Hey, Daddy (Semyonov Bratva Book 2)

If the day keeps going like it’s going, I’m going to start booing people in conversations I’m not interested in being in.

—Nastya’s secret thoughts

NASTYA

The first thing I did that morning was check my email to make sure all of my reviews posted.

All of them but one had, and some of them already had comments.

I went to the first email that said “review denied.”

I read through the email and rolled my eyes.

“Why would you deny me because I said ‘dam?’” I asked the empty apartment surrounding me. “Seriously, it’s not a bad word! It’s an actual word!”

I’d been given an emergency dam to product test, and I’d written a review about how it was a “perfect dam” for small projects. And they’d denied the review because of profanity.

Jesus.

“How the hell do you expect me to write a review about a dam when I can’t write the word dam?” I grumbled as I went to the review, made a few modifications, and then republished it.

My next step was to go to the comments on my reviews and check them out.

The first review, which happened to be the review on the ice maker I finally got a hold of, was already showing fifteen comments.

I went to it and started scanning the comments, finding no issue with all of them…except one.

I frowned when I saw the very first comment.

ReviewerX: Glad to see you finally got a product to test, and not something more…questionable.

I frowned, then felt my heartbeat start to pound as I realized that maybe this was a bit more than just a random comment.

I pulled out my phone and started to dial Haze, only to realize we’d never exchanged numbers.

Writing out a huge note to tape to the wall across from the camera—in case he actually looked at the camera feed that spied on my living room—I gathered my things and headed for the door.

Today I had a secret shopping experience at a new boutique in town.

I was instructed to wear normal clothing—no dressing up at all—so I left the house in leggings, an oversized t-shirt, and an oversized hoodie that I’d stolen from Dima after his Air Force graduation.

I put on some oversized glasses that would hide the fact that I hadn’t bothered to put on any makeup, and pocketed the Jeep keys—I loved leggings that actually had pockets.

It was as I made it outside that my phone rang.

I answered it, despite the number being unfamiliar to me.

I got a lot of phone calls from random numbers, seeing as I advertised my number on my blog for people to call me if they ever wanted me to play secret shopper for their business.

I got a lot of random calls.

But there was one particular person that I didn’t have a number for that I wanted to call…

“You rang,” Haze drawled.

I wouldn’t look into how excited I was that he was calling me back, but only because he had stalkerish tendencies.

I should probably be way more freaked out, but I wasn’t.

Over the last month, I almost felt…empowered.

I loved that he was watching my every move.

I loved even more that he was obsessed with me like I was with him.

He’d been my every waking and sleeping thought since we’d had our encounter in the bathroom in my favorite fast-food restaurant.

“I see you got my message,” I replied.

“The big, bold ‘CALL ME ASAP’ definitely got the point across,” he said. “I should’ve left you my number.”

“I can’t say that we’re thinking all that clearly or rationally here. But listen, so I got a comment on my ice maker review that I thought might be interesting to you.”

“What did it say?” he asked, sounding a lot more serious.

I pulled my phone away from my face and sent the link to the ice maker review to his cell phone.

“Sent it,” I said. “It’s the last review. The one that says, ‘ReviewerX: Glad to see you finally got a product to test, and not something more…questionable.’”

There was a moment of silence as he followed the link, then read it.

He said something to himself, or maybe his partner, and then replied, “Have you gotten comments like this before?”

“No,” I said. “I mean, I get a lot of comments, a lot of which asking me questions about the product. But never anything like this. It almost felt…personal. Like he knew what happened.”

“It does,” he said. “I can set the computer techs on this, but I know that your brother has someone else that’ll look into this a whole lot faster, with a lot less legal hoops that need to be jumped through.”

My brows rose. “You want my brother to look into it?”

He paused, his words coming out carefully. “I would rather find the answers we’re searching for, with you safe, than have to put this through the correct channels with nothing to show for it.”

He was very careful not to say that he didn’t trust this particular case to be done correctly.

Cell phones and all that jazz.noveldrama

“Are you not going to get in trouble for calling me?” I asked curiously.

“Talking to a suspect that asked me to call her? No.” He chuckled. “Usually when someone tells me that they have information about the case, I don’t differentiate between suspect and helpful citizen. I don’t care who gives me the information, as long as I get it.”

I smiled.

But I realized that whatever was said on this line was likely being recorded, so instead of asking him what was going on at work with the FBI or whether he thought maybe he’d want to come over for dinner, I chose to keep myself quiet.

“If you have need of me, I’ll be out and about today. I’m doing a secret shopping experience at two boutiques today if you feel like maybe you have further questions,” I said carefully.

“Which boutiques?” he asked, also very carefully.

I replied with the names and then when I would be at both places before we hung up.

I shoved the phone in my purse, then was about halfway to my car when I noticed the figure leaning on it.

I blinked when I saw Dima there, looking angry.

“Dima!” I cried out and ran toward him.

He caught me easily, squeezing me tight, and said, “Why, exactly, did I find out that you’re living in the slums?”

“How did you find out?” I asked as I pulled back.

“Apparently, Shasha has a LoJack on the Jeep. He’s known you were living here since you had the car.” He paused. “Which, might I add, he’s not very happy about. He’s giving you the benefit of the doubt, but I can tell you for certain that he’s not very happy about the security here.”

I sighed.

I knew he’d find out eventually, but I’d really hoped that I would have more time.

Plus, now that I knew my neighbor…

“You didn’t tell me why you’re here, though,” I said. “Aren’t you supposed to be overseas right now?”

He grimaced as he said, “I might or might not have had an issue.”

“What kind of an issue?” I asked, suddenly worried.

“I might have been hit in a friendly fire and crashed a multi-million-dollar airplane,” he said. “I’m fine, but they said that I have mandatory medical leave for the next month and a half.”

My mouth fell open, and I moved toward him, lifting up the t-shirt that was covering his chest.

That was when I saw bruises.

All. Over. Him.

“What the fuck, Dima!” I cried out. “How could you not have told us about crashing a damn airplane? And friendly fire? What the hell is friendly fire?”

“Friendly fire is when one of your own people hits you.” He sighed. “And it wasn’t a big deal. I’m fine. My plane, however, was not. There’s some investigation going on right now, and I bruised my liver and kidneys, so I’m expected to have some downtime while things are being investigated, and I can heal.”

I didn’t even know what to say.

“Get in the Jeep,” I grumbled as I unlocked it with the key fob.

He got in the car, and I started driving toward the boutique in downtown Dallas that I’d be visiting today.

As we drove, he told me exactly what happened and how he’d been floating in the Mediterranean Sea for a fuckin’ hour before he was fished out.

He had several broken ribs, which he apparently didn’t want to tell me about because that might make me feel bad because I’d hit him like a “bomber” earlier when I’d first seen him.

I didn’t necessarily feel bad, though.

Dima, Milena, Shasha, and I had a rough childhood. You could say we didn’t necessarily care if we hurt each other.

Did we feel bad when they were hurt when it wasn’t us doing it? Sure. But not that bad.

“Why are we here right now?” he asked as I pulled into the tiny ass parking lot with the boutique in front of us.

“I have a secret shopping thing going on here this morning. The owner is wondering if the lower-income clientele is being treated poorly based on their appearance by staff. There have been several complaints by customers, and I am to share my experiences with her when I’m done.”

“Do you want me to come in?” Dima asked.

“Yes, but only after I’ve been in there for a while,” I said. “And don’t come talk to me.”

He rolled his eyes but did as I said.

I got out and headed inside, finding a middle-aged woman behind the desk sorting through some large cow-print blankets.

“Hello.” She smiled at me. “Can I help you find anything?”

“Oh, I’m just looking.” I smiled back. “Those are adorable.”

“They are, we just got them in. Come feel them. They’re so soft!” She offered the blanket.

I went and felt the blanket, then we got to talking about new products that were set to come in the next week.

Dima came in, and she greeted him with a pinched smile but continued to talk to me.

In the end, I bought a blanket, some cute as hell Wranglers that had flowers on them, and a new set of Hey Dude dupes that were floral print.

Dima bought a blanket for Milena and Maven, and then met me in the parking lot fifteen minutes after I’d left.

I was on the phone with the owner when he got into the Jeep, and his face was sour.

My brows rose as he got in and said, “That bitch is a man hater. When I went to buy the blankets, she didn’t want to give me them because I was ‘clearly not going to use them.’ When I said I was buying them for my sisters, she said that I probably was trying to make up for how poorly I treated them. When I asked her to elaborate, she pretty much told me how all men were useless, and that we use gifts as a way of manipulation.”

The woman on the phone and I both paused as he went into his angry explanation of how the last fifteen minutes had gone for him.

Which completely didn’t align with everything I’d just told her about her warm welcome to me.

“So it’s men,” she mused. “This definitely makes more sense to me now. Thank you so much for doing this. I had no clue you had male staff working with you.”

“Oh, my brother was a happy addition,” I said. “I don’t have male staff, but I’m definitely going to use him more.”

After we hung up, we headed to the next boutique.

“Why did I have to buy my own blanket?” I frowned at him.

His eyes sparkled as he said, “Because you bought it before I could.”

I winked at him and said, “Why don’t you go in first.”

He did, and I followed suit ten minutes later.

Dima was in deep discussion with the woman behind the counter, who’d also pulled in another employee that was on the side of the counter that Dima was on.

She was leaning into him, flirting and laughing.

Both women turned to me as I came into the room, and I could see the clear disgust on their faces when they took me in and clearly found me lacking.

I glanced at Dima to see that he was wearing his usual attire of Polo shirt, nice jeans, and nice boots.

He’d worn the same thing since high school when his high school crush, Ellia, had told him he looked nice in Polo shirts.

But, compared to me, he was in much better clothing than I was wearing.

I smiled and went about browsing, finding a few really cute keychains near the front.

“Of course she’d go to the sale items,” I heard one of them mutter.

Dima snorted.

A sales rack in the back caught my eye, and I moved toward the back corner with my eye on a shirt that said “Hey, Daddy” on it.

Grinning like a loon, I picked it up off the rack and hooked it on my finger and started to go through the rack.

A charged silence, paired with the door opening and closing, the little “dee-doo” of the chime announcing a new customer sounding, had me glancing toward the front door with curiosity.

What could cause the two chatty women to go that quiet?

Haze.

He came through the door, and his eyes went to me immediately, almost as if he’d known exactly where I was before he’d come through the door. Which I knew to be impossible due to the position I was standing in, paired with the sheer amount of shit they had in their front window impeding his ability to look through.

Both women went to greet him, but he completely dismissed them and walked straight to me, completely dismissing Dima also.

When he got to me, he hooked his finger into the front of my sweatshirt and pulled me to him.

I went willingly, and he dropped a soft kiss onto my mouth before saying, “Hey.”

I smiled and replied with a simple, “Haze. Hey.”

He pulled the sweatshirt neck out, and then glanced down my shirt, grinning. “I was hoping to find you bare under here.”

“Why are you looking down my sister’s shirt?”

Dima.

Damn, I’d forgotten about him.

Also, shit.

I glanced to the side and saw Dima staring at the two of us curiously.

“Dima,” I said quickly. “This is Haze.”

“Haze, as in Detective Haze Hopkins with the Fort Worth Police Department who has been following my sister around for the last month because he thinks she had something to do with a murder?” Dima asked, clarifying it all.

“That’s me.” Haze paused. “Not that I agree with the reason for following her around.”

“But you’re still doing it,” he pointed out.

“For now,” Haze admitted, turning so that I was standing against him, my side to his front.

“For now,” he mused, his eyes bouncing from me to Haze and back. “What exactly is going on here?”

“What’s going on is none of your business,” I indicated. “Just let me explore without you putting your nose into it.”

“I feel like maybe you’re asking a lot of Shasha and me without giving us any of the assurance that a normal person would need to make them feel better about you possibly dating the man who’s had you under surveillance for the last thirty days,” Dima pointed out.

“What kind of assurances do you want?” Haze asked, likely agreeing with Dima’s high-handed alpha maleness.

“How about you tell me what’s going on in the investigation?” Dima suggested.

Haze grinned and gestured toward me. “Are you buying that, Mama?”

His eyes trailed down to the shirt I was holding, and he shook his head.

Dima saw the shirt, then looked from me to Haze again, this time with his lip curled like he wanted to throw up.

I didn’t say anything, and neither did Haze.

Dima sighed and crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m not sure I like this.”

We both ignored him, and I said, “I have to go buy something, get one final test on how they treat me to give to the store owner, and then we can maybe go grab lunch.”

“Make it at Jack’s, and I can explain some,” Haze interjected.

I left them to figure out where we were going and headed to the cash register.

Since the girls had already started acting gross before I’d gotten here, I decided it would be way easier to video call the owner to save myself the explanation later.

She answered when I was about halfway to the counter, and I explained what I was doing.

She was silent as I tucked the phone into the front of my pants and then laid all the goodies I’d found on the counter.

Neither woman acknowledged me.

“Um, excuse me.” I smiled, hoping that would get them to look.

They didn’t.

“Hello?” I asked. “I’m ready to check out.”

Still nothing.

I felt more than saw Haze coming up behind me, and both women definitely acknowledged Haze as he came up behind me, caging me in. Both of his solid arms barred me in front of both sides as his large hands came to a rest against the counter on either side of my hips.

“Can you check her out so we can leave?” Haze grumbled darkly.

The woman that’d been talking Dima up from across the counter earlier jumped to do his bidding. “Of course, sir.”

Haze’s face came close to my ear as he complained softly, “Fuckin’ bitch.”

I snorted a laugh, causing the woman to finally glance at me.

We made eye contact, and I could see the clear disgust in her eyes.

She thought I wasn’t good enough for Haze.

It was plain as day to see.

I lifted my hand and curled it around his large bicep, my fingers digging into the flesh of his arm as I did.

His arm flexed, and he growled something into my ear that sounded distinctly like “you’re killing me.”

My gaze was so focused on the venom in the woman’s eyes in front of me that I didn’t hear exactly what he’d said.

The phone rang on the counter, and the second woman who’d been drooling over Haze but not actually doing anything, absently answered it with a distracted “hello.”

Her body went stiff, and she looked up at the cameras in the corner of the room, and then said, “Yes, yes, ma’am.”

The boss.

I wondered if she’d hung up with me to call them.

“I have this, Desiree,” the woman who carefully hung up the phone said. “The boss would like you to wait in her office. She’s on her way.”

This “Desiree” frowned and left the woman to check me out.

Which she did seconds later, though she didn’t charge me a dime.

“Have a good day, ma’am.” She looked at me warily.

I smiled and took the purchase, then Haze caught my hand and started leading me to the door where Dima was texting on his phone.

Likely contacting Shasha, if I had to guess.

“I hate that my kid shares a name with that nasty bitch,” Haze grumbled as I reached for my phone to see that the boss had, indeed, hung up.

I didn’t blame her.

I looked over at Haze and said, “It’s a beautiful name, Haze. Don’t let her take that away from you.”

“I won’t, but still. I can’t believe people like that actually get this far in life with having such disgusting attitudes,” he grumbled. “This is why I hate being a police officer. It’s like every day, you have to deal with nastiness like that and you’re expected to remain the better person. But fuck, sometimes being the better person is the wrong answer.”

“Welcome to the dark side,” Dima said upon us reaching him. “It’s a lot better over here. You don’t have to deal with bullshit being shoved down your throat.”

I handed Dima the keys to the Jeep and said, “Meet us at Jack’s.”

Dima didn’t have to ask where Jack’s was.

Everyone knew the place.

It was the unofficial, official “neutral ground” for everyone that was anyone in the area.

And, of course, Shasha shared ownership of Jack’s with Paul Green, who funny enough, had no “Jack” in his name.

When he’d first wanted to open the business, he’d been working as a chef in an upscale kitchen in Dallas. He was the husband of our housekeeper, Polina. One day, when Paul and Shasha had been talking, Paul expressed how unhappy he was with his life, and Shasha had urged him to open his own business.

Paul had, and now it was the “it” place in the DFW metroplex and one of the most sought-after delis in town.

Oh, and they were also very discreet.

Which likely was why Haze had suggested it.

I knew he knew it was owned by Shasha, though.

There was no way that he hadn’t made the connection after the last month.

“Okay.” Dima eyed the two of us. “See you in five.”

Then we were both headed in separate directions.

Haze opened the door to his cruiser, and I’d just stepped inside when a feeling of wrongness overtook me.

I frowned as I looked around, spotting nothing.

My gaze came to a stop on Dima, who was standing outside the Jeep texting, and my heart stopped.

There was a very large box in the back of it that I didn’t put there.

“Haze,” I said with terror. “Stop Dima.”

Haze looked at me, then at Dima, and yelled.

Dima looked up.

He took four steps toward us when the Jeep exploded.