Page 7 of Sexting the Single Pakhan

I arch a brow. He knows Russian. He’s been fluent since he was three, understands every word I say. But sometimes he does this: answers in English just to poke at me. A tiny act of rebellion. It almost makes me smile.

I ruffle his hair again, and lean down to press a quick kiss to his forehead. He doesn’t lean into it like he used to when he was way little. Just watches me with that quiet gaze.

“Sleep well,” I say, switching to English this time.

He nods once, then turns facing the wall.

I stand, lingering for a second in the doorway, watching the soft rise and fall of his chest under the blanket. There’s no one I love more than this boy. No one I’d burn the world down for.

As he grows older, our relationship isn’t getting better. If anything, it’s fraying. And it’s my fault: I’m gone too much, always on the move. Business doesn’t pause. Enemies don’t sleep. And every trip I take is another night he’s kept safe.

He doesn’t ask me to play ping-pong anymore. Doesn’t run to the door when I come home. Just looks up from his books or his tablet with that quiet, assessing stare, like he’s already decided I’m not worth the effort.

After my parents passed when I was nine, I was left to care for my younger brother, Igor, and I know what we went through growing up. The nights we slept on the streets on empty stomachs. I swore Alexei would never know that kind of hunger, that kind of fear.

That’s why I work the way I do. Why I built this empire brick by bloody brick. Every contract I sign, every rival I crush, every dollar I stack, it’s all for him. One day he’ll understand.

He’ll look at the hotels, the clubs, the offshore accounts, the security that surrounds him, and he’ll see the legacy I’m carving out. He’ll see why I wasn’t there for bedtime stories or Saturday mornings at the park. He’ll understand.

I close the door softly and head back down the hallway. My mind drifts back to how this all started. Six years ago, the night everything changed.

It was my birthday. Igor had dragged me out, insisting I needed to let loose for once. “You’re thirty-one, brat. One night. One fucking night without being the Pakhan.” We ended up at one of our own clubs in Midtown, the bass thumping through the walls, champagne flowing like water.

I rarely drank enough to lose control, but that night I did. Linda was there, long legs, dark hair, easy smile. A one-night stand in a dark VIP booth, protection used, no strings. I woke up the next morning with a pounding head and no intention of ever seeing her again.

I forgot her name within a week.

Nine months later she showed up at my door with a screaming infant in a cheap car seat, eyes glassy and desperate. “He’s yours,” she said. “I need money.” I laughed at first, thought it was a scam.

Then I had a DNA test conducted, and it was confirmed that he was mine. And that’s when the truth came out. Linda was an addict, heroin, mostly. She’d tried to abort twice; neither worked. She carried the pregnancy to term only because she saw it as an opportunity to extort me.

She handed Alexei over in the hospital hallway after the test results came back, took the envelope of cash I gave her, and walked away without looking back.

A few months later she crawled back, strung out, begging for more. I didn’t give it to her. I had her committed to a private rehab upstate instead, the best facility money could buy. Told her to get clean for her son. A week later she bolted. Three days after that, the call came: she overdosed in a motel bathroom outside Albany.

And that was how I became the sole guardian of a newborn. I could negotiate multimillion-dollar deals, intimidate men twice my size into silence, order a hit without blinking. But fatherhood? That was a different kind of war. And I’m failing at it.

Chapter Three

Laurel

I wake up this morning with a smile on my face and a buzz between my legs. Even though I crashed on the couch, I still feel good, not cranky like I usually am when I fall asleep there after staying up late with my favorite show.

I walk into Prudence Elementary, all smiles, dressed in a simple navy dress, cardigan, and low heels. The morning rush is already in full swing, the halls smell like fresh coffee and the faint lemon cleaner the janitors use. A few early drop-offs are already here. I head straight for the teachers’ break room, desperate for my caffeine fix.

The coffee maker gurgles as I pour myself a generous mug. While it finishes brewing, I text Tasha a rough recap of last night and promise to call her after work.

I add a splash of oat milk, stir, and take a sip. I lean against the counter, eyes drifting toward the window that overlooks the drop-off circle.

A small, traitorous part of me hopes, stupidly, that Leonid Volkov will pull up in one of those black SUVs today. That I’ll catch a glimpse of him.

I close my eyes for a second, picturing him stepping out, tall and broad, the hard planes of his chest visible under whatever perfectly tailored shirt he’s wearing. My fingers itch just thinking about running them over, tracing the ridges of muscle, feeling the warmth of his skin, the faint scars I glimpsed last night. Heat pools low in my belly again, my lips curling up in a smile.

“Well, someone’s awfully chipper this morning. What’s got you smiling like the cat that got the cream, Harper?”

I turn slowly. Aria stands in the doorway, holding one of her signature green smoothies. She sips it through a metal straw, lips pursed in that perpetual expression of superiority.

I set my mug down with deliberate calm. “Unlike some people, Aria, I’m not unhappy with my life. So yeah. I’m smiling. Shocking concept, I know.”