Down the Line (Volkov Bratva Book 6) Read online

  For a moment, he stilled, buried so deep inside her even though she wasn’t sure where he started and she ended.

  It brought a blissful, mindless sort of smile to her face.

  Even before she dug her nails into his back and he gave an involuntary flex of his hips.

  He looked down at her with blown pupils. “More?”

  “Please.”

  Mishca gave her exactly that.

  Chapter 4

  With Sacha at daycare and no classes for the day, Lauren climbed straight back into bed, feeling utterly exhausted.

  Usually, she was up doing one thing or another and more than able to get through the day with only the occasional nap and a good cup of coffee, but for the past couple of weeks, she had found herself more tired than usual.

  Last week, she had even fallen asleep during a lecture—one she had, luckily, already studied up on before class—and hadn’t woken until the commotion of the other students leaving stirred her.

  But even as she had thought she would sleep for the next six hours—or rather until it was time to pick up Sacha before the traffic got bad—nearly two hours after she laid down, she was awake again, feeling as if she’d never been tired at all.

  Grabbing her phone to check the time, she ventured from her bedroom, checking her messages as she went.

  Not even ten o’clock in the morning yet.

  Deciding oatmeal was the easiest and quickest thing she could make, she plucked one of the pots from the cabinet and poured the water in before putting it and the oatmeal on the stove to heat.

  While it simmered, she turned to the sink, eyeing the number of dishes from the night before. Just the sight of them made her antsy, and before she knew what she was doing, she ran a sink full of soapy water to wash them.

  The fact that she was doing them at all made her shake her head in amusement.

  Growing up as an only child, doing dishes had always been her least favorite chore. And it didn’t matter that she had been the reason so many dishes were in the sink—she still hated washing them.

  She didn’t know what it was about standing in one place with her hands deep in dirty dishwater that was the most unappealing, but every time, she’d dreaded the task like nothing else.

  “I doubt you’ll ever do this willingly,” her mother had told her with a smile all those years ago.

  Not that Lauren had denied a single word …

  She had always believed she would be a dishwasher sort of girl until the day she died—or if she had a really awesome husband, she’d try to bribe him into doing them.

  Yet, after she had fallen pregnant, it was one of the first things she’d picked up. It had become almost second nature for her.

  For whatever reason, she’d loved seeing the kitchen clean—a fact that always seemed to amuse Mishca since she rarely cooked anything—but she couldn’t help her compulsion.

  After washing and drying every dish, she tucked them away neatly into the cabinets.

  Then sprayed down the stove and countertops before wiping them all clean.

  By the time she finished, whether that was thirty minutes or an hour later, she always felt satisfied.

  Mishca always said that might have been one of the first signs she was pregnant.

  That thought made her freeze where she stood, but as quickly as the thought ran through her head, she dismissed it.

  Brushing it aside, she dried her hands, grabbed a bowl, and ate her oatmeal.

  Much later, after she’d picked up Sacha and made him dinner, Lauren found herself sitting on the couch with Sacha lying across her lap and his sleepy gaze on Moana playing on the TV.

  He’d been fighting sleep for the last thirty minutes, though he was quick to try to turn on the waterworks if she even mentioned bedtime. But she didn’t mind letting him stay up a little while longer, especially when he wanted to spend that time cuddling with her.

  Every day, she saw more of Mishca in him. The way he smiled. His mischievousness. All of it made her feel so proud to be his mom.

  He was their little joy, a piece of both of them that inhabited the world.

  God. Why did the thought of that bring a tear to her eye?

  The sudden swell of emotion was nearly overwhelming her every thought.

  She really needed to get some sleep.

  Glancing down at her watch, she turned her attention back to Sacha. “Bedtime, sweets.”

  “B-but—”

  Oh, she could already see it coming. The way his little face scrunched up in the beginning stages of a comical meltdown.

  Before he could finish, she said, “Daddy’s getting home late tonight. He won’t be here for a while.”

  He heard her just fine, but most of it went in one ear and out the other. The only thing he really understood was that Mishca wasn’t home to tuck him in and say good night.

  Not to be deterred, he held up two chubby fingers, looking at them first before holding them up in front of her face, his brow furrowing the way Mishca’s did—an unspoken question.

  “Yes,” she said, unable to help herself. “You can have two more minutes.”

  At some point, she knew she wouldn’t always be able to give him what he wanted, but it was ridiculously hard saying no to a face as cute as his.

  Within a minute, Sacha’s eyes had closed, his body going limp. Only divine intervention would be able to wake him now.

  Easing out from beneath him, she headed into the kitchen, grabbing the jar of peanut butter tucked away in the back of the pantry. But she didn’t bother to grab anything other than a spoon.

  She didn’t give it a second thought before twisting the top off and tossing it aside before digging into the creamy butter, sighing with pleasure the moment she had it in her mouth.

  When she wasn’t sleeping or studying, she found herself reaching for this very jar, enjoying every last bite she took.

  When she wasn’t feeling queasy in the mornings, a slow churning in her stomach that never failed to make her wonder whether she would be spending the first moments of her day bent over a toilet, she was in here, doing this very …

  Lauren stilled, looking from the spoon in her hand to the jar she held in the other.

  While she had never liked washing dishes, she also hadn’t been much of a peanut butter eater growing up. She liked a PB&J as much as the next person, but the only time she had ever found herself eating peanut butter straight out of the jar was when she found out she was—

  “Shit.”

  The word slipped out before she could swallow it back down, her heart nearly tripping over itself.

  A sort of eerie calmness fell over her as she returned to Sacha and picked him up. Even in his sleep, he wrapped his arms around her neck, settling himself more comfortably before promptly conking out again.

  Almost on autopilot, she changed him into his pajamas before putting him into his bed and tucking the comforter around him.

  Her mind was elsewhere.

  Leaving his bedroom, she ventured into her own and went directly for the bathroom and closed the door.

  She took a breath before reaching into the bottom drawer next to the sink, rooting through everything inside until she found the boxes she was looking for.

  Three months ago, her period had been late, something that hadn’t happened in a long while, so she had gone out to the store to buy pregnancy tests, though it was only after she had returned home that Mother Nature came to see her.

  She hadn’t thought about them since then, but now …

  Now, they were the only thing on her mind.

  She refused to allow herself to fully think about what she was doing, not as she opened a test from the tough foil wrapper or when she sat on the toilet and actually took the test.

  Not even when she finished and set it aside without looking in its direction.

  Instead, she stared across the room at a spot on the wall, counting down until she reached exactly three minutes.

  Only then did she pick
up the test, a knot lodging in her throat when she finally acknowledged that she was taking a pregnancy test.

  And as the results stared back at her, her calm went right out the window, and every emotion she’d been holding at bay came flooding back.

  Pregnant.

  She was pregnant.

  Lauren wasn’t sure how she’d managed to get up in the morning and go through her day before dropping Sacha off at his daycare while she went to class. Not to mention, having Mishca sleep beside her knowing she’d thrown away the pregnancy tests before he could see them.

  She’d even managed to take notes while in lecture despite not remembering half of what had been said.

  Autopilot was becoming her friend.

  But after last night—after the truth had stared her in the face—she couldn’t bring herself to think about anything else other than the fact that she was pregnant.

  There was still the visit to her doctor to consider, just in case the trio of tests she’d taken had all been wrong.

  She didn’t know what to think, or what she even wanted.

  She didn’t even know where to begin.

  On the one hand, she knew she was luckier than most, having spent most of her freshman year in med school pregnant and tired. Her second she had spent with a new baby, very little sleep, and little else, but she also had a wonderful family who had been willing to step in and help her, offering to babysit before she even had a chance to ask.

  Now, here she was, entering her third year, pregnant again. Not to mention that during her senior year—arguably the most important—she would not only have a toddler but a newborn as well.

  The thought was exhilarating, but it also made her heart race like nothing else.

  The only thing she wanted to do was tell Mishca, letting him in on a secret she hadn’t realized she would have to keep.

  She wanted to see his reaction.

  Would he be excited the way he had been about Sacha?

  Would he worry about the fear he saw in her face, or maybe misconstrue it for something else?

  Even she didn’t know what she was feeling. Not really.

  She needed time to figure that out first.

  So instead of calling her husband, she dialed her best friend, hoping Amber was in town and not off with Celt somewhere. As the phone rang a third time, she was about to lose hope when the call finally connected.

  “Hey! I thought you had class today?” Amber said, sounding out of breath even as the faint echo of her voice told Lauren she was on speaker and Amber was probably working in her studio.

  “My three o’clock classes are on Tuesday, but even if it was today, this is more important. I need to talk to you,” she said urgently, noticing the way her driver perked up a bit.

  Though she liked him well enough, she also knew his loyalty was to the pakhan, and if he thought something was wrong, he’d consider it his duty to relay it to his boss, no matter what she had to say about it.

  “Sure, I’m free,” Amber said easily even though she was probably working on something important.

  It was just the kind of friend she was.

  “Want me to come by your place?”

  “I think yours would be better for this conversation.”

  Celt’s loft was probably one of the most secure locations in the world. He was a bit anal about his security that way, Amber had said, and had practically built a fortress for them.

  Because of that, Mishca was rather lax about his men going in with her.

  There, she would have the privacy she needed.

  “Not a problem. I should be there in fifteen.”

  After she shot Mishca a quick text to let him know where she was going—though partly knowing her driver would do the same—she sat back, watching the city fade away She didn’t know for sure whether she was right—the doctor’s visit she needed to schedule would confirm it—but she was pretty sure she knew when she’d conceived …

  One-ish Months Ago …

  “Oh God, I hated those mafia dinners.”

  “Jesus, Alex.”

  But she didn’t seem to care about Mishca’s tone, Lauren noticed, as his sister shrugged and kept going. “They used to parade us around like a good little prints and printsessa, pinching my damn face like I was a cute animal.” Alex had never been one to shy away from telling someone how she felt, but she’d grown more blunt from the more time she spent around Luka.

  “If they’re still living,” Luka offered with a shrug of his tattooed shoulder, “I’ll take care of that for you.”

  She smiled at him fondly. “You always say the sweetest things.”

  “Are they actually called mafia dinners?” Lauren asked, cutting into their moment.

  She and Mishca might have been together for years now, but she still didn’t know everything there was to know about the bratva.

  Whether it was an obscure rule she hadn’t heard of or thevarious tattoos that colored a lot of their skin, she always found out something new every few months or so.

  A dinner between the various families along the Eastern seaboard was one of them.

  The last time she’d been at a family dinner where more than just the Volkovs were present, it hadn’t exactly ended well … in part because she had found out Mishca’s uncle had been the one behind her father’s murder, and because she didn’t think Mishca’s ex-stepmother was very fond of her … but things had changed quite considerably since then.

  She wasn’t just his girlfriend anymore, but rather his wife.

  With the stars to prove it.

  There was no reason for her to be nervous, but she still found herself anxiously awaiting Friday night when some of the most powerful families in the world descended on Manhattan.

  “Of course you have nothing to worry about,” Alex said just as quickly with a wave of her hand. “No one will disrespect you and live to tell about it. One year, Orlov stabbed a man in the eye because he brought up the man’s mistress in front of his wife.”

  “If you’re trying to convince her to go, babe, you’re doing a shit job of it,” Luka said from where he was lying across her lap, his booted feet crossed at the ankles and hanging over the side of the couch as he twisted a strand of her hair around his finger.

  “That should be more than convincing! She’ll be protected.”

  Luka just smiled, willing to agree with whatever she said. With him, Alex almost always got her way. He turned back to Lauren. “She’s not wrong.”

  No, her safety was never something she had to worry about—Mishca made sure of that—but it wasn’t necessarily her safety she was worried about.

  “I don’t know,” Lauren said, placing the chopped kiwi into a bowl and brought it over to where Sacha was playing with his blocks.

  “What’s Mishca said?”

  The same thing she did.

  That she had nothing to worry about.

  That it would ultimately be a boring night talking pleasantries and very little business.

  That they might be able to make it back in time to put Sacha to bed themselves.

  “I’m just overthinking it.” Everything would be fine. “But you never told me why you’re not going.”

  “Because Luka’s not.”

  She looked at him expectantly.

  “I was banned years ago,” he said easily, shrugging as if it wasn’t a big deal.

  “Why the hell did you get banned? How do you even get banned from something like that?”

  Alex smiled adoringly at him. “Well … Luka seems to think that any pointy object in a room belongs to him, and if he doesn’t have it, it’s considered a weapon in someone else’s hand. So when Orlov stabbed someone …”

  “I had a right to protect myself,” Luka butted in indignantly.

  “Sweetie, it wasn’t even your fight.”

  “Semantics.”

  Alex rolled her eyes, even as she was obviously trying not to laugh. “Either way, if he’s not there, I’m out.”

  Just
as Sacha started to smush the kiwi between his little fingers, the bell chimed at the arrival of the elevator. Moments later, it opened, and Mishca walked in. Sacha was off like a rocket, screaming daddy all the way.

  Nothing was better than the smile on Mishca’s face when Sacha ran to him. It was as if everything before that moment was forgotten and he was the only thing in the world that mattered. It always made her chest feel a little tight when she saw them together.

  Damn post-baby brain.

  Everything made her tear up.

  It could be the smallest of things with Sacha, and she would find her eyes wet and her throat tight. Now she understood why her mother had always been so dramatic.

  Nothing was quite like the love between a parent and child.

  “Have you been a good boy today?” he asked in Russian as he scooped Sacha up.

  She was fluent enough in the language to get by in a conversation, but sometimes, she still slipped up a little. She was glad, though, that Sacha would grow up speaking his father’s language.

  With Sacha still perched on his hip, Mishca turned his gaze to her. She went up on her toes to kiss his lips, losing herself, however briefly, in the bliss that came whenever he arrived home in one piece.

  Whatever worries she had about the dinner, they didn’t matter when he was around.

  And to think, she’d thought she was overdressed when she looked at her reflection in the mirror before they left home for the restaurant on the other side of the city.

  Mishca looked as dapper as always in his three-piece Armani suit, the black bringing out the dark hue of his hair.

  “On a scale from one to ten,” Lauren said, tracing her fingers over his knuckles where his hand resting on her thigh, “how well did your family get along with the others?”

  His smile was slight, but visible from the slash of moonlight through the windshield. “The problem was never with me if you’re worried about that.”

  “Maybe so, but … sins of the father and all.”