Page 100 of Nine Months to Bear

Three warehouses hit simultaneously.

Sir, federal agents just showed up at Safonov Holdings with warrants.

Someone deleted the backup security footage.

Whatever you need, Stefan, Mikayla texts.Just tell me where to aim.

She’s ready for an order, for some off-the-cuff command to fly out of my mouth the way it usually does.

But for the first time in my decade-long reign aspakhan, I don’t immediately move to protect my empire. I don’t even spare it a thought.

The only thing on my mind is Olivia.

I’m out of the car before conscious decision-making takes hold. I sprint toward the building entrance. The taste of fear, metallic and unfamiliar, coats my tongue as I burst through the glass doors.

“Olivia!” My voice echoes in the deserted lobby.

No response.

Dread claws up my spine. The meeting room I’d watched her walk into through the glass windows of the lobby is empty now—just a conference table with abandoned coffee cups and the lingering scent of expensive perfume.

“Olivia!” I roar again, louder this time, startling a janitor who pokes his head from around a corner before quickly retreating.

My mind spins through scenarios, each worse than the last. Was the meeting a setup? Is this connected to the attacks on my businesses? Has someone taken her to get back at me?

I slam open a bathroom door—empty.

The stairwell—empty.

Each office along the hall—locked or abandoned for the day.

I rented out this space. I told her not to take the meeting at her office because I imagined her walking up the front path and someone leaping from the roof, out of the bushes, up through the fucking toilet.

The only way I could let her leave my compound is if she went somewhere no one had any reason to suspect she’d be.

So how the hell did they find her?

“Fuck!” I kick an innocent waste bin, sending it clattering across the floor and spilling its guts everywhere.

This was fucking stupid. I should have gone in with her like I wanted. Should have insisted.

No—better yet, I should have kept her home today, safe in my bed where I could watch over her, touch her, make her cry my name until she forgot there was a world outside my walls.

But I didn’t. I let her walk into this glass death trap alone because I didn’t want anyone—especially myself—to think I was getting too attached.

I was so arrogant enough to think I could protect her from the goddamn parking lot.

I pull out my phone, fingers already dialing Taras to mobilize every soldier in my organization—not to protect my business, but to find Olivia—when the elevator chimes softly.

The doors slide open, and my hand shifts to my gun, ready to blow away whoever the fuck walks out of the elevator.

But then… there she is. Olivia. Perfect, untouched, checking something on her phone with that little furrow between her brows that appears when she’s concentrating.

Relief crashes through me with such force my knees nearly buckle. The air rushes back into my lungs. It’s only then I realize I’d stopped breathing.

She looks up. When she sees me standing there, chest heaving, murder in my eyes, her eyebrows lift. “Stefan? What’s wrong?”

I don’t answer. I can’t. There are no words to explain the guilt and rage and desperation storming inside me. Not to her, not to myself, not to fucking anyone.