Page 17 of Claimed By my Ex’s Uncle

"Good, Sergei," Ilya replies. "Anything else?"

The man shakes his head. I am surprised that Ilya is willing to have this conversation in front of me, but then, who am I going to tell? Whatever they are involved in, whatever his business truly looks like, I doubt that I have any overlap with it. If he can buy the store I work at out of the blue, there’s no reason to think he couldn’t buy my silence, too. And what did he say earlier, about having a friend in the police department? That sounds way too close to a threat to me...

"Nothing," Sergei replies. And, out of the corner of his eye, I notice him looking at me. It’s just for a moment, just a glimpse, but it’s clear he’s evaluating me. Perhaps trying to make sense of what kind of threat I pose, if any at all.

I avert my eyes quickly, not wanting to draw anyone else’s attention if I can avoid it. God knows I’ve had enough of that lately to last a lifetime.

Sergei’s almost academic gaze moves back to Ilya within seconds, and I wonder if I imagined his attention on me at all. Whatever the reason, he bows his head, and Ilya dismisses him. I watch as he leaves, wondering if I should keep an eye on him. Perhaps he would be on my door later, keeping watch over me, and I could get a better feel for the lay of the land.

But right now, there is a rather more pressing matter at hand. A matter that I am not going to just brush aside like it’s nothing. The matter of my child, Petar, and the bullshit that he has just accused me of.

And just how far I’m going to take Ilya’s word in believing such a thing.

Chapter 9

Rose

"So you just have your men walk in when I’m trying to have a legitimate conversation?" I demand, rolling my eyes. "You really don’t think much of me, huh?"

"Sergei is my second in command," Ilya replies coolly. "Anything that happens in this place, he already knows about it."

"Well, maybe I don’t want him to."

"That’s not a choice you get to make. Not under my roof."

"In case you didn’t notice," I retort, "I didn’t choose to be under your roof or live by your rules. You all but kidnapped me from my work, and if the police do figure out where I am, I’m going to make sure that they know exactly what you did. No matter how many friends you have in the department, it’s not enough to keep you from being arrested for something like kidnap, is it?"

A smile flickers over his face. "You’d be surprised."

He doesn’t seem scared at all by my threat—because, I realize, he has no reason to be. I try to push that thought aside before it can take root, the fear almost more than I can take.

"Well, Petar would never do something like this," I continue, trying a different approach. "I mean, I know he’s not the smartest, but pointing to me for something like this? He must know that it's not going to get him anywhere."

"You really think he wouldn’t do that to you?"

I hesitate. I don’t want to agree with him if I can avoid it, but I know all too well everything that Petar got away with while we were together. I don’t know if I can trust that he wouldn’t throw me under the bus like this. Either way, I don’t want to concede the point and let Ilya think that he’s my savior when I know all too well that he is anything but.

"It doesn’t matter," I reply, tossing my hair over one shoulder. “Whatever it is he’s tried to pull, it's nothing to do with you, and I can handle it on my own."

There it is again, that brief smile, as though he’s enjoying all the ways that I try to stand up to him. Does he like my defiance, or does he like snuffing it out? I can’t tell.

"You’re sure about that?"

It’s almost like he’s daring me. And I don’t know if I’m willing to take him up on that dare. If I tell him that I want to leave and handle the situation with the cops, then he might let me go right into the arms of the police with no protection, and I don’t know what the chances are of pulling that off without getting implicated in Petar’s bullshit. In what little I have come to know of Lisa since I was first aware of her existence, she seems like the type who would be all too willing to send another woman down the river if it meant that she got exactly what she wanted. Perhaps this was always her plan, to use me as a scapegoat for everything she’s done so she can ride off into the sunset with that asshole. And she made sure to come by my work before she did, just to make sure I truly understood the extent of what she was pushing on me.

"It’s not your choice to make," I fire back, voice taut. None of this is Ilya’s doing, at least when it comes to the embezzlement scheme. But there is something about the way he’s trying to control me, trying to force me under his thumb, that doesn’t sit right with me. I have never been the type to just roll over and allow someone to call the shots for me, and that is sure as hell not going to start now just because I’m pregnant.

He rises to his feet, seeming to sense something shift within me. His eyes darken, and my instinct is to take a step back, but I keep my feet rooted to the ground, promising myself that I’m not going to let him get the better of me.

"You need to be careful about how you talk to me," he tells me, almost mildly.

I roll my eyes skyward. "I’m sorry, Ilya, I know that you’re used to having people run around and do whatever you tell them to," I retort. "But that’s not me. Never has been, never will be. You need to learn that now."

"Oh, I do, do I?”

He takes a step towards me, the corner of his lip tugging upwards. He is taking this as a challenge, not a warning, and it scares the hell out of me to see him look at me with that expression on his face. Well, it scares me, and... and does something else to me, too. It’s the same expression he wore back on the plane, in the moments before he took me into his arms and fucked me a few thousand feet in the air.

A heat rises in my belly, an overwhelming warmth that thuds down in the deepest parts of myself.