“This changes things, Leah,” he says, his voice firm, leaving no room for pushback. “This is no longer a choice.”
My heart sinks. I know what he’s going to say. I’ve known it since Iliya shielded me from those bullets.
“You and Eliza are moving in here,” he states, his voice absolute. “Today. Immediately.”
My mind screams no. My independence, my life, my carefully constructed world, all of it is crumbling around me. But the image of those bullet holes, the memory of the gunfire, flash through my mind. The fear is still a cold knot in my stomach.
I open my mouth to protest, to fight, to cling to the last vestiges of my freedom, but the words catch in my throat. He’s right. This isn’t a choice anymore. Not when my life, and more importantly, the lives of my children, are at stake. He just saved me.He’s offering protection, a fortress against the unseen enemies lurking in his world.
I look into his eyes, and I see not just dominance, but a fierce, unyielding resolve. He will
protect his own.
A single tear escapes, tracing a path down my cheek. I can no longer say no. I can no longer fight him. The world I knew is gone, shattered by bullets, replaced by a new, terrifying reality.
“Okay,” I whisper, the word barely audible, a surrender that feels both devastating and strangely, profoundly relieving. “Okay, Viktor.”
14
VIKTOR
I’m gripping the edge of my desk so hard, my knuckles are white. The polished wood groans under the pressure, a faint, almost imperceptible protest against the storm raging inside me.
Leah. Someone dared to attack Leah, to try to end her life and take her from me.
The thought sends a fresh wave of ice and fire through my veins, a chilling fury that narrows my vision, sharpening the edges of the ornate gold frame with my father’s portrait across the room.
Leah, who is carrying my child, my heir, represents a fragile hope I hadn’t realized I was clinging to. Never mind that whatever feelings I had for her in the beginning are only growing at a rapid pace. I haven’t felt this way in decades; it’s a warmth that has begun to thaw the permafrost around my heart. And someone tried to take her from me.
The air in my home office, usually thick with the scent of old leather, expensive cigars, and the faint metallic tang of ambition, now feels suffocating, charged with my rage. The heavy velvet drapes are drawn, blocking out the last vestiges of the fadingautumn light, plunging the room into a perpetual twilight illuminated only by the soft glow of a single desk lamp and the flickering embers in the fireplace. Each crackle of the burning logs seems to mock me, a reminder of the destructive fire within.
Iliya stands by the door, a silent, unmoving sentinel, a shadow carved from granite. His face is a mask, as always, but the tension in his broad shoulders is visible in the subtle clench of his jaw, the way his eyes, usually so calm, dart almost imperceptibly toward the antique clock on the mantelpiece. He knows. He always knows. He was the one who called, his voice tight, stripped of its usual measured cadence, relaying the news of the botched hit.
Botched.
The word echoes in my mind, a cruel, mocking whisper. It means they failed, yes, but it also means theytried. They dared to breach the sanctity of my world, to threaten what’s mine.
“Get them in here,” I rasp, my voice rough, barely recognizable even to my own ears.
Iliya nods, already moving, a fluid, efficient motion. He doesn’t question, doesn’t hesitate. Loyalty, absolute and unwavering, is a rare commodity in my world, and Iliya possesses it in spades.
Within moments, the heavy office door, reinforced with steel and solid oak, swings open, and myvorfile in. Unlike the other day, they stand before me, a semicircle of hard faces, eyes wary. Some still avoid my gaze, and others meet it with faces kept carefully neutral.
Now they are my enforcers, my soldiers, my extensions in the brutal ballet of power. They’ve seen me like this before in moments of extreme anger, but this feels different. This is notabout territory, or a rival shipment, or a disrespectful underling. This is personal. This is family.
“Someone tried to kill the woman carrying my child,” I growl, my voice low, dangerous, each word a stone dropped into a deep, dark well. A ripple goes through myvor, a collective shift of weight, a subtle tensing of muscles under their expensive suits. They know what this means. They know the code. They know the consequences.
“This was not a warning shot. This was an attempt to take her from me. To takemychild. This is a declaration of war.
“Find them,” I command, my voice rising now, each word a hammer blow against an anvil. “Find every last fucking bastard involved. I want names. I want faces. I want them brought to me. Alive, if you can manage it. Dead if you can’t. But I fucking want them. I want them to understand the price of their insolence.”
My gaze sweeps across their faces, lingering on each man to ensure my message is received, absorbed, and understood. There is no room for misinterpretation.
Just as they filed silently in, they leave, expectation and the knowledge of what failure will mean heavy on their shoulders, save for one, the youngest among myvor, who earned his stars through the depth and breadth of the intelligence network he’s built within our underworld. It’s only shadowed by the depth and breadth of his loyalty to the Antonov Bratva.
Iliya closes the door and locks it with a softclick. He nods when Dmitri looks to him for confirmation, a silent signal to go ahead, and I tense. The simple fact that Dmitri is here tells me that whatever is said next, I will want to hear.
He clears his throat. “Moi Pakhan.”
