“Your little partner?”
“Sure,” she nodded, then pulled out a Ruger SR9 from her waistband. “I’ve got a Sig P226 in my purse, too. So if your men could find it back at the house, that’d be great.”
If I hadn’t seen her handle a weapon during one of the lessons she’d given Nell, I might have panicked at her having a gun like that. She was as good as any of my men, though, so I didn’t.
“What the hell are you doing?” Hunter snapped, appearing in the entrance to the room and glaring at Lena. “I already told you before you didn’t need to carry one of those.”
He was reaching for it when she stopped him with what she fired back. “And I already told you it was none of your goddamn business, and that if you tried to take it off me, I’d show you exactly how good a shot I was by shooting you.”
“Selena,” he started, using her full name, but she turned her head away from him, effectively dismissing him.
“I’d suggest you get Nell something like a Springfield XD to carry with her. It’s lightweight and easy for her to understand because I’ve been teaching her with one.”
“I’ll make sure she gets one.”
Looking slightly upset, she muttered, “Got one of those as well in the boxes in my room. They better be okay after that bullshit.”
The woman looked like an angel, but I’d never seen anyone more suited to being a hellion. It was a paradox that would either scare a man off, or draw him to her to take control of her, like Hunter wanted to.
“We’re going to be here protecting you,” the man in question clipped. “So you don’t need any more of your damn guns.”
Looking at him dispassionately, Lena said coolly, “I don’t remember asking for your opinion on it, Jaeger. But rest assured, I don’t need your help. Ever.”
We were interrupted by Dad and Bruce joining us, and judging by the expressions they were wearing, they’d picked up on the tension between the two.
“I’ve just stored Lena and Nell’s details in the system, they’re good to go,” I said to Dad. “It’s close to the boys’ feeding time, so I’ll just show them the rest of the house, and make sure they’re settled before I come back down.”
Nodding at me, he moved aside so we could get back out, and I went about doing just that.
In the last four weeks, we’d received the document that looked like a real and genuine version of a divorce decree, but was, in fact, as fake as the one that’d declared Donna and me married. We had an illusion to maintain about the whole fiasco, so it needed to be done this way.
I’d also been added onto the boys’ birth certificates, something Nell hadn’t argued against. So it was official—I was their father legally.
There have been many times in my life where I’ve felt overwhelmed or emotional over things, a perfect example being when I had to let Nell go just over nine months ago. But nothing could have prepared me for what those certificates—simple pieces of paper—would make me feel.
It wasn’t just the relief of knowing they were officially members of the Fedorov family, so they were under our protection. It was the fact they were now mine legally—and I was theirs.
I just had to get their mom to realize I was hers, too.
After we’d dropped Lena off at her room, I took her to mine, where there was a large travel cot waiting. The boys had roughly thirty minutes until their next feed, and they’d fallen back to sleep with the rocking motion provided by Lena and Nell walking with them, so we put them down into it.
I knew Dad was waiting for me, but I needed to speak to her.
Nudging her toward the bed, I waited until she’d sat down, and then squatted in front of her, holding her hands gently as I looked at her. She seemed almost dazed, but also looked lost.
“You don’t have to worry or even do a thing, except focus on yourself and the boys, moye serdste.”
“What does that mean?”
Not understanding exactly what part of it she meant, I went with the one that seemed most obvious to me.
“It means there are people who’ll do the laundry and cooking, so you can just—”
“No,” she interrupted, frowning now. “I know what you meant about that. What I don’t understand is that name you’ve started calling me.”
“Moye serdste?”
“Yeah, that one. What does it mean?”
Shuffling slightly closer to her, I held her eyes as I translated it. “It means my heart.”
Her head jerked slightly, but she stayed where she was. She knew that the marriage was over, but I hadn’t been able to tell her about the truth behind it, and why it’d been so necessary.