Total pages in book: 67
Estimated words: 67553 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 338(@200wpm)___ 270(@250wpm)___ 225(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 67553 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 338(@200wpm)___ 270(@250wpm)___ 225(@300wpm)
I had barely enough time as it was to sleep at night. Plus, I hated fucking golf.
But you didn’t say no to the head of the Irish Mafia and not piss him off.
And since I had a feeling he was very much aware that I had some men missing, and who had been involved with it, I chose not to get on his bad side.
Cayden McCloud was ultimately a decent guy, if a bit off his rocker.
It wouldn’t kill me to play an afternoon of golf with him.
“Sure,” I said. “Shoot me a text on when and where.”
“Lots of hoity toity uppity rich bitches will be there,” he mused. “Maybe you can rub some knuckles with your new funding.”
“Sounds like a fuckin’ blast,” I grumbled. “Bye, Cayden.”
“Get out of my territory fast, Semyonov.”
I rolled my eyes and hung up.
The fact that he wasn’t throwing a shit fit about my surprise arrival in his town—me being on his turf or not—meant he wasn’t really mad that I’d shown up unannounced, and he’d expected it.
Honestly, he was probably the one that’d tipped Lev off in the first place.
Shooting off a text to Lev to tell him to look in that direction, I placed my phone face down on my desk and rubbed my face with my hands.
It was well past midnight, and I was tired as fuck.
If I could go to sleep right now, I’d have a solid six and a half hours of sleep before I had to get up in the morning and have breakfast with my sisters.
Of course, the universe laughed at my getting any extra sleep and interrupted.
The moment I dropped my hands to push up out of my chair, the door opened.
“Sir.”
I looked up from the paperwork that was on my desk to find Artur, one of my guards, standing in my doorway.
“Artur,” I said, sounding as tired as I felt. “What’s up? I thought you were gone for the night.”
“I was,” he admitted. “But I was driving down the street and I spotted something at the gate that I thought you might want to see.”
My brows rose. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I didn’t bring it inside the gates, though. Wanted to see what you thought before I brought it in.”
I stood up, smoothing my tie down my chest and buttoning my suit buttons.
Moments later I was out the front door of my house, my pistol tucked into my kidney carry holster, and heading toward the gate.
The guards that were left at the guard shack were standing at the gate.
The moment I was in sight of them, they parted, and I saw a car seat on the ground in front of the gate.
“It’s a baby,” Artur said as I walked up and came to a stop on the opposite side of the gate as the baby.
As if I couldn’t find that out for myself.
“I see that,” I said. “What is it doing outside my gate?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I was leaving and saw it there. Glad they put that little visor thing up, because it started raining.”
I moved so that I was hovering closer to the car seat.
I stared inside at the baby that was no more than a week old.
The baby was fast asleep.
There was a bottle of milk on her lap, and she was snuggled in tight with a blanket made of a rich purple.
I pulled out my phone and placed a call to my second-in-command.
“Alexi,” he answered shortly.
“Alexi,” I said. “Who was manning the guard gate today?”
“Me,” he grumbled. “There was a bad accident down the road. A woman was hit by a car.”
I looked at Artur. “Artur, pull up the cameras and see if this woman is the same woman that was hit by that car.”
Artur immediately started tapping away at the computer in the guard shack.
He twisted the screen toward me, and I snapped a photo and sent it to Alexi. “That her?”
“That’s her,” he said. “She’s dead as fuck. What’s going on?”
“That woman dropped a baby off at the gate with a note,” I said as I picked up the note and read it. “She wrote: This is my baby. I didn’t give her a name because I didn’t want to become attached. I saw you on the news. You’re the scariest man I could think of that might keep my baby alive. Don’t let him have her.”
“The man fled the scene,” he said. “Another bystander stopped. I headed down there when I heard a commotion. Never saw a baby, though.”
“It was there,” I said, pointing at where the baby had been sitting the entire time. “She. She was there.”
“What are you going to do?” Artur asked.
“Alexi, get whatever info you can on the woman. Artur, call and wake Polina up. Ask her to call her daughter.”
“On it,” Artur said as he pulled out his cell phone.