Dad had straightened in his seat when I broke the news about the babies, and by the end of it the muscle in his jaw was clenched tightly.
He was in better shape at fifty-four than most twenty-four-year-olds and worked hard to keep it that way. Seeing him this tense would have made most men shit their pants, but I knew him as well as I knew myself, so I wasn’t scared or preparing for an argument. Just intrigued as to what was going through his mind.
Dmitri kept looking at me as we waited for him to speak, but we both knew it was best to give him the time he needed. So I waited patiently, forcing myself to stay relaxed the longer it went on.
Finally, he nodded. “This is a complication. Azarov has wanted the alliance for years, and his daughter was adamant it be with you,” he told me. “I’m aware you keep separate residences, and that you visit hers perhaps three nights a week to perform your marital duties—”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Father. We keep separate residences at my insistence, and we don’t perform marital duties at all. The visits are for show, and our agreement is to be kept between us, or I end the marriage.”
Dmitri cursed under his breath. “How the hell did you get her to agree to that? She’s been fucking you in her head for years.”
“I see,” my father murmured, both of us ignoring Dmitri’s question. “And Penelope Hamilton, she’s who you want?”
To others, this might be interpreted as his permission for me to claim Nell and the boys publicly, but I knew what he was asking. Was she worth breaking a duty to the family, the Bratva, and potentially causing a war between the Azarovs and us?
The answer was an unequivocal yes.
“The marriage can be removed easily, as you know. Azarov has others who she can marry, and if it’s done with discretion, no embarrassment would be caused to Donna.”
That was my yes to him, a plan to remove her from my life, and give me the freedom to have a real relationship with Nell.
His eyes narrowed as I spoke, his mouth pinching tightly. “At this moment, someone is taking a knife to the throats of our men and the men of the MC. He then peels the skin from half of their body and writes on their corpses. Our alliances are necessary to keep us protected, and to give us the strength we need to continue breathing.”
“The Azarovs aren’t exactly big, Dad. The alliance with them was more important in Russia than here,” Dmitri said, finally adding something useful.
“Our problem is on American soil, so the alliances that make us stronger to fight it are the ones also on this soil, no?”
“This is true,” Dad admitted. “I will think on how we are to do this, and I request you also think on how to do it without the President of the Club slitting your throat.”
Lips twitching, I murmured, “That I’ll do.”
“I have a question,” Dmitri asked, and we both turned to look at him. “How does Bruce not know you’re their father? Surely he’s seen the birth certificate or whatever paperwork she had to complete?”
Shrewd eyes turned from my brother onto me. “If your name isn’t on that paper, Taras, I would suggest you discuss the matter with our lawyer and fix it.”
Nodding, I didn’t tell him that I needed to ‘fix’ the matter with their mother first. I could go behind her back, but it was important to me she agreed to it first.
“And I would also like to meet my grandsons,” he added, his tone making it clear I was to arrange this as soon as possible.
“Of course.”
With a nod of his head, we were dismissed, each aware of what we had to do. With Vadim and Valka now involved with the man or men targeting us, a meeting would be called soon.
In the meantime, we still had teams following leads—a matter that’d been discussed while I was away by phone—and the MC also had men from different chapters doing the same.
While I spoke to Bruce, I’d fill him in on the importance that the arrivals of Vadim and Valka meant for us all, and then we’d arrange a meeting between him and my father to discuss the plan for both of them.
As the door closed behind us, Dmitri called my name before I could walk away.
“A word, brother,” he said quietly, indicating for us to walk down the hallway toward the large entrance to the building. “Donna is… problematic,” he began, keeping his voice low.
“She pushed for the wedding because she’s bordered on obsession with you for years.”
This I already knew, and it was a large part of the reason I refused to live in the same property as her. I didn’t trust her, nor did I want her to read more into the situation than there was. I also hadn’t wanted to do that to Nell, and couldn’t stomach another woman being near me like that.