Alexandr's Reluctant Submissive (25 page)

Still, he didn’t appreciate his daughter using him to annoy her mother. “Tatiana, if your mother said no dessert, then there will be no dessert tonight.”

His adorable little girl pulled back, her big gray eyes studying his face. “But Papa, I’m hungry.”

“Then you should have eaten your dinner,” Jessica said in a firm voice.

“But it had yucky vegetables and no macaroni and cheese!”

Part of him wanted to give in to the tears already welling in his daughter’s eyes, but he had a feeling Jessica would kill him in his sleep tonight if he did not back her up. “I am sorry, but your mother is right. If you want to grow up big and strong, you must eat balanced diet.”

“But I’m not hungry for vegetables, I’m hungry for cake. Get it for me, Papa. Please.”

He arched a brow at the stubborn set to her little chin. “No.”

“I said please!”

“And I said no.”

Tatiana squirmed out of his arms so fast he almost dropped her. She took a step away, put her little hands on her hips, and glared at him with the frown line she’d inherited from Jessica prominent between her dark-red brows. Even when she was angry she was adorable.

“I want cake!” she screamed loud enough that he had to steel himself from wincing as her cheeks flushed.

Okay, maybe she wasn’t adorable when she was angry.

“No.”

Her entire face turned red. “Give me cake!”

Stunned at the abrupt change in her demeanor, he gave her a stern look. “No. Now you will behave in a respectful manner and not raise your voice at me.”

“Cake!” she screamed in his face.

To his astonishment, his delightful little girl threw herself to the floor and began to thrash her arms and legs as if she was having a seizure. He looked to Jessica to see if she was alarmed, but to his surprise, he found her calmly eating her dinner. After taking a sip of her wine, she returned to nibbling her carrots, completely ignoring Tatiana’s increasingly shrill screams.

When she noticed him looking at her, she yelled over the wails, “Come, eat with me. We have a plate for you.”

He looked down at Tatiana, who was now banging her feet on the wall, then back at Jessica.

She gave a subtle shake of her head, then pointed at his plate.

There had been many difficult things that he’d had to do in his life, but walking away from his distraught daughter was one of the hardest.

The moment he began to move, her fit doubled until he was worried she might hurt herself.

Handing him his glass of wine, Jessica shook her head. “Ignore her.”

He leaned in so he could say into her ear, “What if she harms herself?”

“She won’t. This isn’t the first time she’s thrown a hissy fit. The one that she had at the zoo when I wouldn’t get her a giant stuffed tiger was the worst. I had to physically carry her out of the place over my shoulder with her kicking and screaming the whole way.”

He numbly ate some of his dinner, his entire body on edge as his sweet daughter continued to shriek like she was possessed.

“How long will she be like this?”

“Normally? Varies, but the longest she’s gone was around twenty minutes before she cried herself to sleep. I’m going to cut this one short so you can eat without the dinner theater.”

The plate before him should have held humble pie, because that was what it tasted like as he steeled himself against his innocent daughter’s pissed-off screams. Perhaps Jessica had a point when she warned him against spoiling Tatiana. The girl was so happy and delightful, he thought it would be all right. The way his ears and mind were bleeding from her screams begged to differ.

“Are you sure we should not take her to a doctor? This is not natural.”

His wife actually laughed then said in a low voice, “Oh, Alex, trust me, tantrums are a normal part of growing up. All kids have them. You may not have seen one before, but believe me, nothing’s wrong with her other than a stubborn little girl with a temper not getting her way.”

Jessica calmly set aside her silverware then turned to face Tatiana, slowly rising from her chair until she looked down to where the little girl continued to thrash but also watch her mother out of the corner of her eye. It pained Alex to realize that once again, Jessica was right about Tatiana manipulating him. The very idea that someone so young could be so adapt at getting him to do what she wanted was crazy, yet he had not just been wrapped around her finger, but dancing on her string. In an odd way, he was proud. His daughter would be a formidable woman one day and he pitied her future husband. When Tatiana got married, he’d be sure to give the man a case of his liquor of choice in preparation for dealing with her temper.

Taking a drink of the rich red wine, he set the glass down carefully and turned back to find Tatiana’s screams had turned into high-pitched shouts instead of the sound of dolphins being killed.

“You have until the count of five to calm down, or you will be standing in the corner with your nose to the wall. This is unacceptable behavior and it will not be tolerated.”

Tatiana started to scream again, but by the count of three she’d wound down to hiccupping sobs, and by one was almost quiet. Her lower lip quivered and it killed him not to go to her and soothe her. Christ, who knew being a father could be this hard? He’d been in hostage situations easier than this. The last thought made him almost chuckle, but he managed to swallow it back.

“Better. Now, we’re going to wash up, put your pajamas on, and you are going to bed early tonight. Obviously you’ve had a long day and you need your rest.”

Tatiana’s voice warbled pitifully and Alex had to force himself to not interrupt. “But Mommy—”

“No,” Jessica said in a tone that would have made a Domme proud as she led Tatiana out the door. “Bedtime. That’s it. End of argument. Now say goodnight to your father. If you do a good job of brushing your teeth, he’ll come to say prayers with you.”

Though he didn’t particularly believe in any religion’s view of God, he enjoyed praying with his daughter. Her earnest little face, eyes squeezed tight and lips pursed, as she silently said her prayers filled him with so much love that for a moment, he understood just a small portion of the kind of love God had for mankind. Only an adoration that intense would allow humanity to live on as it tried to destroy itself over and over again.

He was snapped out of his melancholy thoughts by the door opening again and Luka strolling in, his bronze tie askew and the lines around his green-brown eyes deeper than usual.

“Have a seat, my friend, you look tired.”

Luka slumped next to him and ran a hand with a thick gold ring on it through his light-brown hair. “There is so much to be done. I need to go tour the Dubinski training facilities in Siberia sometime in the next month or so with Kozar and his men. Thankfully their camp is within a seven-hour snowmobile ride from the Novikov compound, so I’ve been there before. Pisses me off, it’s going to be cold as fuck up there, everything frozen solid, just when it’s warm in Moscow.”

“I apologize for having to send you up there, but it is not just a training facility that you are going to.” Alex stood, then retrieved a clean glass from the walnut sideboard and filled it with the aromatic red wine before handing it to Luka.

The man took a sip, then gave an appreciative sigh. “Very good. What else is up there?”

“Deep beneath the earth, Petrov has a factory of sorts that is ready to produce any weapon he might need. Including chemical. I want you to check out the security for the place and make sure no one can break in and arm themselves with nerve gas.”

“Interesting. I will see what I can find.”

“Do not mention to Kozar that you know there is more to the place than meets the eye. See what he volunteers, how honest he is with you. Do not offend or agitate him, but test his loyalty.”

After taking another drink of wine, Luka leaned back and sucked in a breath through his teeth. “Loyalty, that will be a sticky point, won’t it? So hard to say who is going to have your back, and who will try to stab it.”

Shrugging, Alex grinned. “You say that like people haven’t been trying to kill me from the cradle on.”

“Good point.”

His mind drifted back to the meeting they’d had with Nico. Something about the whole situation bothered him, kept gnawing at the back of his mind. It was a mystery, and he hated not knowing things. Knowledge was true power and a smart man hoarded it like a dragon with gold. He knew they had something important, something that shouldn’t exist, but he wanted to know what the fuck it was for and how the hell it was made.

“This Silver Wood, what do you think?”

“I think,” Luka set his glass down, then leaned forward with his elbows braced on his knees, “that it is trouble. Have you seen it? Is it as Petrov described?”

Over a year ago the canisters had arrived from the United States under much secrecy on Jorg’s orders. Mimi Anderson had traded the canisters in exchange for Jorg getting her twin daughters out of some mess back in the States involving weapons stolen from the Israeli and Russian mafias, and mixed up with American outlaw motorcycle gangs. Alex had been genuinely surprised at all the favors his father had called in on the women’s behalf to save the Anderson twins, but he’d chalked it up as his father owing Mimi. Even if Jorg hadn’t agreed to help her, Alex would have, because she was the one who’d helped rescue him from Jorg’s torturers all those years ago and he considered her a good friend.

Dimitri had met with Mimi personally during the exchange and he’d said she had no idea what was in the canisters, only that the Israeli Mafia had wanted it badly. When they’d opened the container, they’d found giant plastic sealed tubes inside, like massive pills filled with liquid silver. It had been odd, but nothing that Alex hadn’t dealt with before. In the world of the Russian
Bratva
, odd things were a daily occurrence so he hadn’t given it much thought at the time.

Alex nodded while loosening his tie. “Yes, I saw the contents, and they were very carefully packed, like the most delicate of eggs instead of massive plastic capsules. Unfortunately, there was nothing in the packing material to indicate any kind of origin or use.”

“Do you think your father knows what it is?”

“If he does, he hasn’t said anything or tried to access the Silver Wood…at least that I know of. That tricky old bastard could be up to anything.”

A light knock came from the door, followed a moment later by Jessica peeking around the edge. “Okay, guys, wrap it up. Luka, the world will just have to continue to spin without my husband there to guide it for a few hours. Love having you here, wish you could stay, get out.”

With a chuckle, Luka stood and stretched out, then nodded to Alex with a wry grin. “It seems I have been given my orders.”

“Indeed,” Alex said in a low voice as he caught the bright gleam of desire in his wife’s eyes. “Now get out.”

Jessica held the door open for Luka with a grin, halting him for a second to whisper something in his ear, making him laugh as he left.

Shutting the door behind her, Jessica sauntered up to him, all willowy grace and ethereal beauty. “Ready to go tuck Tatiana in?”

He gave her a wry look, remembering the earlier hysterics. “Is she still screaming?”

“No, but impressive, wasn’t it?”

He grabbed her hand and pulled his wife closer, unable to be in the same room with her without touching her. “I believe I owe you an apology.”

“For what?” she asked in a sugary-sweet fake voice while batting her lashes at him.

Pinching her pert bottom, he smiled at her little yelp. “It could be that I might have been spoiling Tatiana more than I should have. I did not realize how good she was at manipulating me.”

“Don’t feel bad, honey. Children are born knowing how to manipulate. It’s part of our evolutionary makeup. I mean think about it, if kids didn’t know how to be cute and get their way, our ancestors would have died out long ago. Trust me, this is normal little kid behavior and tantrums are a part of growing up.” She stroked his bearded cheek and his whole body seemed to tighten at her touch. “And she is incredibly adorable, so don’t feel bad.”

“Like her mother,” her murmured before catching her mouth in a quick, hot kiss. “Let us put our adorable daughter to bed, then I will apologize to you properly in our bedroom.”

After three weeks of exhausting work trying to learn the world of the Dubinski
Bratva
, Jessica was so glad she and Alex finally got to go out and have some fun, even if it was kind of business related. She cuddled Tatiana and smiled at Gwen as her friend complimented her outfit. Tonight they were going to some kind of dance club the Dubinski
Bratva
owned as a pre-party for the big coming out event planned next week. She was all glitzed up for the night and had to admit she felt good about how she looked. One of the spare bedrooms had been turned into a salon of sorts, and she’d been primped and pampered until she felt like a million bucks.

Then again, the chandelier diamond earrings she wore, along with a platinum-and-diamond choker, were probably worth near that so maybe she had a right to feel pretty. Her dress was certainly amazing, a couture Dolce and Gabbana black-lace cocktail dress that revealed a hell of a lot of leg, but showed off her black Giuseppe Zanotti black sparkly stilettos nicely.

Tatiana smiled up at her and Gwen let out a low whistle. “Wow…you look amazing.”

Flushing, she ducked her head. “Thanks. Amazing is what six hours with a four-person stylist team can do.”

With a smile that held a touch of sadness, Gwen fingered her braid. “Maybe that’s what I need. Think I should let them loose and maybe finally get this mess cut?”

“I love your hair!” Tatiana declared. “It’s so pretty, like a princess. Don’t cut it.”

“You look wonderful,” Zoya said from behind Jessica, and she twirled around, an automatic smile turning her lips.

She looked behind Zoya to the empty doorway. “Where’s Krom?”

The female bodyguard moved across the room to the small sitting area, her gaze scanning the space as if she expected a bad guy to leap out from behind the giant stuffed bear propped up in the corner of the room. “He needed to visit with his sister, she just had a baby and he is eager to meet his new nephew.”