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“Arsen has an heir. He doesn’t need a wife.” Dom turns to me. “Do you?”
I turn my back on both of them, intangible thoughts running through my head. Natascha’s death changes things. The shackles that once bound me have been stripped away.
Now,Iget to decide what happens next.
17
LAILA
I wake up to my phone vibrating.
Actually, it’s impossible to wake up when you never fell asleep in the first place, so it’s more accurate to say that the phone is interrupting my busy pastime of staring blankly at the ceiling and trying to understand how the hell I got here.
Pregnant.
With a criminal’s baby.
A criminal’sheir, if Arsen has his way. Which, if history is any indication, he probably will. Proof is in the pudding: I’m in his house, miles away from my mother, with God knows how many evil people after me, and achy because I didn’t think to grab my pregnancy pillow before he yanked me out of my house.
Arsen Adamov always gets his way.
I roll over with a groan and grab my phone. When I see Dominik’s name, I’m tempted to yeet it out the window. But, liar though he may be, he’s the closest thing I have to a friend right now, so I answer.
“If you’re calling to apologize, you’re eight months too late.”
“Good morning to you, too,” Dom sighs. “Arsen warned me you’d be in a mood.”
Goosebumps bloom across my skin at the mere mention of his name. Dominik has avoided saying it the last eight months. It just upset me.
Guess there’s no point avoiding that elephant now that I’m in Arsen’s house.
The real irony is that I went eight months hoping to see him, and now, I’m utterly terrified he’ll barge through my door again.
“Did he warn you that he was going to kidnap me from my bed last night? Becauseyoudidn’t warnme. You also failed to mention thatmy baby daddy is a criminal mastermind!”
“Must have slipped my mind,” he hums, annoyingly unbothered. “But I am calling to warn you that I’m on my way to get your mom and her nurse.”
I’m torn between making Dominik explain himself and the panic clawing its way up my chest now that I’m really going to live with Arsen. He’s going to bring my mom and Evelyn here, and we’re going to live here until…
Until I don’t know when.
“What is his plan, Dom? Why is he doing this?”
There’s a beat of hesitation, and I know immediately where Dominik’s loyalties lie. I don’t know why I’m surprised. Dom has always been honest about how he feels about Arsen: he trusts him. Implicitly.
Me? Slightly less than that.
“I’m not going to get between the two of you.”
“Of course not,” I snort. “That would be impossible, since you’re so far up Arsen’s butt you probably can’t even see daylight.”
He laughs. “Charming as always, Princess Laila. You remind me every day what Arsen must’ve seen in you.”
I know what Arsen saw in me: He saw a woman desperate enough to sell her womb. And, based on nothing but the fact that I didn’t even bother asking for a background check before he bent me over his desk, he read me like a book.
“At least tell me what he’s planning to do with my mom.”
“Once we get her to the house, we’re going to give her a funny hat, hang bells from her feet, and turn her into our own personal court jester.”
