Page 51 of Nine Months to Bear

I study his face. Alexei Volkov is thirty-four, divorced, father of one child he never sees. He’s spent the last five years managing our Dorchester warehouse operations and two offshore accounts we laid out as bait for rats.

And a rat is exactly what he is.

At least, that’s what Mikayla’s evidence suggests. Taras and I have been looking for Alexei for weeks, but it was Mikayla who tracked the bastard down to some rundown crackhouse and scraped through his phone to find the encrypted messages on a phone he’d been too stupid to destroy.

The conversations with Iakov went back months. Alexei sold him warehouse schedules, security protocols, and employee rotations. Some of the information went even above his paygrade, opening up the possibility of even more rats in the ranks.

I’m used to liars. What I’m not used to is the genuine confusion beneath his fear. Usually, when I have a man on his knees, his life in my hands, the truth bleeds out faster than he can.

But Alexei is stubborn. A good actor.

So I press on his soft spots.

“Your daughter starts kindergarten next week,” I remark, wiping blood from my knuckles with a monogrammed handkerchief. “Anastasia, yes? Pretty name. Pretty girl.”

Mikayla found Alexei, but Taras found his weaknesses. I was five minutes into the interrogation when Taras handed me a folder that outlined everything I’d need to know to break this man.

Just as I planned, fear flashes in his eyes—pure, primal. Better than truth serum.

“Leave her out of this,” he whimpers. “Please.”

I know where I draw the line—I’d never lay a finger on his little girl—but no one else does. It makes for effective torture.

“I don’t like to go around hurting children.” I bend closer and whisper, “But what do you think Iakov will do when he discovers you failed? He lacks my restraint.”

“I told you, I don’t know him!” He’s wailing now, as pitiful as anyone I’ve ever seen. “I’ve never met him! Check my phone records, my accounts. The texts are— Someone must have planted them! It’s bullshit!”

He drops to all fours, begging from knees and elbows—the perfect position for my boot to connect with his chin. When it does, his head snaps back. His eyes cross over as he flops into an unconscious heap on the dirty floor.

Taras leans against a rusted support beam. A shaft of light filters through a hole in the roof, highlighting the smile on his scarred face.

“You’re playing with your food, Stef,” he drawls. “Just put a bullet in him and be done with it.”

“I need information first.” I flex my bloodied hand.

“Information? Or therapy?” Taras wags a knowing brow. “You seem tense lately. Maybe you should schedule another ‘meeting’with your little doctor. Olivia could help you work out some of that… frustration.”

My spine stiffens. Olivia’s name doesn’t belong in this place. I fix Taras with a look. “Maybe you should focus on doing your job properly so Mikayla doesn’t have to keep cleaning up after you.”

Taras’s smirk falters. He toes dust across the concrete floor, face downcast. “Low blow, man. Not my fault your she-wolf has access to systems I don’t.”

Volkov groans as he struggles back toward reality. Fresh blood pools beneath his slack jaw, dark and sticky.

“You know,” Taras continues, “there are easier ways to blow off steam than beating the shit out of potential informantsormixing business with pleasure re: the foxy little doctor.” He gestures toward the exit with his cigarette. “Plenty of willing women will be at Odessa tonight. That redhead from the casino has asked about you every time I’ve been in.”

I continue to methodically clean my knuckles. I don’t bother to respond.

“You enjoy that sort of distraction,” Taras presses, studying me for any hint of a reaction. “Or should I say, you used to enjoy it… before a certain doctor spread her legs on your desk.”

“Careful.”

Taras grins, sensing a nerve. “What? Am I wrong? Three months ago, you’d have taken that redhead home, fucked her until she couldn’t remember her name, and sent her packing before sunrise. Now?” He shakes his head as if he’s disappointed in me. “Now, you’re punching out low-level employees and brooding like a teenager.”

“Keep talking and I’ll start punching people closer to my rank instead. Know any within arm’s reach?”

Taras is smart enough not to respond to that one.

“I’m not interested in random women,” I add flatly.