Page 45 of Nine Months to Bear

I nod in grim agreement.

There are too many things happening for it not to add up to something shady. The FBI’s Financial Crimes unit has been circling our real estate holdings for months. The SEC is scrutinizing our last three acquisitions. A pair of undercover agents were spotted near our shipping operations in Dorchester.

I don’t like this shit. One wrong move, and the legitimate side of Safonov Holdings—the hotels, tech investments, and commercial properties I’ve spent a decade building—collapses like dominoes.

And if that happens, the Aster Fertility Solutions acquisition is over before it’s even begun.

Unless you call what happened in my office “the beginning…”

I force my thoughts away from her face, her scent, the way she’d felt beneath me. This is business. It’s always been business. Taking over her clinic gives me the legitimate front I need to clean specific cash flows. The fact that I enjoy her company,her body, her stubborn defiance—that’s just a bonus. A pleasant diversion.

I’ll keep saying that until it fucking sticks.

“That mid-level guy from Accounting is still missing,” Taras informs me, lighting a cigarette despite the fact we’re in a fucking airplane. “Weird that I can’t find him. No electronic trail, no withdrawals, nada. It’s starting to make me think he had help.”

I consider my options. If my father were here, he’d say we’re being hasty, that evidence comes before punishment.

But my father’s sentimentality got him killed. I learned from his mistakes.

“Find him,” I order. “If he’s Iakov’s rat, I want to know before the feds do.”

I turn toward Mikayla, who looks up. “Intensify surveillance on the Accounting division,” I tell her. “I want every email, every phone call, every fucking bathroom break tracked. Someone has to know where the bastard is.”

After she nods and doubles down on her tasks, Taras’s expression shifts to something far too amused.

“So,” he says, leaning back in his seat. “The doctor came back to see you yesterday.”

My face reveals nothing. “You’re supposed to be tracking federal informants, not my visitors.”

“I’m multitasking.” He grins lazily. “Must’ve been some meeting. Security footage shows she was there for…” He checks his watch dramatically. “… forty-seven minutes. Impressive stamina.”

I pluck his cigarette out of his hand before he can take another drag and put it out on his jeans. “Shut up.”

He frowns at the hole in his pants. “Fine, keep it all to yourself. But I’m calling Nose Goes on any baby shower planning duties. That shit is going to be Mikayla’s responsibility. I don’t get paid for balloon arches.”

He rises out of his seat and ducks just in time to miss the empty glass I hurl at his head. It shatters against the cabin wall instead.

The sound is satisfying, but does nothing to defray the tension coiling in my chest. The thought of Olivia pregnant with my child shouldn’t affect me this way. It was the plan all along.

When did that change?

My father’s voice echoes in my memory:“Love makes fools of powerful men, Stefushka.”

He couldn’t take his own advice, but I could. I swore to never ignore the warning.

I don’t intend to start now.

19

STEFAN

My phone starts ringing as soon as I regain cell service when we’re on the ground in Miami. But I wait until I’m alone in my hotel room before answering, not because I give a shit about playing games, but because I know it will drive Olivia insane, and that amuses me.

But when I do accept her call, I scarcely have a second for it to connect before she’s speaking.

“People know.” She sounds fraying, frantic. Not so prim and proper anymore.

“Know what?”