Man of the House: A Dark Bad Boy Romance(117)

For the first time since I’d originally left, I felt like things were going to be okay. I was back home; I was going to be safe. The war could be over and I could go back to raising my son the way I wanted to.

I was going to be okay.

The door shut behind me.

“Sorry,” Dad said.

“What?” I asked him.

He stepped away. Two men I vaguely knew stepped around him and grabbed me.

“Dad?” I asked. “What’s happening?”

“Sorry,” he repeated and looked away.

The one man reached into my arms and took hold of Alexei.

“No!” I screamed. “Don’t touch him!”

The man ignored me. “Let go,” he said, his Russian accent thick.

“No! Dad, what are you doing?”

Terror gripped me as the other man hit me in the face. Pain blinded me, and the second man managed to pull Alexei from my arms. Alexei began to cry, screaming shrieks of fear.

“Stop!” I screamed. “What are you doing?”

But the man had already left with Alexei. The one holding on to me dragged me toward the back of the house and shoved me roughly through an open door. It was my old bedroom, but it was different. There were bars on the window and there was no furniture, only a mattress and a bucket in the corner. The door slammed behind me.

I threw myself at the door and began to pound on it. “Let me out, you bastards!” I screamed. “You f*cking sickos. You can’t do this! Give me my baby back, you f*cking sick f*cks!”

I pounded and pounded on the door, screaming at the top of my lungs, but nobody came.

I screamed and yelled and smashed at that door until I couldn’t scream anymore.

And as I sank to the floor, my body wracked with sobs, I knew I had made a horrible mistake.

Sophie had betrayed me. My father had betrayed me.

And they had taken my baby away.

I sobbed, and I felt myself breaking.





34





Vince





I hated f*cking waiting.

I was not the type of man to sit around and wait for something to happen. I didn’t like taking orders, and I sure as hell didn’t like being told I couldn’t go after my own woman.

I paced angrily around my office. Rafa watched from his desk, though I could tell he was trying to pretend like I didn’t exist. He’d learned firsthand what I was like when I was angry, and he knew that it was better to stay the f*ck out of my way.

I didn’t know what Kaley was to me. I didn’t know what we were going to be, but I could tell that it was something. We were just getting close, I was just beginning to open myself up to her, to get used to the idea of being a father. And suddenly that was all taken away.

She left on her own. I knew that. I knew that she chose this, that she wanted to leave. But something had to have happened to make her want to actually go. I couldn’t believe that she would want to go back to her family unless something new had come up.

That was really driving me insane. I needed to know what that thing was. It was so possible that she just didn’t want to be around me anymore, that I had somehow pushed her away. Maybe she decided that she didn’t want her son raised by a violent f*cking mobster.

I couldn’t really blame her. I was raised by mobsters more or less, and look at how I turned out.

“Fuck,” I said, slamming my fist onto the table as I walked past it.

“Boss,” Rafa said, “I just got a text from Lucas.”

I stared at him. “So the f*ck what?”

He cleared his throat. “Text says you should go meet him in his room.”

“Why didn’t he message me that?”

“He did, but you’re not answering your phone.” Rafa paused and grinned at me. “Probably because you’re pacing around like a crazy person.”

“Watch it,” I said.

“Don’t take it out on me, boss,” Rafa said. “I’m the only one that has your back no matter what.”

I took a deep breath and slowly let it out. I nodded. “You’re right.”

“You gonna go talk to him?”

“Yeah. Give me a second.”

I took a few steadying, deep breaths. I couldn’t go up to Lucas acting like some insane person. I couldn’t take my anger out on him like I could on Rafa, although I knew it was an * move to be a dick to him.

“Call if you need me,” I said, grabbing my phone and then heading out the door.

I headed through the hallways, trying to keep my mind off Kaley. I tried not to think about how she likely ran off because of what a piece of shit I was. I knew I’d been pushing, but I must have pushed too hard, went too far.

It was my f*cking fault. It always was my f*cking fault.

I had to stop once and take a few deep breaths to calm myself again before starting back up. Finally, I found myself outside Lucas’s door.

I knocked twice. “Come in,” I heard.

I went inside and saw Lucas sitting down at his kitchen table. He gestured for me to sit.

He was looking at a bunch of papers as I took a seat beside him. He pushed a glass toward me. I picked it up and sipped: good whisky.

“What do you need, Lucas?” I asked him.

“About the girl,” he said, “I know how she got away.”