Cruel Paradise (Oryolov Bratva Book 1)

I hope the kids are still awake.

That’s the third shocking thought that I’ve had in the last half an hour. This shit is getting out of hand. I ought to put a stop to it before it spirals even further.

But apparently, that concern isn’t enough to stop me from darkening their doorstep at eight-thirty in the evening.

Emma looks stunned when she opens the door and comes face to face with me. “Ruslan?”

I can hear squeals coming from one of the rooms in the back of the apartment. So the little monsters are still awake. I wish that didn’t put such a goofy smile on my face.

Cut that shit out, I snarl at myself.

“Busy?”

She glances back over her shoulder. The living room looks like a disaster zone. It’s covered in clothes and toys and scraps of cardboard and glitter.

“Always.” She manages a smile as she turns back to me. “Did I, uh… forget something at the office?”

I shake my head. “No, I just thought I’d take another look at the car.”

Her eyes scan my navy blue suit. “I’m not sure you can be a grease monkey in Tom Ford.”

“You can do anything in Tom Ford.”

Her laugh is drowned out as the girls come squealing into the living room, some imaginary monster hot on their heels.

The imaginary monster turns out to be Josh. All three kids stop short when they see me.

Then—chaos.

“Ruslan! Ruslan! Ruslan!” Caroline cries, throwing herself at my waist and nearly kneeing me in the balls.

“Did you bring us pizza?” Reagan asks as she pulls on the corner of my suit jacket.

“Caroline! Reagan! Give Ruslan some room to breathe, for God’s sake.”

“But Auntie Em!” whines Caroline. “He came to see us.”

Ah, the confidence of youth. Josh helps Emma disentangle the girls from me. “He came to see Aunt Em,” Josh scolds his sisters.

Both of them pout instantly. Caroline turns to me with knitted eyebrows and Reagan plants her fists on her hips like the five-year-old grandmother she is.

“Who did you come to see?” Reagan demands. “We wanna know.”

Emma gives me an apologetic look over their heads, her cheeks flushed.

“I came to see the car,” I tell the two little she-devils in front of me. The moment their faces fall, I add, “And I came to see you guys.”

They erupt in cheers while Josh covers his ears and Emma fights a laugh. “So much for getting them to bed early,” she reprimands me.

“Add it to my list of sins.”

She gives me a helpless little shrug and a smile that makes me want to take her down and strip her naked right here and now. Then she turns to the kids and claps her hands together. “Okay, gremlins, time for bed—” She keeps talking over the chorus of disappointed moans that ensues. “—which means we brush teeth first. You know the drill.”

When the girls ignore her, she grabs an elbow each and starts dragging them towards their room. Josh sidles a little closer to me. “Thanks for coming.” He blushes a little and takes a deep breath. “It makes Aunt Emma really happy when you come over.”

Then, before I can respond, he bolts out of the living room. I stand there, in the midst of Emma’s life, staring at everything she’s built, with one glaringly obvious observation on my mind.

You don’t fit in here.

Shaking my head, I walk towards the mantel. A series of framed photographs beams out at me. Like the rest of the apartment, it’s chaotic and mismatched. But also like the rest of the apartment, somehow, it works.

Most of the pictures are of the kids. Chubby-cheeked babies, toddlers with skinned knees and gummy smiles. But off to the left, tucked almost out of sight, is a picture of Emma and another young woman who can only be her sister. Both have fake highlights: Emma’s hair is an electric blue and her sister’s are bubblegum pink. They’re both looking off-camera, laughing unreservedly. Something about the scene makes my heart pang uncomfortably.

I stroll down the mantel, running my finger along the edge of it. On the far side is a small wooden music box, nestled between a photograph of a four-year-old Josh smearing birthday cake on his face and the girls blowing bubbles in the park.

I touch the silver crank on the side and look at my fingertip. No dust. Someone comes here and winds the toy up often.

I open the lid delicately and a little figurine of a ballerina rises up from within. When I push the crank, the first few tinkling notes of a song begin to play softly.

“It was Sienna’s.”

For the first time in as long as I can remember, someone caught me by surprise. I was so engrossed that I didn’t even realize that Emma had returned to the living room. She joins me at the mantel.

“She gave it to me when I went off to college,” she explains. “I’ve carried it with me everywhere we’ve moved since then. It’s the first thing I pack and the last thing I unpack.”

She turns to me as the silence creeps in between us. She’s shared so much of her life with me and still, I’m greedy for more. Greedy for the backstories to every picture on the mantel, for the secrets she keeps locked up tight, hiding behind those aqua eyes of hers.

It’s not a fair ask. I haven’t given her anything of myself in return.

“Ruslan—”

She stops short at the sound of heavy footsteps in the hallway. I hear the sound of a key being forced into the front door. Then it swings open and Ben stumbles in.

“Oh, God, Ben!” Emma gasps.

He looks like an absolute fucking trainwreck. He makes it half a step into the living room before collapsing against the side of the sofa, an eerily inhuman moan floating from between his lips.

Emma stalks over to the front door and closes it just as a passing neighbor looks in with alarm written on his face. “Wasted again?” she hisses with an embarrassed glance over her shoulder at me. “This is the fourth time this week!”

He presses three limp fingers to his forehead. “I’mma not d-drunk,” he slurs.

“You were supposed to take the kids to school this morning! Where were you?”

He looks at her for a moment, before his eyes veer to me. “I had…” He burps mid-sentence before finishing, “… shit to do.”

“You promised the girls you’d take them. They were counting on you—”

She breaks off when the kids enter the living room. They take one look at Ben and their wide smiles falter. Josh looks wary; Rae and Caro look nervous. Ben aims another shifty glance at me and clears his throat before turning his sloppy attention toward them.

“Come here, m-my little angels,” he says, throwing his arms out wide. “Come give Daddy a kiss.”

The girls hesitate for only a moment before they venture warily into his arms. He tickles them until they relax. Then he starts digging into the pockets of his pants. “Guess what? I brought you two a present.”

“A present!” Reagan trills. “Yay!”

The son of a bitch proceeds to pull out a dirty lozenge that’s been in his pocket for fuck knows how long. He hands it to Reagan.

Caroline stares at him expectantly. “What about me, Daddy?”

He tries to mask his impatience. “Hold on, hold on, hold the hell on.” He keeps digging while Emma, Josh and I stand on the periphery, watching this pathetic fucking attempt at fatherhood.

“Aw, shit, looks like it fell out of my pocket.” He plucks the lozenge out of Reagan’s hand and gives it to Caroline. “Just share, okay?”

“But—”

“Now, go on. Daddy’s got a headache.”

Reagan tries to grab the lozenge from her sister while Ben fights to control the grimace on his face.

Of course, Emma’s right there, already in damage control mode. “Okay, girls, bedtime! Go on. Put your PJs on and get in bed; I’ll be there in a second.”

Both girls give me shy smiles on their way out of the living room. Josh inches closer to me, his eyes fixed on Ben.

Ben’s gaze narrows, but despite the deep downturn in his mouth, he tries to keep his voice upbeat. “J-Man, how was your d-day?”

“Fine.”

He’s not so far gone that he doesn’t realize his son is being intentionally short with him. He glares at Josh, the scowl overtaking his need to put up this half-assed façade for my benefit. He drops it entirely when he looks at me. “Spent the whole day here, did ya?”

“Just got here, actually,” I answer coolly. “I stopped by to take a look at the car.”

Ben laughs before it descends into a cough. “Hey, you wanna help, you can get me a new car like you did Emma.”

Emma’s eyes go wide. “Ben—”

“Emma’s an employee. You are not. She works for what she has. You do not.”

He opens his mouth to argue, then changes his mind and shoves himself back to standing. “I-I’m just gonna… sleep off this headache…” Then he stumbles out of the living room, leaving behind the stink of booze like a toxic cloud.

Emma turns to Josh, her expression confusing me for a second. “Honey…”

Only then do I notice that Josh is shaking. Literally shaking. Emma reaches out towards him, but before she can stop him, he snatches up the empty glass on the table and flings it at the exposed brick wall. It bursts like fireworks and shards of glass go in every direction.

Based on Emma’s reaction, I’m guessing this isn’t the first time something like this has happened. I see it now; I’m not sure how I didn’t before. I thought the wreckage of his life just made Josh sad. But now, when I look closer, I see the undercurrent of anger surging beneath it. That anger runs deep.

I know the feeling.

Emma ignores the broken glass all over the floor and kneels down in front of Josh. Her voice is calm and soothing when she speaks. “Breathe, Josh. Just breathe. I’m here.”

She pulls him against her. The moment his cheek comes to rest on her shoulder, his body starts quaking with sobs.

“I-I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, darling,” Emma says, rubbing his back gently. “It’s okay. You’re okay.”

“Aunt Emma?” The girls’ voices carry through from their bedroom.

Emma glances at me helplessly. “Can you… can you just stay with Josh? I won’t be five minutes.”

I can only nod silently. She places a delicate kiss on Josh’s head and hurries off to make sure the girls are okay.

Josh turns away from me, wiping away his tears and avoiding eye contact. I put a hand on his shoulder and spin him around to face me.

“Talk to me,” I rumble.

He still doesn’t look at me. “I hate him. I hate him so much and it makes me so… so angry.”

His little body roils with the weight of his emotion. I know exactly what he’s feeling right now—because once upon a time, I was Josh, shaking with anger and frustration, without the faintest idea what to do about it.

I place my hands on his shoulders. “It’s okay, Josh. It’s gonna be okay.”

Finally, he raises his eyes to mine. “How do you know?”

“Because I’m gonna make it that way.”