Page 85 of Where the Wind Whispers

Even as the guilt of that settled over him, Kaz couldn’t think about that now, not when he watched as Alberto pulled out his phone and dialed a number, putting the phone on speaker.

“Boss?” came a gravelly voice from the other end.

“Kill the Russian.”

“Yes, boss.”

The last thing Kaz had heard before the line went dead was the sharp clap of bullets firing and a woman’s screams.

“I’ll be seeing you soon, Kazimir. I guarantee it,” Alberto called after him with a triumphant laugh.

But Kaz was already running for the door.

Rus picked another chiffon and silk dress off the wall, adding it to the other three in his hand. Violet laughed when he shrugged at her questioning stare. Her brother-in-law was not the type of man to show many emotions—unless it was anger—and he never showed softness in Violet’s presence.

There was only one exception to that rule.

Little Anastasya.

Violet swore her daughter was any man’s kryptonite. She had yet to find a single man in their life that didn’t lay eyes on the baby girl and melt like a fucking sap. It was both sweet and amusing to see men like her husband or brother-in-law turn into teddy bears with a baby in their arms.

The girl was a princess.

Her uncle made sure to treat her as such, too.

Bending down to look in the stroller, Rus smiled at the sight of his wide-eyed, cooing niece. He reached in and fixed the fluffy white hat with the large bow attached to the side that he’d just pulled off the rack and put on the baby. He’d taken the tag off first, of course, adding it to the hugely growing pile of things he was buying.

“Pretty girl,” Rus told the baby, laughing when she tried to suck on the tips of his fingers.

“You know, she already has a bigger wardrobe than I do,” Violet mused, “and she’s a newborn.”

“She needs to be wearing things as pretty as she is,” Rus replied absently, his attention fully on the baby. “Yes, you do, little milaya.”

Anastasya had been sleeping for most of the trip away from the mansion. Only after her father had called and they arrived at the boutique did the baby wake up when Rus moved her from her car seat to her stroller.

“Rus, that hat was fifty dollars alone.”

It was a cute hat, as far as that went. Thick, fluffy wool and a large silk bow made it a sweet sight on her tiny head with her dark tufts of hair poking out and her big gray eyes so wide and expressive. But at the same time, Anastasya had thirty hats and at least another fifteen headbands with bows or flowers of some sort. She had so many that the little girl could literally wear a different one every day of the month.

Ruslan straightened to his full height, staring at Violet with a blank expression. “And?”

“She’s a baby. It just seems like a bit much for a baby.”

“My niece—my first niece. That gives me every right to spoil her as I see fit, no?”

Violet smiled, knowing damn well that she wasn’t going to get anywhere by arguing with Ruslan. She wasn’t uncomfortable with wealth; she’d grown up extremely wealthy. She simply didn’t want to see history repeating where material things became a focus for her child.

Still … she knew it wasn’t the same thing.

Ruslan enjoyed buying things for the baby and so did Kaz, really. It was all done with the best of intentions and good hearts that were usually a little black and encrusted with ice.

At the sight of Ruslan’s grin when he glanced down at the baby girl once more, Violet decided to drop the topic and not bring it up again.

Violet checked the counter, noting the customers that had been keeping them from checking out of the boutique were finally done with their purchases and having them packaged. “We should hurry up, though, because she’s going to want to feed soon.”

She’d brought a bottle along for Anastasya but had left it in the SUV with the baby’s diaper bag.

The trip inside the boutique had lasted longer than she thought.