Chapter 23

I was hoping to get through dinner with my mother without having to discuss Daphne or the pregnancy.

Appetizers haven’t even hit the table before that plan goes to shit.

“Pasha’s having a baby!” Mak blurts.

Thanks a lot, asshole. Thanks very fucking much.

Mama’s mouth falls open. “Pasha? Eto pravda?”

I shoot my blabbermouth brother a vicious glare before smiling at her. “It’s true.”

Mama looks at me expectantly. I don’t know what else she wants me to say.

“Well?” she prods when I don’t speak up. “Are you a medical miracle and birthing this child yourself?”

Sofi and Mak snort into their respective drinks, but neither one offers any help. Figures.

I sigh and set my fork down. “Her name is Daphne. You’ll like her.”

Whether you want to or not.

“Bozhe moy! One moment, you’re fighting me tooth and nail for even thinking about you having a family. And now!” She flails her napkin through the air like a whip.

“To be fair, Mama,” Sofi chimes in, “Pash wasn’t exactly thinking when he… should we say, ‘met her’?”

“Would either of you like to whip that bus in reverse? Maybe throw me under it a little harder?” I snap at my siblings.

Mama smacks my arm and passes me the potatoes. “Be nice. Now, tell me more about my future daughter-in-law.”

I damn near choke on my own water. “It’s not that serious.”

“‘Not that serious’?!”

“Not at all.” Sofi smirks and stabs her fork into the roast beef. “He just got her drunk, got her pregnant, and decided to live with her.”

Mama whirls on me. “She’s living with you? And you’ve not proposed?! Have you no decency?”

“I barely even know her, Ma⁠—”

The whole table erupts into a cacophony of Russian and English, both languages criticizing my life choices and skewering my “typical man brain.” The only other “man brain” in this room thinks this is all just fucking hilarious and joins in just to bury me even deeper.

I love my family.

But fucking hell, I hate this.

“Enough.” I raise a hand and, as much as they might defy me on a regular basis, the women in my family respect it enough to fall quiet. I’m still the pakhan at the end of the day. Still the one who wears the crown. “I know you have questions. I’m asking—not demanding, but asking—for time to figure everything out.”

Mama spreads her hands out with an incredulous shrug. “What’s to figure out? You are pakhan, and you are about to become a father. Are you going to sit here and tell your own mother that you’d prefer a bastard child take over the family business?”

Blyat’. I don’t have an answer to that and she knows it.

That doesn’t stop her and my siblings from looking at me like I’m about to give them one.

“I don’t want to stress her out. Daphne has been through a lot and⁠—”

“Psssht! Excuses, excuses.” Mama waves her hand at my bullshit and returns to her meal. “If she can live with you, she’s handling her stress just fine.”

My siblings exchange glances, the two of them way too smug for my liking. Outside this house, I am their brother, but also their boss. No one questions me. No one dares.

Inside this house, though?

All gloves are off. This is Mama’s house, and here, Mama is in charge.

But she must see something in me, because she relents. She always understood what it meant to lead the Bratva. What it takes. Even as Otets took, and took, and took from her until she was barely a husk of her former self.

She wasn’t always able to hide the bruises. She couldn’t hide the vacant hopelessness in her eyes, either, and the tears often fell freely when he brought home yet another mistress to fondle and fuck in their marital bed.

Until the day he fucked the wrong mistress.

I’m sure he would have loved to take credit for making me who and what I am today. But that would be a lie—all credit goes to my mother. Not because she ruled with an iron fist or kept our men in line with one hard glare like he did.

But because she showed me how to climb out of hell.

“What do we think of this Daphne?” she asks Mak and Sofi between bites of beet caviar. “Do we like her? Do we anticipate problems?”

“She’s great,” Mak answers with a genuine smile. “I’d say Pash could do worse, but I don’t think he could do better. She’s got a good head on her shoulders, and she can hold her own in a fight.”

Again, Mama’s head whips around to me. “She’s been in a fight? Already?!”

Sofi reaches out to calm her down. “I think what he means, Mama, is that Daphne’s tough. She’s got fire in her. And yeah, like you said, she’s managed to hold her own with this guy, so that’s gotta count for something.”

I glower at my family. “You all talk like I’m so terrible to live with.”

“Not terrible. Just… hard-headed.”

“Grumpy.”

“Demanding.”

“Stubborn.”

“Arrogant.”

“Hard-headed.”

“Short-tempered.”

“A royal pain in the ass more often than not.”

“For fuck’s sake,” I interrupt as they all break up with laughter, “I get it. Enough.”

Mama’s eyes twinkle as she rests a soft hand on my elbow. “The point is that we know you. But this Daphne… you need to let her get to know you, too.”

“I have been⁠—”

“The real you, Pasha. Not the pakhan. Not the man always in charge who gets his way without question. Show her the sweet Pasha. The artistic soul Pasha. My Pasha.”

I slump back in my seat. What she’s saying is insane. If I started doing any of that shit, I’d lose the respect of half my vors and God knows who else in our underworld.

But… fucking hell, I don’t even know what. I just know that none of it sounds quite as crazy as it ought to. Let her get to know you. That’s madness.

And yet… it doesn’t feel that way.

Hell if I know what that means.