Page 56 of Bound By Debt

“In a minute,” I call, my voice high and tight with panic.

No, this isn’t possible. I’m on birth control. I can’t be pregnant.

Except I skipped almost a week of pills when I’d first arrived at Evgeny’s, before Dmitri got me the prescription I needed. And then the first prescription was wrong, and he’d had to send someone back out to get the right one.

Shit.Shit, shit, shit, shit!

We’d had sex way before I’d been back on my birth control routine for a month.

Several times.

I count back in my head, six, seven, eight weeks.

Fuck!

Someone knocks again, more forcefully this time.

“Miss? Are you okay in there?”

“Uh…”

Am I okay? Absolutely not.

I’m pregnant.

Pregnant.

“Miss? Other people need to use the restroom.”

“I’m coming,” I call, breathless, my fingertips numb with panic and anxiety. My heart feels like it’s trying to beat its way out of my chest.

I shove the tests into the trash, wash my hands, and yank open the door to find a barista with her hand raised to knock again. Several people hover behind her, annoyance written clearly on their faces.

“Sorry,” I mumble and rush past her before she can say anything else.

It’s all I can do to stand on the sidewalk outside the coffee shop and drag in huge gulps of air. Panic washes through my body, and I begin to shake as hot tears press against the backs of my eyes, thicken my throat, and make my nose burn.

What the fuck am I going to do?

21

EVGENY

Ilet my eyes fall shut. The soft wash of light behind my lids deepens the warmth spreading across my skin.

The sun feels incredible after the hospital’s fluorescent glare. Birdsong and the crash of waves far below are minor miracles after nothing but beeps, the whoosh of oxygen, and blaring PA announcements. I can smell salt in the air, the perfume of bougainvillea, and fresh-cut grass. It’s the opposite of the sterile air in my sickroom.

Two weeks in the hospital.

Two weeks that kept me from my duties, from running my business and my Bratva. I remember only one of those weeks, but I spent the rest of the time focused on who I was going to kill once I was out of danger and well enough to go home.

And I know who that person is. Andrei Tsepov. Dmitri and the others assume the strychnine was for Vasya. It was his bottle of wine, after all. But since that day in the restaurant, I haven’t been able to get Tsepov’s warning out of my head. He asked if I knew who my friends were.

Someone else, someone inside my organization, could have slipped my plans for the night to Tsepov. He’s a bastard, but he isn’t dumb. I have no doubt he could bribe someone in that kitchen to tamper with the wine.

Nothing else makes sense. Does Vasya have enemies? Of course. But I have more. Far more. And I’m in the middle of a turf war with a man who wants my territory, business, wealth, and power.

He has to get me out of the way to take any of it.