Page 175 of Nine Months to Love

I want to reach through the phone and strangle her. I want to wrap my hands around her throat and watch the life drain from her eyes the way it drained from my father’s.

But I can’t.

So I do the only thing I can. I breathe. And I wait.

“Are you going to say something?” she asks. “Or should I just hang up?”

“Cut to the chase, Natalia. I don’t have time for your games.”

“Very well.” Just like that, all the cheer vanishes from her voice. She’s cold-blooded at the flick of a switch. Fucking sociopath. “I’m offering you a choice. Give up your claim to the Bratva. Hand it over to me. Publicly. Officially. And I’ll leave you alone.”

I have to laugh. I can’t help it. “Or what?”

“Or I release the evidence I have on Mikayla and Mila Vladislav. I go to the federal authorities with proof that you murdered Mikayla and are currently holding Mila captive. Kidnapping, murder, assault—take your pick. They’ll throw the whole book at you, and when they have what I’m going to give them, they won’t miss with a single charge.”

The laughter dies in my throat.

I didn’t see that coming.

The failed rescue attempt, the chaos at the manor. What if it wasn’t about extraction? What if it was aboutblackmail?Of course she got photos, video, endless recordings of Mila screaming from the basement.

She has enough to bury me.

I need time. Just a few minutes to think through this shit and find a way out.

So I stall.

“Tell me about the fire,” I say.

Silence. Then a soft exhale. “What about it?”

“You survived. How?”

“You already know how.”

“I know what I think happened. I want to hear it from you.”

Another pause. Longer this time. When she speaks again, her voice is quieter. Almost contemplative. “I knew you wouldn’t stop,” she explains. “Not until I was dead. You’re too much like your father that way. Stubborn. Single-minded. Incapable of letting go.”

“So you faked your death.”

“Yes.”

“Using Mikayla Vladislav.”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“It wasn’t difficult. I called her in that evening and told her there was work to be done. When she arrived, I gave her tea. We chatted. She was a sweet girl. Very trusting.”

My stomach turns.

“I put something in the tea,” Natalia continues. “Not enough to kill her. Just enough to make her sleep. When she was unconscious, I put my ring on her finger. Then I left.”

“You left her to burn.”

“I left her to serve a purpose. Her death bought my freedom. It was a fair trade.”