Page 136 of Nine Months to Bear

I make my final move. Queen to G5.

“Checkmate.”

51

STEFAN

“You’re brooding again.”

Taras slides another gin across the table. He’s been a fucking pest about refilling my glass repeatedly tonight. I’m drinking it mostly just to shut him up.

It isn’t helping my headache, though. The bass from the club’s speakers pounds through my skull and makes every cell in my body wince.

“I’m not brooding; I’m drinking.” I down half the glass in one swallow. “There’s a difference.”

“Not whenyoudo it.”

The VIP section reeks of the usual mix of nightclub smells: perfume, sweat, smoke, desperation. Below us, bodies writhe on the dance floor like they’re trying to fuck through their clothes.

Usually, I’d be down there, picking my entertainment for the night. Some blonde with daddy issues. A brunette who likes it rough.

Tonight, all I can think of is a pair of amber eyes and dark hair that smells like orchids.

Fuck me.

“You almost told her, didn’t you?” Taras leans back, a cigarette dangling from his lips. His old nervous habit rearing up again. “About our plan for the clinic.”

The gin burns going down on the second sip. “How’d you know?”

“Because you’ve got that look. Like you’re about to do something monumentally stupid for pussy.”

“Watch your mouth.”

“Or what? You’ll shoot me?” He laughs, smoke curling between us. “You won’t even execute literal traitors anymore. Devon Manizer is still breathing because his wife went boo-fuckin’-hoo on you.”

“That has nothing to do with?—”

“Bullshit. Everything changed when she showed up.” He signals the cocktail waitress for another bottle. “You used to be focused, man. Ruthless. Now, you’re…” He waves his hand vaguely. “This.”

“This?”

“Distracted. Soft. Pussy-whipped.”

My fist connects with the table hard enough to make the glasses jump. “I told you to watch your fucking mouth.”

“Truth hurts, doesn’t it?” Taras doesn’t even flinch. Twenty years of friendship buys him that privilege. “You were going to tell her about the takeover. Admit it.”

I pour another drink instead of answering. He’s not wrong—I’d been seconds away from confessing everything over that chess game.

How I’ve orchestrated her clinic’s downfall.

How Mikayla has been systematically destroying her from the shadows.

How it was all a rigged carnival game and she was the hapless sucker caught in the middle of it.

… Until I looked at her face and couldn’t do it.

“She’d leave,” Taras says quietly. “You tell her the truth, she’s gone. No baby. No heir. No nothing.”