Page 77 of Baby for My Ex's Brother

The pregnancy is the only leverage I have in this room, and I have already spent it. It bought me a night in a basement instead of a switchblade, so I will take that trade. I’m not going to give him anything else for free. “Maybe.”

“This puts me at an advantage, you know. Something Ivan will never see coming.”

“Bully for you.”

“It’s funny. I never pegged Ivan as the sentimental type. But there’s you. Proof the old man’s gotten soft. Pathetic.”

I roll my eyes. “And you’re down here bitching about him to me because you’re so tough?”

Something flashes through his face. Anger. Bravado. A mix. “Armin is going to flip on Ivan. When he sees how soft Ivan really is, that man will flip. The moment he does, all of Ivan’s smartest captains will, too. I’ve been laying groundwork for months. Ivan’s legacy dissolves. I step into the space it leaves. The organization continues, and everyone adjusts. That’s how this goes.”

I let him talk because men who want to be admired for their plans keep talking if you let them. Every word is information, and information is the only currency I have right now. “Why are you telling me this? Do you think I would help you ruin Ivan?”

He smiles. It’s the smile from upstairs, the sinister one, but there’s something else in it now—something that enjoys itself. Something that gets something from this specifically, from sitting across from a woman in a basement and watching her understand what her situation is.

“It’s fun to brag. Besides.” He tilts his head. “It’s not like you’re leaving this place alive.”

I feel it move through me—the cold, the lurch, the thing that wants to curl up against the wall and make itself small, silent, and invisible.

I learned a long time ago what bullies like. Star is a bully. My parents… they weren’t bullies, but they did nothing to put her in her place. They never corrected her behavior. They let her terrorize me for years.

Jaba wants me to be afraid. He’s feeding on it. On the sight of a woman, cowering before him.

Just like Star used to.

I straighten my shoulders as I stand. I let my face go easy. I look at him the way I look at things that are trying too hard, and I smile. “It’s cute that you think any of this will go how you want it to.”

Something shifts in his face. The enjoyment flickers. “Ivan will come,” he says.

“He will,” I agree, cheerfully.

“I’ll be ready for him.”

“I’m sure you think so.”

He stands up from the chair. He’s bigger standing, and he uses it, moving closer until there is not much space between him and me.

I smell him and stay where I am with my back against the wall. I don’t move one single inch toward the smaller version of myself that he came down here to find. He will not find her again.

“I’m going to kill him,” he growls. “And I’m going to kill you. And I’ll enjoy both.”

I want to vomit on him. Instead, I sigh. Bored. “Ivan will beat you down. Again. And he’ll feed you your balls if I tell him to.” I hold his gaze without blinking. “So why don’t you run along back upstairs and write your will? I’m sure even a piece of shit like you has something to leave someone. A houseplant, maybe. Or a grudge. Whatever you’ve got. It’s certainly not soap by the smell of you.”

The silence in the basement is total.

The backhand catches me across the left cheek, and the world tilts hard and goes briefly white. My shoulder hits the wall, and I use it—push off it, get my feet back under me, get my hand flat against the concrete—and I stay up. Barely. My vision comes back in pieces.

When the white finishes clearing, he’s already going up the stairs. He did not wait to see if I fell. That tells me something about him, too. The door at the top opens and closes, and the lock turns.

And he’s gone.

I stand with my hand on the wall for a moment. I listen to his footsteps cross the floor above me, heavy and uneven, and then nothing.

I let go of the wall. I let go of the smile, and I let go of every muscle I have been holding rigid since he came down those stairs. I shudder—once, hard, from the soles of my feet to the top of my head—the whole body releasing what it has been carrying.

My knees go properly this time, and I slide back down the wall until I’m sitting on the floor again. I could take the chair, but he touched it. Tainted it. I press the back of my hand against my cheek, where it’s already swelling, and I breathe.

The basement is quiet. Somewhere above me, through the concrete, is the faint suggestion of a city that does not know I’m here.