Page 64 of Claimed By the Boss

Minutes pass. Then an unfamiliar voice speaks in English, the words cutting cleanly through the noise.

“He’s not going to stop until Rurik is gone. You know that.”

Another voice answers, low and certain. “And Rurik isn’t going to stop until Damien is dead.”

My stomach twists. The air turns heavy, making each breath harder. This isn’t a vague suspicion anymore. It isn’t Becca’s worried voice telling me to be careful. It isn’t my imagination. Damien is planning to kill someone. Someone is planning to kill him. The danger isn’t just real, it’s imminent.

I lean closer to the laptop, needing every scrap of information I can get. Footsteps shuffle in the background. A door creaks. Then the feed drops back into Russian, and I’m left staring at the screen with my pulse pounding in my ears.

I press my hands to my face, trying to think. I don’t know how to help him. I don’t even know if he’d let me. Damien is all sharp edges and control when it comes to his business. I can’t exactly tell him what I heard, and I can’t admit I know who he is. But I can’t just sit here and hope he makes it out alive. It’s an impossible situation.

A pounding rattles the door so hard the sound vibrates through the floor. My head snaps up, heart lurching. The knocks aren’t polite. They’re demanding and dangerous. The laptop is shut before I even think, my fingers flying to close the lid, to hide what I’ve been doing. I stand frozen for a heartbeat, then force myself to the door. I look through the peephole.

It’s Damien.

His jaw is hard, his eyes darker than I’ve ever seen them. He’s not calm or collected. He’s furious, and the energy rolling off him is so sharp it prickles my skin.

I unlock the door and pull it open. He doesn’t wait for an invitation.

“Are you carrying my child?” His voice cuts like a blade, right there in the hallway.

The world narrows to that one sentence. Heat rushes to my cheeks in shock. I almost feel like I’ve been slapped. I glance both ways down the hall before grabbing his arm and tugging him inside.

The door slams shut behind us. My back is pressed to it, my heart hammering. Half of me is scared. This isn’t the Damien who teased me by the pool or kissed me under the moonlight. This is the man Becca warned me about.

“Yes,” I say, my voice steady even though my pulse is anything but.

His eyes narrow, a flicker of shock or rage passing through them before it all hardens again. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

The words are nearly a growl.

I push off the door and stand straighter, meeting him head-on. “Because I’m not one of your lieutenants or whatever you call them.”

That makes him stop for a second and take a step back. Now he looks like the one who’s been slapped. His brow pulls tight and he stares back at me in surprise. “What?”

His tone is incredulous, but I see the truth in his eyes. He’s been made.

“I’m not one of your little underlings you can order around. I don’t take orders from you, Damien. Not about this. Not about my body. Not about my child.”

Damien stares at me, his jaw still set, but the heat in his eyes shifts. He’s still angry, still tense, but something else is creeping in. A pause, maybe, as if he’s recalculating.

“I’m not here to give you orders,” he says slowly, the anger leaching out of his tone with every word.

I hold his gaze. My voice is a challenge. “Are you angry that I’m pregnant, or are you angry that I didn’t tell you about it?”

His brows pull together, the sharp lines of his face shadowed in the dim light of my living room. “You should have told me,” he finally says, more evenly. “Lyra, I thought that we had something special. I still do. Why would you keep this from me?”

I sigh heavily, suddenly feeling very tired. This is happening now, whether I’m ready for it or not. I grab his hand and pull him toward the couch. Neither of us is going anywhere soon.

“I didn’t know what to think,” I admit, my throat tight. “When I first found out about the baby, we’d only been seeing each other for a month. It seemed too fast to tell you about it. I didn’t want you to think I was trying to trap you.”

He opens his mouth to argue, but I put up a hand to stop him. Now that the words have started coming, I can’t stop them.

“But then, I found out about… your other activities,” I say, unable to meet his eyes. “And I was terrified. I didn’t know whatit meant for us, or for me. I definitely didn’t want to tell you about the baby if…”

“If things went south,” he says, cutting me off.

I meet his eyes, and he looks so sad it makes my heart ache. For a long moment, the room is silent except for the faint hum of my refrigerator. Damien’s posture softens just enough that I notice. His hands curl loosely at his sides instead of into fists.