Page 37

ZOYA

T he warmth of our newborn son against my chest should have been the only thing occupying my mind.

After everything we'd been through—the blood, the fear, the miracle of his survival when doctors said it was impossible—this moment should have been perfect.

Roman sat beside my hospital bed, his large hand gently stroking our baby's tiny fingers, wonder and disbelief still written across his features.

We had defied every medical prediction, every dire warning about my condition.

Our son was here, breathing, perfect.

But the peace didn't last.

The synchronized buzz of multiple phones shattered the quiet intimacy of our hospital room.

Roman's phone. Then Gregor's. Artem's. Pavel's. Kostya's. Damien's.

One after another.

The sound sliced through the room, as every single Ivanov man stared at their device with identical expressions of dread.

Roman's jaw clenched so hard I could practically hear his teeth grind together.

"Fuck," Gregor muttered, running a hand through his hair.

Artem was already on his feet, pacing to the window. "This is about that damn senator bullshit, isn't it?"

"Has to be," Pavel said grimly, bouncing his own daughter in his arms as if the motion could ward off whatever storm was brewing.

The wives exchanged worried glances, but they knew better than to ask questions when their husbands reacted this way. Even Yelena, who usually commanded attention in any room, stayed silent.

The air grew heavy, oppressive.

Roman's hand stilled on our son's head, his protective instincts kicking in with whatever crisis was unfolding in those digital messages.

"I'm handling it," Gregor said, his voice tight with barely controlled frustration. "There's no reason for him to come here. Not now."

"Handling it?" Artem's laugh was bitter. "Clearly not well enough if Darius is flying in tonight."

"Tonight?" Roman's voice was deadly quiet.

The kind of quiet that preceded bloodshed.

Gregor nodded, his expression grim. "Private jet lands at eleven."

Whatever was in those messages had shifted the entire atmosphere from celebration to impending disaster.

Fear and fury hung in the air.

I looked between all of them—these powerful, dangerous men who commanded respect and terror throughout the criminal underworld and saw something I'd never witnessed before…alarm.

"Who is Darius?" I asked, my voice cutting through the suffocating silence.

Every head in the room turned toward me.

Roman's eyes met mine, and I watched him wrestle with how much truth to reveal given that our newborn son was only a few hours old. Clearly, he was trying to protect me, but from what?

It was Gregor who finally answered, his voice carrying the weight of absolute authority.

"Darius Ivanov," he said, each syllable deliberate. "Our boss. The real head of the Ivanov crime syndicate."

The words struck me in the chest.

Boss? Real head?

I had thought Gregor and Artem were the apex predators.

That the power structure I'd been fighting against, the empire I'd tried to infiltrate and destroy, ended with them.

I was catastrophically wrong.

"He's been in London for the past ten years," Artem added, his voice strained. "Expanding operations. Building new alliances. Hiding in plain sight. We've been running things here under his direction, but..."

"But apparently not to his satisfaction," Roman finished, his arm tightening protectively around both me and our son.

The implications crashed over me.

There was someone above these Ivanovs.

Someone more powerful, more dangerous than any of these men who had already proven themselves capable of unspeakable violence.

Someone who was angry enough to abandon his European empire and cross an ocean to personally handle whatever catastrophe he believed they'd created.

"What does he want?" I whispered.

"To remind us of who's really in charge," Gregor said, his words sharp. "And to clean up whatever damage he thinks we've caused."

Roman's fingers found mine, intertwining with desperate strength—a silent promise that whatever was coming, we'd face it together.

But as I looked around the room at these formidable men—my new family—and saw genuine concern flickering behind their eyes, I realized that everything I thought I knew about the Ivanov empire were merely shadows on the wall.

The real monster was coming.

And none of us knew what he planned to do when he arrived.

Our son stirred against my chest, emitting a tiny sound of innocent protest against the room’s stifling tension. I pressed a kiss to his soft head, breathing in his perfect newborn scent.

Whatever storm Darius Ivanov brought with him, my family would survive it.

We had to.

Because now we had everything to lose.

To be continued…

Cruel Protector

Kidnapped. Collared. Claimed.

She was supposed to be a bargaining chip.

Now he’d set the world on fire to keep her.

Book Eight of the Ivanov Crime Family