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I try to pull away, but my body won’t respond. My heart pounds in my chest, deafening. I feel trapped, ensnared in the web he wove years ago, and escape feels impossible.

My head dips again as images of his face hovering over me flash through my memory. The way he took me the first time, quietly like a thief in the night. He was far from gentle, but he was at least generous. I remember having his dick inside me as he told me once I fucked him, I would never be satisfied by another man. The thought makes me shudder. There is some truth to that, and in other ways, it's a complete lie.

He studies me, his eyes searching for something—perhaps an answer, or the truth I've desperately hidden.

“You’ll have to tell him the truth." Rolan runs the back of his knuckles up and down the bare skin on my arm, causing goosebumps to rise everywhere. Those hands and what they've done to me make my body explode in reactions that seem to contradict how I feel. Warmth pools in my groin while my head tells me to run away screaming.

I swallow hard, my throat painfully dry. “I have nothing left to say to you, Mr. Vetrov,” I manage. "Now, I have to get back to work. I have bills to pay."

He steps back slightly, as if dismissing me, but his gaze never wavers. There’s a dangerous satisfaction in his eyes, the look of a man who's already claimed victory.

“We’ll talk again soon,” he says simply, and then he turns away, vanishing back into the darkness.

I stand rooted, heart racing, breaths shallow. My mind floods with all the consequences I tried to avoid for six years. The moment I saw him, I knew the thin fabric of the life I stitched together would tear. But hearing him speak about Nikolai… it split me open.

I want to scream, to throw something, but I can’t even move. My legs are frozen mid-step from the thousand calculations trying to process at once. My lungs tighten. Each breath feels short and scraped raw inside my chest, like I’ve been sucker-punched.

My feet refuse to obey because running now means abandoning the last of the control I still have. There’s no plan for this, no backup. No lie that will cover what he now knows. Everything I’ve done—every sacrifice, every decision—was meant to keep my son safe. And now the man I swore would never touch him has laid claim to both of us.

Every step toward the door feels impossibly heavy, as though I'm moving through quicksand. I don't know what's next, only that nothing will ever be the same again.

6

ROLAN

Ireturn to the estate just before sunset, the car pulling through the heavy iron gates as the guards wave me in. I spent the last two days in Kazan sorting out a weapons shipment, and it feels good to be home. My driver doesn’t speak, and I don’t invite conversation. The moment we roll to a stop, I step out and inside to see how my men are doing with the surveillance tasks I've given them.

Inside, the halls are quiet. Staff clear out of my path. I pass the second-floor landing where the newer recruits train on monitors and encrypted relays, then push through the secured door to the main surveillance room. Stepan’s already there, standing beside the playback console, eyes locked on the screen.

“She cracked, Ro,” he says as I enter. “I pulled that video up and watched it a dozen times. You'll want to see this bitch's face." His stupid smirk is going to be smacked off his face if he talks about Anya like that again. I may not own rights to her yet, but she's the mother of my child.

"How about you keep your trap shut and play the footage?" My eyes flick anger at him and he sobers, ducking his head as he sits down.

He cues up the feed—the back hallway camera, timestamped four days ago. The footage is from right after I left her standing there. I’d walked away without a word, and now I want to see what she did afterward. The camera’s angle isn’t perfect, but it shows enough. The hallway where I left her standing—empty, silent, stark under the buzzing fluorescent light.

She doesn’t move or speak. She stands there frozen, like the air got knocked out of her lungs. Her hands hang limply at her sides. Her eyes stay fixed forward, unblinking. That’s the moment she broke. Not with a scream or with tears. Just with stillness. Anya stands at the edge of the screen, her posture rigid.

Her face stays perfectly still for one long, suspended moment. Then—barely perceptible—her throat tightens. Her hands start to shake as she retreats into the back kitchen entrance and moments later, she's seen walking out the back of the lounge into the night.

“She’s holding it together,” I say quietly.

“Wait,” Stepan replies. “Keep watching.”

I keep my eyes on the screen as I watch her exit and the door shuts. Then a few seconds later, it opens again and she steps inside, leaning against the wall. Her back slides slowly downward until she is a crumpled mess on the ground, sobbing so hard her shoulders jerk.

Stepan exhales slowly. “She’s scared.”

“She should be.”

I let the footage run a few seconds longer before waving him off. He stops the video and the screen goes black. I feel no satisfaction or vindication in watching her fall apart, only confirmation. She thought she could hide him from me and now she knows better.

“Tell me about the school,” I say.

Stepan nods once and turns to the tablet on the desk. “We pulled her address last week. Ran the crosscheck withenrollment records in the district. There’s only one kid with her last name who matches the age and general description. Name’s Nikolai Morozov. Attends a local primary school about six blocks from their apartment. He's in kindergarten."

I already know the answer, but I ask anyway. “Is it him?”

“We’re ninety-five percent sure. Facial recognition on the school gate cameras gave us a partial. It’s not great—too grainy—but enough for a match. And he has facial markers that mirror your bone structure. I'm saying that kid is yours, Ro." Stephan has a smug expression on his face.