Page 15 of Nine Months to Love

She’s quiet for a long moment, staring at something beyond my shoulder. When she finally speaks, her voice is barely above a whisper. “There’s a house in Gloucester. Near the water. She bought it under a shell company—Genevieve Holdings.”

“Address?”

“47 Seafoam Drive. She has two men with her, possibly three.”

“Security systems?”

“Standard alarm, but she’s probably added more. She’s paranoid about you finding them.”

“With good reason.” I move toward the door, then pause. “Mikayla, this doesn’t absolve you. You understand that?”

She nods. “I know. But, Stefan... be careful. Your mother, she’s not the same woman you remember. She’s had fifteen years to plan this.”

I open the door. “She thinks she knows me. But the boy she knew died with his father. What she’s facing now is something else entirely.”

“What are you?”

I look back at her. “I’m a father protecting his family. There’s nothing more dangerous than that.”

I close the door behind me, already pulling out my phone to text Taras.Gloucester. That’s forty minutes from here if we speed. My mother has had Olivia for almost twenty-four hours now. Twenty-four hours to poison her against me, to twist truth into weapons.

But she made one mistake: She taught me everything she knows.

And then I learned more.

6

OLIVIA

“Would you like to walk with me?” Natalia asks, standing by the window with morning light catching the silver threads in her dark hair. “There’s a trail behind the house. Nothing strenuous—I imagine you could use some fresh air after being cooped up.”

I should say no. It would be much smarter to stay put and dig in, make myself harder to move if—when—Stefan comes. But my legs ache from tension and my mind spins with too many questions.

“Alright. Yeah, sure. That sounds fine.”

She hands me a pair of hiking boots from the closet. “These should fit. I had Mikayla get your size.”

We step outside into crisp autumn air, leaves crunching beneath our feet as we follow a narrow path into the woods. The trees arch overhead, filtering sunlight into dancing patterns.

“You’re surprisingly calm,” Natalia observes, matching my pace with easy grace.

“Panicking won’t help me.”

“No, it won’t. Stefan taught you that, I imagine.”

“He taught me a lot of things.” I step over a fallen branch, noticing how Natalia immediately moves to steady me though I don’t need it. “Or maybe he just told me stories.”

“What kind of stories?” She glances at me with those eyes so like Stefan’s—that same piercing blue, though hers hold warmth where his hold winter.

“About you. His childhood. That kind of thing.”

She sighs mournfully. “Let me guess: I was the cold, calculating witch of a mother who never loved him, who used his father for money and connections, then destroyed them both.”

“Something like that.”

“Matvey poisoned him against me,” she says. “From the moment Stefan could understand words, his father was filling his head with lies about me. Making me the villain in every story.”

We walk in silence for a moment. As we get deeper into the woods, the sound of rushing water grows louder. I find myself oddly comfortable beside her, our strides falling into sync. She doesn’t feel dangerous the way Stefan described. If anything, she feels... maternal.