Total pages in book: 49
Estimated words: 47716 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 239(@200wpm)___ 191(@250wpm)___ 159(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 47716 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 239(@200wpm)___ 191(@250wpm)___ 159(@300wpm)
Oh, Anton had a lot to be prideful of.
His greatest achievement, the one he didn’t even realize he had made until she was walking away, was his daughter.
“I can count on one hand the amount of times you’ve asked me to sit down and chat,” Anton said.
“Because you scare the fuck out of me on your good days.”
Anton didn’t crack a smile as he opened the door to his office. “I know.”
*
“Oh, dolcezza,” Viviana whispered, rocking the swaddled three-month-old baby. “You have to sleep, bambino.”
Anton snorted under his breath in the doorway, gaining his wife’s attention.
“You’re home.”
“Finally, I know. Sorry, Vine.”
Viviana shrugged, keeping the rocking movements going but Ana just continued squalling. “She won’t sleep for me.”
“Maybe if you’d quit with the Italian pet names, she would. The girl is Russian, baby. She knows it, too.”
“She’s only three—”
“She’s my daughter and she knows it. She might be a little dark like you, but she bleeds like me,” Anton said firmly. He crossed the space in the nursery, slipping his arms around Ana’s crying form to take her from her mother. “Here, dushka. Come to Papa.”
Viviana’s shoulders slumped the moment Ana stopped crying as soon as her gaze met her father’s. “She hates me, Anton.”
Anton gave his wife an angry look over his shoulder. “She absolutely does not.”
“She never wants me unless there’s a bottle in her mouth!”
“Sure she does, but she’s rarely been able to see me lately. She’s confused, that’s all.”
“But—”
“Vine, baby, she’s calm right now. Go get something to eat, drink a coffee, or have a shower. I’m good here. Demyan’s sleeping, right?”
“Knocked out cold.”
“Then go.”
Viviana gave her husband and now cooing daughter a fleeting glance before leaving the nursery and closing the door quietly behind her.
“Ana Christina,” Anton murmured, lifting in daughter up so her little nose touched his. Big brown eyes blinked back at him, happiness glimmering there as a blissful smile split her lips beneath her soother. “You’re being a bad girl.”
Tight in her swaddling blanket, Ana squirmed. She was beautiful already. Anton knew his daughter was going to be girl who broke hearts with just a bat of long lashes and a smile. His princess was fierce already—so crazy.
And despite what Anton told her mother, that little bit of Italian inside Ana’s blood helped to color up her Russian even more.
“Papa will always love you dushka, but you’re being hard on Ma. I don’t like that. No more, Ana.”
Another smile formed behind Ana’s soother, her cheeks turning pink.
Viviana put Ana to bed without trouble for the next week.
*
“Sit,” Anton said, waving at the chair in front of his desk.
His guest did.
He took the large office chair, as he always did. Head of the room, boss of the floor. His club in Brighton Beach was still the hotspot it had always been. Nothing much had changed in that regard. He still used it for business, too, although he was a lot quieter about his dealings now.
“How’s the boys treating you?” Anton asked.
An arrogant smirked formed. “Like they usually do.”
“So rough, then.”
“Basically. It’s easier when Demyan’s around.”
Anton frowned, thinking about his son. “Because he frightens them.”
And not necessarily in a good way, Anton knew. Demyan’s coldness could burn a person if they stood too close. He hated that Demyan had to lose everything to finally gain control.
“Doesn’t matter whose business I’m doing, Boss. To them, I’m always going to be Jersey bred and not Little Odessa material, you know?”
“Yeah,” Anton said, “I know.”
*
“Come on, dushka,” Anton said, holding his hands out with palms up. He wiggled his fingers teasingly at his seventeen-month-old daughter, trying to entice her to move her little feet across the floor. Her white shoes contrasted against her bright pink tights and the tulle skirt she wore. “Come see, Daddy. It’s four steps, Ana.”
Ana plopped her diaper-clad butt back down on the floor, giving her father a side look that spoke volumes without her even needing to say a word.
Not that the child would talk ... because she damn well wouldn’t. Well, barely.
She also refused to walk, let anyone else dress her without a screaming match, and God forbid Anton’s eyes not be on her at all times when they were in the same room together. She had attitude, opinions that didn’t need to be verbalized to be heard, and sweet Jesus, she looked like her mother to boot.
Ana Christina was spoiled rotten to her core.
Anton loved it.
“Oh, baby girl, you gotta walk.” Anton blew out a puff of air, glaring at the ceiling. “Papa says so, Ana.”
Ana shook her head, those black ringlet curls of her flying wildly around her shoulders.
Viviana stood off the side of the room, smirking in that way of hers. “I told you she wouldn’t. You carry her around too much, Anton. Why should she walk when Daddy carries her twenty-four-seven?”