Page 81 of Nine Months to Love

Natalia is pulling away from me. I can feel it. She says she’s tired, that she needs space, but I know there’smore to it. I’ve tried to give her what she needs, but nothing I do seems to be enough.

Stefan asked me today why his mother doesn’t smile anymore. I didn’t know what to tell him. How do you explain to a child that sometimes love isn’t enough? That sometimes, people drift apart no matter how hard you try to hold on?

I found pills in her nightstand. Sleeping pills. More than she should have. When I asked her about them, she said she couldn’t sleep. That her mind won’t stop racing. I’m worried about her, but she won’t let me help.

She’s seeing someone. I’m almost certain of it. The late nights, the distant looks, the flinches when I touch her. I should confront her, but I’m afraid of what I’ll hear.

The headaches are getting worse. The doctor says it’s stress, but I think it’s more than that. I can feel something wrong inside my head. Something shifting, changing. I’m scared, but I can’t tell Natalia. She has enough to worry about.

I stop reading. My hands are shaking.

A brain tumor. Elena mentioned that. But reading it in his own words, seeing his fear laid bare on the page... it’s different. It’s watching a man die in real time.

I close the journal and set it on the nightstand. I can’t read any more. Not right now. Instead, I lie back on the bed and stare at the ceiling.

Dr. Heller.That’s the answer. That’s the key to everything.

But I can’t tell Stefan. Not until I know what I’m going to do.

I hate keeping secrets from him. Especially now, when we’re trying to build something real. But I also can’t let him destroy any chance of reconciliation before it even starts.

So I’ll find Natalia on my own. I’ll talk to her. And then... then I’ll figure out what to do.

It’s not a great plan. But it’s the only one I have.

26

STEFAN

Taras shuffles into my office with the bleary, red-eyed, thousand-yard stare of a man who’s been staring at spreadsheets for too long. He’s got a thick folder in his grasp.

“Tell me you found something,” I say, setting down my pen.

“I found a whole lot of nothing.” He drops the folder on my desk. “Iakov Zakharov is the most boring criminal I’ve ever investigated.”

I flip open the folder and skim through its contents quickly. But what I see confirms what Taras just said: there’s not shit we can use. It’s a mish-mash of bank transaction records, city and county property deeds, business registrations with all the proper stamps and attestations. All legitimate, all above board, all very fucking boring.

“This can’t be everything.”

“That’s what I thought. I said to myself, ‘What’s Stef gonna say if I bring him this fat stack ofnada?He’s gonna be pissed, isn’t he?’ So I dug deeper. And deeper. And deeper. Do you see thebags under my eyes? There’s one for every year of my life I lost squinting between the lines for one single shred of something we can weaponize against thismudak.But you gotta believe me when I tell you this, brother: There isn’t. The man doesn’t go to clubs. Doesn’t visit brothels. He does not gamble, he does not use drugs, he does not have mistresses tucked away in various illicit penthouses like Princess fucking Peach.”

Taras sinks into the chair across from me and rests his forehead on his knuckles. “He might as well be a goddamn accountant. He owns an apartment in Back Bay with a fucking HOA, if you can believe that. Drives a Mercedes, not a Lambo. Goes to work, goes to business meetings, goes home. God, I want to put a bullet in my head just imagining what it would be like to live his day-to-day life.”

“What about his social life?”

“What social life?” scoffs Taras. “The man’s a ghost. Parties? Dinners? Galas? No, no, and no. None of the above. He shows up for business when he has to and that’s it.”

I shut the folder with a pained grimace. “This is too clean,” I say. “Nobody’s this clean. Mother Teresa isn’t this clean.”

“That’s what I’m thinking. Either he’s the world’s most disciplined criminal, or...”

“Or he’s hiding something bigger.”

I lean back in my chair and brood. Iakov’s father Mikhail was a drunk and a gambler, weak and easily manipulated. But the son... the son learned from his father’s mistakes. He’s built himself into something else entirely. Something harder to crack.

That’s a problem.

“Every man has a weakness,” I muse. “If we find his, we’ll be able to use it as a bargaining chip.”