Hey, Daddy (Semyonov Bratva Book 2)

No matter what, always try to help people. Instead of saying “fuck off” say “how can I help you fuck off?”

—Nastya to Haze

HAZE

The buzz of my phone alerted me to the outside world.

I pulled it out of my pocket and glanced down at the notification that my phone had just given me: Nastya’s sugar was really low.

“Shit,” I said as I pulled away, wiping my eyes.

“What?” Desi asked from her perch on the chair close to the door.

I stood up, ignoring the copious amounts of hair that was all over my clothes, and gave Finn one last horrified look before holding my hand out to Desi.

“Nastya needs a snack,” I said.

Desi was more than aware of Nastya’s issues, and I’d talked to her about what to do if Nastya ever exhibited signs of hypo or hyperglycemia.

“Blood sugar low?” she asked, swallowing hard.

“Yeah,” I said. “Let’s go.”

I pulled out my phone to see just how low it was when I saw I had multiple notifications about it.

One of which had me confused because when I looked at the location setting on my phone, it was to see that Nastya was no longer where I’d thought she was—with me.

And sure enough, when I got into the lobby, she was no longer to be found.

My phone rang in the next second, and I put it to my ear and said, “Do you have Nastya?”

“No,” he said. “That’s why I was calling you. We got disconnected, and she’s not answering me back.”

“Hey, man,” I said when I saw the vet. “Do you know where my girl went?”

The vet frowned. “She was outside talking on the phone.”

I went outside and didn’t see her anywhere.

“Her location says that she’s at Mom’s house, Dad,” Desi whispered.

“Fuck,” I growled. “Shasha, man, I might need your help.”

I then explained to him everything that had happened in the last hour.

“Do you really think that Nastya would go over there to kick Mom’s ass?” Desi whispered.

She sounded…happy.

Like she wanted to do it herself.

“Honestly, I wouldn’t put it past her,” Shasha interrupted. “I’ll head there.”

“I’m about five minutes away,” I said. “I’ll meet you there.”

“I’m about two minutes out,” Shasha said. “I’ll wait for you.”

I looked at my daughter. “Do me a favor and go to Nastya’s place.”

Desi rolled her eyes. “Just don’t go to jail, Daddy. I need one parent so I don’t go into the foster care system.”

I chuckled and placed a kiss on her forehead. “I’m so sorry, baby.”

She smiled at me sadly. “Go get our girl.”

I headed to Julia’s place, having no idea what I’d find when I got there.

I pulled up alongside Shasha’s car and got out.

“How did she get here?” Shasha asked when he saw me getting out of the rental car.

“No clue,” I admitted. “I’m guessing she left me the car because she didn’t want me to know she was about to get up to some mischief.”

Shasha smirked and headed to the front of the house.

Movement out of the corner of our eyes had us turning to the front window where…

“What the fuck?” I barked as I started to run.

Shasha saw it the same time I did.

Eddison was standing over Nastya with what looked like two jumper cables in his hand.

I didn’t bother with pleasantries as I burst through the door of the home that I’d once called mine.

I took two steps into the living room and got a firsthand view of the cables coming to a rest against Nastya’s skin.

A sizzle sounded, then a squeak.

And suddenly Nastya was slumped to the side.

I hit Eddison so hard that he slammed into the wall, his head bouncing off the concrete fireplace as I did.

There was a crack and then a thud, but then I was scrambling on my hands and knees as I made my way toward Nastya.

Shasha now had her on the ground, untied, and he was feeling for a pulse.

I knew the moment our eyes connected that there wasn’t one to be had.

“Nothing,” he said.

I dropped down to my knees and felt for myself.

Nothing.

No pulse.

I placed my hands over her chest, right where the CPR instructor told me to, and began chest compressions.

“Breathe,” I ordered Shasha.

Shasha bent over and breathed for her.

I continued chest compressions.

There was a quiet hiss of air and I looked up in time to see Julia start to back out of the room. “Call 9-1-1. Right now.”

Julia shook her head.

“Siri,” Shasha ordered. “Call 9-1-1.”

“Calling 9-1-1,” the robotic voice droned.

“9-1-1, what’s your emergency?” a female answered.

Shasha spoke.

I continued.

“Breathe,” I urged.

Shasha breathed.

I could feel her ribs breaking as I performed chest compressions.

I’d felt the phenomenon before, of course.

It was hard to do CPR correctly and not break ribs.

But I never thought I’d be performing CPR on the love of my life.

“We have to leave,” I heard Julia whisper.

“You leave, you’re going to be found,” I snarled.

Julia’s eyes came to me.

I knew what I said wouldn’t matter.

She was going to run.

“You’re fuckin’ nuts if you think that I’m leaving my kid here like that,” Rich pushed her.

Julia went flying into the wall, landing much the same as Rich’s kid had, only she tripped over Rich on her way down, and her head smacked straight into the fireplace, right at the corner.

I didn’t spare her any more attention than that, my focus solely on getting Nastya’s heart to beat.

“Check her pulse,” I urged Shasha.

Shasha did, throwing his phone to the floor.

Our eyes met, and I saw the moment he was about to say that she didn’t have a pulse.

Another rib cracked, and the grating sound of the two bones rubbing together was enough to cause nausea to swell in my throat.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I breathed. “Don’t do this to me, baby. Come back.”

“Stop!”

I didn’t stop, because I assumed he was talking to Julia.

That notion was quickly rectified when a movement caught my attention.

Shasha bent down to breathe for her again, getting the rhythm of when to do so rather quickly, and came back up to find the barrel of a gun in his face.

Shasha froze.

An angry howl, one the likes I’d never heard before, came from somewhere to my left.

Then my daughter came out of nowhere and kicked Rich so hard in the crotch from behind that he doubled over.

Shasha used it to his advantage, disarmed Rich, then pushed him over sideways.

He tangled up in a heap next to the other two, moaning and groaning on the floor.

I looked over to see my daughter staring down at me in horror.

“I forgot my laptop,” she breathed.

“Pick up the phone and talk to 9-1-1, tell them what’s going on,” I urged.

I’d think about how terrifying it was that my teenage daughter was here right now with a man that had a gun pointed at a person later.

For now, I had a sole focus.

Crunch.

Another rib broke.

“Dad, they said that the ambulance is right around the corner,” Desi whispered.

She’d heard the crack, too.

Shasha gave her a rescue breath.

He pulled back and placed his fingers to her throat, his eyes closed, and then they snapped open as relief hit them.

“Stop, she’s breathing,” he urged.

I did, feeling for myself half a breath later.

And there it was.

A pulse.

“Goddamn,” I breathed, relief hitting me like a ton of bricks.

“Her sugar is still low,” I said. “Tell the…”

The paramedics entered through the door at a run.

I gave them a rundown of the situation, and they took in the plethora of victims.

“Her first,” I urged, snapping the closest paramedic’s gaze toward me. “Her heart stopped. We performed four minutes of CPR.”

The paramedic dropped down onto his knees as the second one started to go toward the pile of people behind me.

“No,” I said. “This one. Both of you go. I’ll take those. The scene is still unsafe.”

That had them both freezing and turning toward me. “Get her out. Take her to the hospital. Shasha, go with them. Can you take Desi, too?”

Shasha read the situation very clearly.

He knew I didn’t want him here, or Desi.

“Yeah,” he croaked. “Come on, Des.”

Desi looked at me like I’d broken her heart, but I shook my head once.

This was one time that cute little pout wouldn’t win her anything.

“Go.” I said one word.

Shasha ushered Desi out of the room.

The paramedics had Nastya seconds later.

Once they were gone, I finally turned to survey the damage.

Rich was lying on top of the two others.

“What’s going on?”

The familiar sound of Auden had me turning around, only I realized quickly it wasn’t Auden, but Atlas, his twin brother, who worked for DPD—Dallas Police Department.

I gave him the complete rundown.

Atlas started to peel Rich off of the other two.

“This one is the one that Rich pushed?” Atlas asked, feeling for a pulse on a heavily bleeding Julia.

“Yes,” I said.

“She has a pulse,” he said as he moved her to lie on her back. “Got the gun?”

“On the floor by the fireplace,” I said.

He glanced at it and nodded before turning back to the one that I’d hit.

“This one has no pulse,” he said. “Dead.”

I couldn’t scrounge up the desire to care.

Good riddance.

First he terrorized my daughter, then he tried to kill the woman I was desperately in love with.

My only regret was that he didn’t have a longer and harder death.

The one I’d given him was too easy.

“Dispatch, this is unit…” as Atlas called it in, I went to sit on the fireplace to survey the damage.

Medics arrived.

One took Julia to the hospital.

The other stayed with Eddison’s dead body until the JP—Justice of the Peace—arrived to pronounce Eddison dead.

Rich was sitting on the concrete when I came outside, cuffed with his hands behind his back.

He was giving his statement to a redheaded woman who wasn’t falling for his shit and was staring at him like he was nuts.

“…came in and scared us, and then he pushed my son down! Of course, I’m going to threaten to shoot him! This is Texas!”

The redhead clocked me, and she reluctantly blocked my way toward the dumbass.

Another detective I hadn’t seen until now walked up to me and offered me his hand. “My name is Detective Dorsey, with DPD. Can you tell me what happened?”

I did, leaving out not a single detail, starting with how my day had started with Finn.

By the time I was finished, Detective Dorsey was looking at me like I’d rocked his world. “She ran over your dog?”

My phone vibrated, and I stopped mid-sentence to answer it.

“She’s awake,” Shasha said. “Her blood sugar is under control. Her heart rate is a little erratic, but they’re stabilizing that with drugs.”

I wilted.

My knees hit the ground, and I just fucking…broke.

A sob left my throat, and my hands covered my face as I listened to Shasha tell me about her injuries.

It took me two more hours before I could get to the hospital.noveldrama

By the time that I was able to walk into the ER, she’d been stabilized, and they were talking about moving her to a floor room where she would remain overnight for observation.

I walked in on the tail end of the explanation as the doctor went over everything with her.

Her eyes were open. She was breathing. She was even smiling and nodding.

She was sitting upright in the hospital bed when her eyes came to me.

Tears started to spill onto her cheeks as she said, “My hero.”

I rubbed the ache in my chest as I said, “Any fucking time, baby. Any fucking time.”

Hours later, I was asleep in the most god-awful chair in existence when I was woken up by laughter.

“Every single depression of his hands into her chest you could hear the bones grinding together,” Shasha said.

The memory made me wince.

It would not be a sound I would soon be forgetting.

“I feel like I’ve been kicked by a horse,” Nastya whispered.

When she said it, I knew that she was looking at me based on how her voice sounded.

I blinked open my eyes to see her staring at me with so much love in her eyes that I found it hard to breathe myself.

“Six broken ribs,” she said, though didn’t take her gaze off of me. “I’ll take them all day every day if it means I get to spend another day with him.”

Tears once again stung my eyes.

I hadn’t cried in fuckin’ years, yet I’d done it multiple times today.

Needless to say, this day had been one I wouldn’t be forgetting.

I reached for her hand, and she tangled her fingers with my own.

“Desi?” I asked quietly.

“Went home after multiple assurances that I was okay,” she replied. “I got her checking the mail and writing reviews.”

I blew out a relieved breath.

“Okay, so now that you’re awake,” I heard Shasha say. “I’d love to give you the full update. Hope you’re truly awake, because this one is a doozy.”

I sat up, my heavy-booted feet hitting the floor. “Hit me.”

“We’ll start with Eddison. He’s dead.” Shasha ticked off a finger. “Julia is alive but very paralyzed, with about a ten percent chance of ever feeling movement in her legs again.” He grinned then, quite manically. “And your daughter kicked ol’ Rich so hard in the balls that he had to have one of them removed. The other is touch and go.”

My brows rose. “And after he’s released from the hospital for his testicular problem, he’s going to be arrested. In fact, he’s technically already under arrest. Oh, and Julia’s awake and aware enough to give an entire accounting on what happened. She’s corroborated everything that you told the detectives. She even admitted to killing your dog on purpose.”

“Wow,” I said.

Nastya’s hand squeezed mine, and I looked to her. “Haze.”

I moved closer until her face was close to mine before saying, “Yeah, Mama?”

“I’m tired of being in the news.”

I snorted. “Me and you both, Mama. Me and you both.”