your purse, Maven?” Nastya asked.

“Um, since this morning around eight,” Maven admitted sheepishly.

“We’re at a restaurant,” I said as I walked away, heading to the bar. The moment I had the bartender’s attention, I said, “Can you make me a virgin strawberry daiquiri?”

“Ten-four.” The bartender walked away and was back less than a minute later with the glass.

“Can you give me like ten of those cherries?” I jerked my head toward the plastic glass holding them behind the bar.

“Sure,” he said and gave me a small bowl full.

I carried all of it back to the table and set them in front of her.

“Both, please,” I said. “I don’t want you to stop until you’re done.”

I should’ve paid better attention to what she’d eaten at dinner, and maybe I wouldn’t have heard that dreaded, god-awful sound.

“Sigh,” Nastya said as she drank half the glass, then stopped and licked her lips. “Yum!”

I crossed my arms over my chest and watched her until she was done.

Only when the last cherry passed over her lips did I look up and find…every single eye at the table focused solely on us.

“I’m going to head to the bathroom.” She turned and spotted her bodyguard. “Are you coming or what, Daniil?”

Daniil, the man that’d been assigned as her new protector by Shasha the moment we’d entered Jack’s, looked down at the tiny woman in front of him and said, “Where to?”

“The bathroom.” She rolled her eyes. “Do try to keep up.”

The two of them left, leaving me the only person left at the table standing and still being stared at.

“What?” I asked, disconcerted for a long moment.

“You got her to eat, and you got her to eat without bitching,” Dima answered.

I snorted. “Sometimes you just have to force-feed her.”

“We’ve tried,” Maven drawled. “Trust us, we’ve tried. She hates this disease.”

“I agree, I think she hates it, yes,” I conceded. “But she’s not being dumb about it. She just procrastinates. If you bring her the food, she takes care of herself. I think she’s just embarrassed when she has to do it in a room full of people—especially when she has to give herself insulin.”

“If she’d get the insulin pump, then it might be easier for her,” Dima grumbled.

I had a feeling this was a constant battle in the Semyonov family.

I also had a feeling that there was a lot more going on here than met the eye.

“She explained to you why she doesn’t want it,” Auden Carter pointed out. “And I tend to agree with her. It’s a hindrance. The pros don’t outweigh the cons for her.”

It also sounded like Auden was a voice of reason in this crazy, overprotective family.

“They might, but she’d always have the high blood sugar thing figured out, and she’d be able to sleep better if she knew she didn’t have to get up to fix her issues.” Milena added her two cents.

“You can talk about the benefits all you want, but you won’t get her to agree,” Shasha grumbled. “I’ve been banging my head against that particular door for years.”

“If he can get her to listen to her body—and that machine—I say we force them to marry.” Auden chuckled, clearly joking.

Yet, the thought of marrying her, of giving Nastya my last name and making her mine…

I snorted. “I don’t think we’re quite ready to commit that fully.”

“Your loss, my friend.” He grinned. “Even if you didn’t share what happened today with me, I would’ve understood, you know.”

No doubt that he would, but still. I had to keep it quiet. Him getting involved meant he got his father involved, and his father was the chief of police.

“So does this mean you’ll be moving in with my sister at her place by mine?” Shasha asked after a long moment.

I looked over my shoulder just in time to see Nastya slip out of the restroom, stopping next to Daniil’s solid bulk.

She said something to him that made him smirk, then she flipped him off and headed back to our table.

“I’m going to go pack my own bag.” She looked at me. “I’ll send you the address. Your daughter can come, too.” She paused. “She goes to West Dallas High, right?”

“Yes,” I answered.

“She can ride to school with Alexi if you want. His daughter is in Desi’s same school, but maybe not the same grade,” she offered. “You’re going to talk to her before you come, though, right?”

“Right,” I promised. “She’ll have to know at least some of it, because she’s going to question why we’re not staying at my place, and why all the extra security.”

“Good.” She looked at her family. “I’ll be fine.”

“You bet your ass you will,” Maven declared. “We’ll see you Sunday for dinner? I want an update, too, on everything.”

“Yes, Mom.”

“Make sure you stay with your bodyguard at all times,” I ordered. “I’ll meet you at your house as soon as I can.”

She lowered her voice so that only I could hear before saying, “Yes, Daddy.”

I felt delicious tingles all the way home.

I packed both mine and Desi’s things—what little there was since most of it was now at Ben’s place—and headed out.

I stopped to check to make sure Nastya wasn’t at her place, then headed out after the door didn’t open.

I was halfway down the hallway when something told me to go back.

I paused, clearly wondering what it was that was causing me to hesitate.

I took a look around the breezeway that would lead me down the stairs, then turned back to survey both of our doors.

Pulling up the app on my phone, I checked to make sure that Nastya’s apartment was, indeed, empty, then headed down the stairs to my cruiser.

The drive to Ben’s place took ten minutes, and when I got there, Ben’s wife, Kendall, and their twins, Castle and Carrie, were on the porch decorating the front glass with hearts for Valentine’s Day.

I left my crap in the car and got out, heading up to Castle and hoisting him up in the air.

He squealed and laughed, then said, “Hey, right there. I can reach the corner like this!”

I held him in place long enough to draw the most misshapen heart I’d ever seen, then put him down onto his feet.

“Me next!” Carrie declared.

I lifted her up even higher.

“You know, we’re never going to be able to get that heart off,” my sister-in-law drawled.

I loved Kendall.

I loved even more that she loved my brother so much.

They were a great couple, and I loved how sweet and welcoming she was to my brother and his twins when she came into their life.

Ben’s first wife died during childbirth, and for the first five years of their lives, Ben did it alone.

Then came Kendall.

Surprisingly, she was one of Julia’s friends.

Also surprisingly, the moment that Kendall found out about Julia’s affair, she’d dropped Julia and chose us over her longtime friend.

“I’ll hoist them up like that to clean it off when you want me to,” I teased.

“You better.” She winked. “Ben and Desi are inside finishing up dinner. They both got home late. Desi has a new boy at school that has a crush on her. Go easy on her when she tells you.”

I snorted.

I loved my kid, but I didn’t like her love interests.

They always left a lot to be desired.

When I got inside, it was to see Desi at the sink washing her dishes, and Ben standing up beside the stove shoveling chili into his mouth.

His eyes came to me, and they were sparkling with mirth.

“What?” I grumbled. “This better not be about the boy that Kendall just told me about.”

“Dad!” Desi groaned. “Come on!”

Ben was silently laughing as he tried to finish his bite of chili.

I flipped him off and said, “Just wait. You only have a few more years and you’ll be going through this with Carrie.”

That wiped the smile off of his face.

“Dad, why are we not staying here for the night if we can’t stay at your apartment?”

That got my grin sliding off my face.

And, since my kid was nearly an adult now, I let her stay in the room as I explained.

Everything.

An hour later, we were at Nastya’s new place, but nobody else was.

I pulled out my phone and called her.

With no answer, I decided to check the camera app, and nothing.

My next call was to Shasha.

He answered on the first ring and said, “Problem?”

I told him I’d only call if there was a problem, so he was understandably worried.

“You got an ETA on your guy?” I asked. “I thought Nastya would be here by the time we got here, but no one’s answering the door.”

“Code to get in is 883388,” he said. “Let me call him and check in.”

I let us in and was stunned by the house.

Now, I knew that she was crazy.

Who would give up a place like this for our apartment complex?

Look at me, ignoring all the red flags.

“Dad, this place is the bomb,” Desi declared. “And Finn will love the yard!”

“Yeah, baby. It is. And he will. Maybe we can get a fence installed, and we can bring him with us when that happens,” I said as I took everything in. “I think it’d be really hard not to love the hell out of this place. We’re never going to want to leave.”