44

Vicky didn’t like what she was hearing from our father. She tried to wiggle out of it, even negotiate, but our parent’s stubbornness was stronger. So strong that he decided to threaten her with her children — which made the girl’s face completely change, turning pale like a bleached toadstool.

“Vicky!” the woman sitting next to her exclaimed in alarm and began scolding angrily.

“Look at what you’ve done to the poor thing! She barely stepped through the door and you’re already pressuring her with your conditions! You could’ve handled it normally, without all this! You could’ve courted her, invited her on dates, and then she would’ve agreed to marry on her own! But no! You started measuring your… capabilities here! Fathers, damn it! Why are you standing there like statues? You and you!” she shoots her angry gaze at father and me.

“Take the children immediately! And you!” she nods at Nazar. “Bring water, now!”

“Ma’am,” father starts to simmer, “aren’t you giving out a few too many orders here?”

“My name is Valentina,” the woman introduced herself. “And without me, you’ll be stumbling around with these children like blind kittens. You don’t know anything about them! I’m your guide and your helper, so silently do what I told you!”

We all were pretty stunned by the commanding and unquestionable tone of this seemingly sweet, slightly plump woman in her fifties. On a purely intuitive level, we wanted to obey her — just to avoid getting our heads bitten off.

Nazar darted into the kitchen and came back with a glass of water, and they shoved one child each into my and my father’s hands. Father immediately took one of my sons and sat down with him, starting to entertain him. And I just stood there, staring at my exact copy from childhood, not understanding what I was supposed to do with him at all!

While the nanny was trying to bring Victoria back to her senses, we kept standing like that. The little one looked at me very attentively for a few seconds, and then suddenly started screaming!

I had never been so scared in my entire life!

“Why is he screaming?! What’s wrong?! Did I do something to him?!” I panic, my voice beginning to shake—because this is terrifying! Cold sweat is streaming down my back while a real hurricane of panic rages inside me.

“See? You even scared the children!” the nanny mutters. “This is Andry, and you made him so nervous too, that he pooped himself, the poor thing.”

Lowering my head a little closer to the kid, I inhale, sniffing… and I really shouldn’t have done that! A wave of nausea shot straight to my throat and I made a very characteristic gagging sound. The whole world dimmed and I felt like throwing up. I try to bury my nose in my own shoulder, since my hands are busy. God, how it stinks!

“Oh, look how delicate we are!” Valentina throws up her hands sarcastically. “And imagine what it was like for her alone with two kids, while you were living here enjoying yourself?”

“I didn’t know,” I snap back, and the woman takes Andry from me.

“He didn’t know…” she grumbles. “Show us the room where we can settle in with the children and rest after the road. And also, it wouldn’t hurt to eat. Vicky hasn’t had a crumb in her mouth today—she thought she’d be home soon and didn’t expect to be kidnapped!” Valentina looks at me and then at my father with clear reproach. He’s staring at her with his mouth open in shock. It’s been a long time since a woman scolded him like that.

To prevent them from giving the smelly little human back to me, I quickly pick Vicky up in my arms, and we go up to the second floor of the house, to the room temporarily assigned to her and the kids. She feels so light and fragile in my hands that I’m amazed she managed to carry and give birth to two children.

After laying Vicky on the bed, I stand there for a few moments, watching how peacefully she sleeps.

“What are you staring at?” I hear Valentina’s sarcastic tone. “You’ll have plenty of time to look at her later. In any case, you’re now connected, at the very least by your children. Come on, bring our things here, the little ones need to be changed. Or do you want to do it yourself?”

From that prospect alone, I shuddered and shot out of the room. One thing is to smell that stench, and quite another—to actually see its source!

When the things were brought into the room where Vicky, the children, and the nanny were, I got out of there as far as possible. Though they didn’t let me run far—they said the kids needed boiling water to prepare their formula.

About forty minutes later, Valentina came downstairs, saying that she had changed the children, fed them, and put them to bed for the night. Father escorted the woman to the guest room where the nanny could stay. And I was eaten up by curiosity, so I slipped into the room of my future family.

The boys were sleeping quietly in their new cribs, which we had specially bought today, and I stared at them, afraid even to breathe. Such fragile mini humans! Incredible! And they’re mine…

“Trying to get into the role of a father?” I hear Vicky’s soft voice after she woke up.

I quickly turned around, as if I’d been caught doing something shameful, and looked at the golden-haired girl. She was watching me with her huge blue eyes, and I could see sadness in them. And for some reason, I didn’t like that at all.

“We need to talk.”