Page 37 of The Brutal Arrangement (The Ivanov Syndicate #2)

LUCY

I nstead of turning one of the guest rooms in our apartment to be a nursery, I was hoping to convince Damon to renovate the layout a little bit so we would be closer to our baby.

I wouldn’t want to walk all the way across the apartment to tend to him or her.

It just made sense to have the nursery room closer to ours.

For the better part of the morning, a good one without too much nausea for a change, I walked in and out of the rooms near ours and tried to envision it all.

Which walls could be moved where. What furniture could be replaced and better suited somewhere else.

These plans were all in my head right now, but I didn’t question whether Damon would mind.

When he told me that I would want for nothing, I had to believe him. I’d had every need met since I’d come here.

And when he vowed that our child would also want for nothing, I trusted him to make it happen too.

I sighed, sitting on the couch after having a good look at the area.

With the idea of late nights with a baby, I thought back to how my mom and dad used to tell me that I was such a good baby, sleeping through the night at a younger age than they’d expected.

Mom used to tell me about how she’d obsess over me anyway, walking through the house to check on me all night long even when I wasn’t waking up or crying for her.

I wish you could meet your grandchild…

Wistful and sad about the fact that she likely wouldn’t, I felt tempted to check the feed in her room again.

I did often, comforted by the sight of her being happy and treated well.

But whenever the therapist talked to her, she gave no sign of remembering me.

Her own daughter. I was a stranger to her now, and with a heavy heart, I knew it was better that I didn’t visit.

It would only confuse her. It could even anger her or scare her, and I didn’t want that.

I’d never be able to bring her grandchild to meet her except as a total stranger.

She was that far off with the disease. While she still had many years to live, not that old yet, she was an older woman when she’d had me.

Same as dad. Being the single child of older parents was just… sad when it ended like this.

But I’m not alone.

I’d always have Damon.

“And you,” I whispered, setting my hand over my stomach.

In a flash, my peaceful moment was shattered.

The door to the short hall of the elevator space was flung open.

Damon preferred that I keep it closed when he wasn’t home or in the building.

He’d left this morning for something with his brothers, so I knew it couldn’t have been him pushing the door open like that.

I gasped, sitting upright as a couple of Ivanov guards came into the room.

They strode in, their faces stern and unfriendly. They meant business, bursting in here like that.

“What is going on?” I demanded.

I held no power here. Even as Damon’s wife, I had no say over this army of loyal soldiers. They listened to the boss, not a Mafia wife. I had no control on my own.

Standing up quickly, I refused to be caught in an inferior position with them storming in like warriors on the hunt.

“Get her,” another man said.

I hadn’t had many chances to hear Grigory speak. He was often secluded in his room. The one day he’d wandered from his floor, he mistook me for Katerina herself.

Now, as he walked in confidently, he moved smoother and without the assistance of a cane or walker. His eyes were sharp and cruel, representing the gaze of a man on a mission.

“Get her now ,” he ordered the pair of soldiers.

“What? No.” I backed up, holding my hands up as fear claimed me. Being stalked and cornered was never a good feeling, but combining that sensation with this confusion twisted my stomach.

Fight-or-flight took over. I panicked, debating whether I could run and hide as the three of them marched into the place I was supposed to call home.

Fighting these two men was out of the question.

They were huge, trained soldiers, taller and stronger than me.

I couldn’t risk engaging in combat when it could hurt my baby.

“What are you doing? Stop, please.” I held my hands up as if that gesture alone could ward them back.

“Get the fucking spy now.” Grigory didn’t look confused. He spoke clearly, loudly, and with command that these soldiers obeyed.

“I’m not—” One tried to grab hold of my arm, so I dodged and backed up toward the other end of the sofa. “No. I’m not a spy. You don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“Don’t lie to me, you filthy fucking whore.” He lifted his arm to backhand me, but someone reached up from behind him and stopped him. The fingers on his arm showed the gemstones of rings. Wrinkly skin ended with manicured nails. A woman had stopped him from striking me as I cowered back.

“Grigory, what is going on?” she asked as she stepped to his side.

Anastasia tore her frantic gaze from him to me, then back again. She shook her head, clearly confused and alarmed.

“I heard all this commotion and I tried to find you upstairs and…” She furrowed her brow, haughty as she faced me. “What is going on?”

I had no clue. No answer would be coming from me . I was minding my own business, at peace and sitting in my husband’s home, when they burst in. Yet she turned her attention to me as if I could explain this unexpected chaos.

“I don’t know!”

“Sure, play innocent and stupid, whore.” Grigory snarled, looking at me with pure disdain. “She’s working for Anton.”

Anastasia volleyed her gaze again, seeming flabbergasted and unsure of whom to focus on.

“I heard the calls just now. The security team was tracking her phone. That motherfucking back-stabbing Kozlov left her a message and said she works for him.”

“I did,” I hurriedly replied. “I did work for him.”

“See?” Grigory pointed at me again, as if the direction of his aim was a magical force that would sic these two guards on me. “Get her now!”

“No!” I backed up more as one almost grabbed me.

“I worked at his residence as a maid.” Fearing Grigory couldn’t or wouldn’t hear me, I beseeched Anastasia to listen.

“I worked for the Kozlov residence for a short time as their maid .” She damn well knew it.

I had suspected for a long time now that she scorned me for having such a simple job that would make me beneath her elite status of a wealthy mafia woman.

“I was a maid!” I insisted.

“No, you’re a spy, you fucking whore,” Grigory insisted.

One guard took hold of my arm. My heart lurched, beating so fast in my ribcage that it seemed like it had to be banging against the bones.

I couldn’t suck in air fast enough as I tried to pull out of the guard’s grip.

The need to break free fueled me to resist, but I feared fighting back too much that he’d use more force on me. I had to protect my baby at all costs.

“I don’t understand,” Anastasia said, shaking her head. “Grigory, she was a maid.”

“Only a maid,” I yelled as the guards dragged me out of the room.

“She must be a spy!” Grigory yelled.

“No, I’m not. Ask Damon. Someone, please.” I pinned Anastasis with a begging gaze. “Please. Call Damon!”

He wasn’t here to defend me. He wasn’t home to set the record straight. I wasn’t a spy, and I never would be. I didn’t want to consider how addled Grigory’s mind had to be for him to spew such lies about me.

Delusional but still holding power, he was a wild card in terms of my safety.

“Take her to the basement,” he ordered as the guard dragged me toward the elevator, yanking me out of the peace I’d felt in the place I was supposed to call home.

“If you want to talk to Damon, you can talk to him down there,” Grigory growled, lifting his hand as if to strike me again. I cowered and tensed, bracing for the hit.

“No! Please don’t hurt me. Don’t hurt?—”

The guard moved faster, hauling me on to the elevator before Grigory could reach me.

As the doors slid shut and I panted out of breath from the shock, I watched as Anastasia questioned Grigory and blocked him from getting onto the elevator with me.

But as the gap closed, he sneered at me with the vacant eyes of a madman.

He scowled at me with that same lost expression of cluelessness and agitation that I’d witnessed in patients who lived with my mom.

If he was lucid and aware of what he was doing, sending me to the dungeons, then there was only one explanation.

I’d been set up to take this fall.

I’d been framed to look like a traitor, just like his wife had once been.

“Please, let me talk to Damon,” I begged of the guards in the elevator who flanked me.

They didn’t reply.

“Call my husband!”

Again, they remained stone-faced and silent.

“Please. You’re making a mistake.”

Nothing.

“Please call Damon. My husband.”

Still, they didn’t react.

“I’m not a spy. Grigory isn’t informed. I was a maid, nothing more.

” Shaking my head at this hopelessness that threatened to strangle me, I whimpered.

“Call Maxim.” He was supposed to be in charge now while Grigory went back and forth with his cognitive ability as he recovered.

“Please. Call any of the brothers. You can’t listen to Grigory like that.

He’s not in charge to call any orders. Maxim is.

Or Damon. Grigory isn’t aware of what he’s saying. ”

“Shut up,” the guard to my left warned.

“No!” I would not shut up or be quiet. I could accept how little control I had in this family and in this organization, but I had accepted that with the understanding that my husband would keep me safe. That my association with him, as his wife, would bar me from any such treatment like this.

“Call Damon,” I insisted.

“You need to shut up before I make you shut up,” the guard to my right growled.

I tensed, feeling like I’d throw up at the panic attack that hit me.

My heart raced too fast. My head was spinning, dizzying me with fear.

Vaguely aware of my fingers trembling and my knees shaking as I backed up to plaster myself against the wall of the elevator, I forced a swallow down my dry throat and focused on steadying my breaths.

Someone had to understand. Everyone was aware of Grigory’s limitations. Even Anastasia was, but I saw how little she’d ever trusted me or wanted me around.

Someone in this building had to contact Damon. They had to. My baby depended on it.

We rode down through the floors of the building, and with every inch we sank toward the basement where Damon earned the honor of being called the Demon, I prayed that no other soldier or enforcer would be waiting there to harm me in his absence.