The Life Read Online Free Page A

chuckled. Bending down, Ivan picked up a bolt and twirled it between his fingers.
    “Yeah, she did, but not until after I tried to set one up myself. The damned thing was a deathtrap waiting to happen. My pride wouldn’t let me call my father and say, “hey, can you come down here and teach me how to set up a baby’s crib?” I mean, it’s a fucking crib. Just wood and bolts.” Ivan waved at the pieces of what should have been set up an hour ago if Anton knew anything about what he was doing. “It can’t be that hard, right? Yeah, whatever. I spent a decade getting the education I have and spent a couple hundred grand making sure I got the best one, but not a lick of it got me ready for this shit, or parenthood.”
    “I wish I could call Daniil. He’d tell me to suck it the fuck up and get it done.”
    That was really all Anton needed; his father to say he was acting like a spoiled man, and to handle his stuff. Unfortunately, Daniil wouldn’t be spending any time outside of the hospital unless it was in his casket. That only served to have Anton’s sadness rising. Simply thinking about not having his father around for things like setting up his son’s crib or a late night phone call when he didn’t know what to do after Demyan was born was a dreary prospect. One that broke his heart to pieces.
    Sure, he would still have his mother, but there was a whole different facet to the relationship Anton shared with Daniil. Be it the way his father raised Anton, the Bratva lifestyle, or the secrets each man carried for the other, their father and son relationship went a little deeper than others.
    “Is this really about the crib?” Ivan asked. “Or is it something else, too?”
    Anton blinked away the miserable expression he must have been sporting and slid on one of his usual masks. “What the fuck are you, my therapist?”
    Ivan didn’t bite onto the jibe. “No, I’m your friend, so quit with the attitude.”
    Fuck, Anton hated feeling shit. When it came to emotions, he would much rather just bottle it up and store it away for a rainy day when some asshole in the Bratva pushed the boss past his limits.
    “Have you talked to Vine about whatever is going on with you?”
    Glancing away with a grimace, Anton said, “A little.”
    “And?”
    “And what? She’s got enough going on, Ivan. I don’t want to stress her out with nonsense right now. Between being pregnant, her classes at the university, trying to get ready for her final exams before the baby is born, and now last week with the feds suddenly photographing her? My wife has enough to deal with without me adding to it.”
    “Well, that’s crap if I ever heard it.”
    “Fuck you.”
    “No, it is,” Ivan said just as sharp. “Think about it, that girl knows you better than anyone, and you’re telling me she’s sitting back oblivious to the fact that you’re clearly bothered by something. Absolute crap .”
    Not wanting to dwell on the elephant in the room, Anton began tinkering away with what little bit of the crib he already had set up. Purposely ignoring Ivan, he somehow managed to get the four walls of the crib to stay up long enough for him to loosely place the bolts where they needed to go along the bottom. Without saying a word, Ivan was suddenly kneeling down beside Anton, steadying the structure as the younger man began placing washers along threaded steel and tightening the nuts to the backs of the bolts.
    “I’m really going to miss my father,” Anton whispered, keeping his eyes on his work.
    “Yeah, I know.”
    “It sucks even more right now because it’d be great to have my dad as just my dad for once, without all the other bullshit we usually had to deal with around it, you know?”
    “Yep.” Moving out of Anton’s way so the younger man could start tightening the other side, Ivan said, “But I think you know as well as I do that you had a pretty great father in Daniil. It’s not like you’re going into this completely