Hey, Daddy (Semyonov Bratva Book 2)

I’m not demure. I have ADHD. Very forgetful. Very chaotic. Very anxious.

—Desi to Haze

HAZE

“I like her. A lot,” my mother said as she eyed the woman that I knew, after today, I was going to fight hard to make her my wife.

“I do, too,” Desi whispered.

“She’s great with the dogs,” my dad said.

I looked at my old man, who seemed to have aged in the week that I’d seen him, and said, “That’s a pretty big compliment coming from you.”

He grinned.

Dad was a vet.

He’d been a vet for a very long time.

Though he wasn’t a small animal veterinarian, he helped my mom out as much as he could when he had the time. Which, admittedly, wasn’t all that much.

Dad was a world-renowned horse vet that sometimes traveled around the country to follow his charges.

That was where he’d been for the last week.

He was checking over a horse that was said to possibly be the winner of this year’s Kentucky Derby.

“What happened with the horse?” I asked.

“Long fuckin’ story,” he grumbled. “One I’d rather not get into right now since I’m finally having a good day after the last couple really shitty ones. I’m sure you’ll see it in the news, anyway.”

I had a feeling I’d already seen his ‘bad day.’

I’d just been hoping that it wasn’t him that had been involved with it.

A horse had been administered the horse equivalent of speed and had died during a practice run.

It was awful, and I couldn’t believe that we lived in a world that was so shitty.

Animals were gifts, and people treated them with no respect.

I’d seen that time and time again over the years, following my parents around from an adoption event to a horse race.

“This one.” Nastya pointed at an orange kitten. “I think for sure this one.”

The little girl looked torn. “But that white one looks kind of pretty, too.”

The mother that was with the little girl snorted. “We’re not getting two, darling.”

“But Mom…”

“They actually say that you can’t have just one kitten. That they’ll be more sociable if you get two. But not from the same litter. Though I think that might’ve been dogs.” Nastya grinned sheepishly at the mother.

“Oh, a dog!” the little girl cried.

“I think I’d rather have two kittens,” the mother muttered.

“Perfect!” the little girl cried again. “We can get the orange one and the white one!”

Nastya flashed me a grin of triumph, and I winked at her.

The new front desk girl led the mom and the girl over to the desk where they filled out their paperwork, and Nastya came to me.

“Oh!” she cried. “You’re Haze’s dad.”

I winked. “How did you know?”

“Because he’s incredibly handsome, looks like he could be your brother, and man, you Hopkins men age well.” She looked back and forth from me to my dad.

“Let me tell you something,” Mom sighed. “It’s hard work trying to keep up with this one. He ages like fine wine, and I’m constantly having to put in so much work to keep myself looking good so no one comments on our disparities.”

I gagged. “Mother.”

“You’re the most beautiful woman in the world, Renee,” my dad shmoozed.

I pulled Nastya toward me and muttered, “Look what you did.”

“What?” She looked confused.

“Now Grams and Gramps are gonna get all kissy kissy,” Desi said. “And you know, it’s weird enough when your dad does it. When your grandparents do it, it’s like something shriveled up inside you and died.”

“Hey!” Mom said in affront.

Dad chuckled, then held out his hand to Nastya.

“Nice to meet you,” he said. “I’m Cade.”

“Nastya,” she said. “It’s nice to meet you, too.”

“Would y’all like to come to eat with us for dinner? We’re meeting the kids—Caroline, Kingston, Benedict, and Kendall. I think they’re going in on a babysitter, so it’ll only be the adults.”

I looked at Desi. “That means you can’t go.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m going.”

“It’s over twenty-one,” Mom said unapologetically. “But I’ll offer you two hundred dollars to watch the kids so Ben and Caroline don’t have to get a babysitter.”

“Deal,” she said, narrowing her eyes at me. “Take me there now, Hopkins.”

“Why now?” I asked. “Dinner’s not for at least three more hours.”

“Because I have to prepare,” she said. “And I also left my laptop at Ben’s.”

I rolled my eyes. “You’re nuts.”

“What’s nuts is that you haven’t told me how today went,” she countered. “That’s the first thing you should’ve told me when I got in the car. I’ve given you hours. Please tell me.”

I sighed. “It went about as expected. Your mother threw a fit. I tried to remain calm. I won custody since you wrote the letter saying you want to live with me. But she still gets you on the weekends, and it’s been discussed that the asshole will have his kid out of the house until you’re gone.”

“Mom probably loved that.” She narrowed her eyes. “Did you get Finn?”

“Your mom is going to give Finn back after you come this weekend,” I admitted.

“Damn,” she said. “She’s holding the dog hostage.”

I wanted to reply with “it’s your mother, what do you expect?” but chose to keep my mouth shut.

I was sure she heard enough of that from her mother.

Adding my gripes onto her already heavy shoulders didn’t seem like a good thing to do.

“She is,” I agreed. “But you’ll get him back in two days. I do plan on going over there to make sure the douchebag is gone, though.”

“Thanks.” She shivered. “Maybe I can conceal carry, just in case.”

“And maybe you can not mention doing something highly illegal around me so I have plausible deniability,” I suggested.

“On that note.” She turned to the other three adults that were standing and pointed at her grandmother. “You, I’ll forgive since there is a legitimate reason that you won’t let me come. You.” She pointed at my dad. “I won’t forgive until you take me horseback riding.” She turned to Nastya. “I’m going to go to Ben’s place and write my reviews!”

Nastya smiled. “I’m happy you are helping. I’ve become inundated with requests and it’s overwhelming.”

“Do you want to stay here and finish up, or would you like to come with me?”

“Do you mind coming back?” she asked.

“Of course not.”

“Good, then I’ll stay. There are too many kitties I didn’t get to see yet.”

I picked her up an hour later, fully covered in cat hair.

We stopped at her house for her to get showered.

While she was in the shower, Shasha stopped by with a grim look on his face.

He jerked his chin for me to go outside and said, “You’ll be getting your job back any second.”

“Why?” I asked in confusion.

“Because as of an hour ago, the senator’s dead by his wife’s hand.” He chuckled. “She found out—though it was by me—that her husband had played a part in the mistress’s death. That and the fact that he had a mistress. She lost her fuckin’ shit and shot him in the face. On national television.”

My mouth dropped open. “What makes you think that I’ll get my job back, though?”

“Because Sergeant Daniels tried to protect the dumbass and got a bullet to the face to show for it. She took out five of them before she went down herself.” Shasha laughed. “She told everyone, on live TV, everything that happened, and media coverage on that event was wild since it’s an election year.”

“Nice,” I said. “Anything you might want me to start looking into?”

Shasha’s eyes gleamed. “Oh, yeah.”

“No way!” Nastya cried, throwing her hands up.

“Yes, way!” my sister-in-law cried. “He totally mooned an entire congregation!”

“Seriously?” Nastya looked from Kendall to Benedict.

“Don’t look at me, that was him!” Benedict pointed at our brother-in-law, Kingston.

I grinned as I remembered that particular event.

We’d been at Kingston’s bachelor party, which wasn’t much of a bachelor party as a day of target shooting, drinking beer, and building a chicken coop for our sister, Caroline’s, wedding present.

Later that day, after five or six beers, Kingston had gone out to dump the plethora of beer cans we’d gone through that day, and a bus had stopped and scolded him for throwing them on the ground.

What they hadn’t known was that he was putting the glass bottles there for recycling to get, and he’d have dumped them in the box that they were supposed to go in, but the recycling company had taken his bin because it’d been broken.

They’d told him to put all the recyclables out by the road, and sure, they probably meant for him to put it into another container, but none of us had been thinking all that clearly that day.

We’d been hot, halfway drunk, and tired.

Needless to say, Kingston hadn’t taken their lecturing well, turned his back on them, and mooned them.

The police had been called, but I’d luckily been able to calm them down.

That didn’t mean that we didn’t still give Kingston all kinds of shit.

“I want a chicken coop for my wedding present,” Nastya said dreamily.

She was two glasses of wine deep, and it was very obvious that she didn’t handle her liquor well.

At least, not anymore.

I loved it.

She was much more talkative, and Mom, Caroline, and Kendall loved having drinking friends.

I didn’t think I ever saw Mom at a gathering without an alcoholic beverage in her hand.

Not that she was a drunk or anything, but she loved to drink socially.

And she loved spending time with her family.

I loved seeing my mom so happy.

I also loved seeing Nastya fitting right into the group.

It made something that I hadn’t realized was tight loosen in my chest.

This was the “final test” so to speak.

My kid loved her.

I loved her.

My parents and siblings loved her.

There was no denying that she was going to be perfect for us.

“I like her,” Ben said. “She’s great with Kendall.”

Kendall was a little odd duckling.

She was great, I loved her like crazy, but she took a while to warm up to new people.

Obviously that wasn’t a problem here.

“So you gonna marry her?” Kingston asked.

I grinned as he came up beside me.

We were standing near the drink fountain.

All three of us were now waiting for the sweet tea to get filled back up.

“I’m gonna marry the hell out of her,” I promised.

Kingston smiled. “Good.”

Yes, it was good.

Very, very good.noveldrama

I hadn’t felt this good in a very long time, and it was a foreign, but great, feeling.

But something in the back of my mind told me that it wouldn’t last.