Roses & Ruin

Chapter 39 (Lexi)

        I joined my brother's outside in order to escape the other baby shower games. The men were outside smoking cigars and Andrei wanted to smoke one. "You should be inside with the women" Dmitriy, my eldest brother, tried to send me away. 

"And you should be in 1854, but you're not," I shrugged. 

I felt him grab my elbow kinda hard and it was a silent warning to behave myself. I huffed and walked off, heading towards the side yard where there were hardly any people.

        "Overwhelmed?" I eventually heard a voice ask me from behind. I jolted at the intrusion and whirled around. Enzo was in dark slacks and a navy button down. He's since lost the jacket and shoved up his sleeves. 

"Listen, I want you to meet somebody" he told me. I looked around to see if anyone was with him, but I could still spot the guys in the distance chatting and shit talking.

"Who?" I asked when I saw no one else. Enzo looked hesitant for a second and he was starting to weird me out. "I'm not sure if you know or not..." he trailed off trying to read me. "Know what?" I crossed my arms. 

"About my daughter" I heard him say. My eyes almost bulged right out of my head.

        "You have a kid?!" I wasn't graceful about it. Enzo rubbed the back of his neck before shrugging, "Yeah. She's 5." Then it all clicked. Anthony's niece. This is her. Damn me straight to Hell. How am I in this mess? 

I held up a finger telling him to hold on a second and stomped across the lawn to my brothers. The group was still talking amongst each other but I tugged on the backs of both their shirts to gain their attention.

        "Did you know Enzo had a kid?" I asked them in a tone of voice that wasn't very happy. I was scowling and I wasn't gonna hide it either. Fuck these people. Dmitriy and Andrei looked at each other. Andrei was the one to speak up first. "Yeah, we knew," he admitted. I gaped at him.

"You didn't want that Alessandro dude because he was having a kid, but you're fine with this guy having a kid?!" I spat at them in Russian. Dmitriy grabbed my arm and dragged me away from the group since the guys started paying attention. My other brother followed.

"Watch your fucking tone" Dmitriy snapped at me. I took a step closer to him. "Or what?" I challenged him in a way I usually don't. Andrei was the one to step forward and lean into my ear.

"Or I'll embarrass you, drag you outta here, and lock you away until the wedding day" he threatened me. I grit my teeth and shifted to glare at him. 

I hate when they sandwich me this way. I felt rage bubbling up inside me. I wanted to flip out. I wanted to be an asshole and embarrass them, but I didn't.

        Enzo ended up walking over and both my brother's gave me the eyes warning me to behave. "Hey, I didn't know that you didn't know. I'm not looking to make you step mother or nothing. I just thought you should meet" he told me and them both.

"Yeah, I think it's a good idea. She'll be your wife soon enough. She'll be what you need her to be" Dmitriy assured him. I wanted to stomp on his foot. I envisioned it. Stomping on his foot, hopefully breaking a toe, and then kneeing Andrei in the balls so he could topple over as I walk away. That'd be great.

Since I couldn't do any of that I decided it best to step away from my brother's anyway. I wanted to steal the guns from their backs and shoot them with it. So I agreed to meeting the kid. 

        "She's a good kid," Enzo assured me. "It's nothing against the kid. This is all just...a lot" I felt like an asshole scowling at his 5 year old, so I made sure to point that out. "Her name's Daisy" he informed me as we walked inside.