Whatever I have just stepped into, it feels bigger than schedules or smoothies or even my acting dreams.
It feels like the start of something forbidden.
And deep down, beneath the optimist who always looks for the bright side, I am not sure I want to step back.
Chapter 6
Kirill
The city sidewalk feels different under my shoes as I walk away from the café.
The late afternoon light has softened into early evening gold, casting long shadows between the buildings. Teddy’s green smoothie and his bright, determined eyes linger in my mind longer than they should.
I enjoyed the coffee—more than I care to admit.
The boy’s voice when he spoke about acting was full of genuine passion, the kind of raw optimism that most people lose by the time they reach their mid-twenties. He hadn’t held back. He told me his dreams like they mattered, and for a few minutes, I listened as if they did.
What strikes me most, though, is the moment outside the SUV. The way he marched across the street with Bobby, fire in his eyes, and stopped my man from closing the door. Teddy looked me straight in the face and told me—no,informedme—that he would no longer train my nephew.
The sheer audacity of it.
No one speaks to me like that.
Not my soldiers, not my associates, not even Viktor. And certainly not since I took my father’s place as pakhan. People bow, they obey, they whisper agreements behind closed doors. They donotchallenge me on a public sidewalk.
Yet Teddy did. With his small, athletic frame, flushed cheeks, and that peppy energy he seems to carry everywhere, he stood up to me without flinching.
It is refreshing.
Disarming, even. A crack of light in the heavy darkness I carry daily. For the first time in months, someone has treated me like a man rather than a title or a threat.
But that is exactly the problem.
I hadn’t been thinking straight when I followed him. When my hand landed on his shoulder and the my offer to take him for coffee left my mouth.
I have told myself—repeatedly—that there would be no more contact beyond Bobby’s training. Teddy is staff. Temporary staff. A tool to give my nephew the discipline and structure he desperately needs after my father’s death shook the family. Nothing more.
Yet I slipped out of business mode the moment those defiant eyes met mine. I socialized. I offered help with his acting career. I shook the boy’s hand and felt the warmth of his skin against mine far longer than necessary.
Foolish.
I loosen my tie as I continue walking, the cool evening air brushing against my neck. Ivan’s face flashes in my memory from our recent meeting. The way he spoke about his boy—his Forever Love—with that rare softness in his voice. He has found something real in this brutal world. A Little who completes him, who gives him a reason to come home from the shadows.
Ivan is a killer by trade, yet he has managed to build something tender and lasting.
I know what I am. A Daddy. The instinct lives in me as naturally as breathing—the need to guide, to protect, to correct when necessary, to reward when earned.
The thought of having a boy of my own, one who would look up at me with trust and need, who would accept my firm hand and my care… it pulls at something deep inside.
Teddy’s sass today has stirred my Daddy drive awake. His flushed reaction when I offered help, the way his breath hitched when our hands touched—it all points to a submissive core beneath that bright optimism.
A Little who doesn’t yet know he is one.
Or maybe he does.
But the pragmatic pakhan side of me crushes the fantasy before it can take root.
Now isnotthe time.
