Page 26 of Claimed By my Ex’s Uncle

"Gather the guards," I order Sergei. "I want every place I own in the city on double duty for the next few weeks. Make sure nobody’s getting in or out without me knowing about it. And see if any of them are starting to show any signs of breaking—someone inside the operation must have given Petar an in to cut the CCTV like that, and we need to find out who it is."

"On it," Sergei replies, snapping his laptop shut and heading for the door.

I sit there for a moment, fingertips pressed together, staring at the whorls in the wood before me as the video plays out over and over again behind my eyes. Petar's my nephew. And while I'd like to think that those familial ties might earn me a little loyalty, it looks like he's not going to play by those rules. But if he thinks he stands a damn chance against me, he's got another thing coming.

And by the time I’m done with him, he's going to wish that he’d just sat his ass down and accepted his sentence instead of dragging me into it.

Chapter 14

Rose

Inhaling deeply, I crack the door an inch and peer outside to see if the guard meant to be standing watch over me all day is still there. When I open it, I find that the corridor is empty—and that, for the first time in way too long, I seem to be entirely unguarded.

I peep out, looking up and down the corridor to see if I’ve missed something. Is there a camera blinking somewhere, a guard positioned so I can't see him? I chew my lip nervously, searching for something, anything, that will remind me that my life is far from this simple. Instead, I am met with a cool, calm silence, and I wonder if this is really happening.

Ilya didn't bother locking the door when he left, and I heard Sergei calling for him a few seconds later. It sounded urgent, so he must be busy. And even if he's not, I know he's hardly going to bother with me again anytime soon, given that he got what he wanted out of me, fucking me there on the bed to reestablish his dominance. I don't know how long it will be before a new guard returns to cover the spot that the old one left, but I know one thing for sure: I might not get a chance like this again, and I have to take it.

My heart thudding in my chest, I grab my phone, a pair of shoes, and a jacket, pulling the hood up in the hopes that it would disguise me long enough to get out of the house. I still don't know this place well, but if I can just get out the front door and find a way through the gate, then I can figure out where I am, call a cab, and get back to my apartment. I have no doubt that Ilya will send someone after me as soon as he gets the chance, but I just need to fortify my apartment and make sure that he can’t tear me out again so easily.

I let myself be uprooted too quickly last time, when he came to the store and insisted I come home with him, but I know better now. I am not going to let him just take me and keep me here like some princess in a fairytale, under the lock and key of the beast and his minions.

I sprint towards the door, keeping my head low. Out of the corner of my eye, I spot the kitchen. That could be a good cover, actually. They must have had a delivery area back there for all the food that comes into this place, and it will no doubt be a little less intently guarded than the others.

I hurry over to it and step inside, finding it mercifully empty. The staff are probably gathering supplies for dinner instead of cooking right now. The scent of breakfast still hangs in the air, coffee and something bready, but I ignore the grumbling in my stomach and search for a way out.

It takes me a few minutes to find a pantry slipped discreetly behind a large set of shelves. When I step inside, my heart leaps to see a door leading out towards the gardens beyond. I shoot one last look over my shoulder, making sure nobody is following me, and throw it open, practically sprinting along the manicured grass to the back wall beyond.

My feet feel as though they are flying across the greenery below me, and I keep my gaze fixed forward, refusing to let my nerves get the best of me. There has to be a way out of here—there just has to be. Ilya might believe that he has everything exactly as he wants it, me locked down with no way of escaping, but he has not dealt with someone like me before. Not dealt with someone who’s willing to do whatever it takes to earn their freedom.

I dive into the bushes at the far end of the garden, feeling around for some kind of ridge on the wall I can use as a foothold to leap over the side. I clasp my phone in my pocket and scramble upwards, waiting for something to pierce the silence and announce its presence.

But nothing comes. And I take that as the cue I need to keep going. I heave myself up the wall, using the bushes and branches to guide myself up, and then tumble over the other side, dropping to the earth with a slight thud.

But I am out.

For a moment, I feel like it must be a fantasy, something I have constructed just to make myself believe that this is possible, but I know I couldn't have invented this—the taste of the fresh air on my tongue, the warmth of the sun on my skin, and, most of all, the certainty that Ilya has no control over me right now. I whip out my phone and book a cab to whisk me across town to my apartment.

The next hour or so rushes by in a blur, and my head spins with the enormity of what I’ve just done. Will Ilya make me pay for it? Hard to believe that he wouldn't, given the circumstances at hand, but he’ll have to find me first.

But then, this child I am carrying, he is utterly convinced that it belongs to him. As I sit in the back of the cab, I stare down at my belly, frowning slightly. Fuck. Have I just taken my kid away from their father? No, no, we still haven’t run paternity tests yet, and, no matter how certain he might be that he’s the father and Petar is infertile, there’s no way to know for sure. As much as it makes my skin crawl now, I was with Petar plenty of times before I was with Ilya, and there’s every chance that this child belongs to my ex instead of his uncle.

But I can figure that shit out later. For now, I just want to get home, take a shower, and spill the beans to Becky about everything that’s been going on. She has called me a few times, but I’ve dodged them all, not wanting to put into words what’s really happening to me. Face-to-face is the only way to do it. I’m sure of it.

"Thanks," I murmur to the driver, using my phone to pay for my extortionate fare. I can see from his stare that he has some questions about what the hell I’m doing, running away from a random spot just outside the city to what must look like an equally random apartment block across town. But that's for him to parse, not me. I hop out, head to the door, and press on the buzzer a few times as I wait for Becky to answer.

Thankfully, she doesn't leave me waiting long; my keys are still in my bag at work, so it's not like I can let myself in. The intercom fizzes to life after a few seconds, and her familiar tone comes down the line.

"Hello?"

"Becks, it's me," I greet her. "Can you let me in? I don't have my key."

"Rose?" she replies, sounding surprised. But a moment later, the door clicks open, and I hurry inside and up to my apartment, where Becky is standing in the doorway, waiting for me.

"It's so good to see you," I blurt out as I pull her into a hug, closing my eyes for a moment and reminding myself of how much I’ve missed her. She hugs me back, though her movements are stiff and robotic. When I pull back, I look past her into our apartment.

Only to find that it’s empty.

My jaw drops and I freeze, standing there for a moment as I try to make sense of what I’m seeing. Because there’s no way... there’s just no way she would have moved so quickly, right? I mean, yeah, the two of us have always struggled to make ends meet, but I have been gone for a few weeks, not a few months. There's no way that she would have had to move out so soon… unless something else happened.