Page 39 of A Surprise Baby for the Russian

I look down at our joined hands, letting her words settle, not knowing yet where to go from here.

Over the next few days, our reality settles into something resembling an ordinary routine, if you squint. I am back in my own room, in my own house, with the familiar safety of my family around me. Yakov is up before the sun every morning. By the time I come downstairs, he’s already holed up in the study with Matvei and Simon, making himself indispensable to the alliance. He isn’t a man who could passively exist in a space; he is a weapon that always needs a target.

There is always a family member nearby, and the estate security has been doubled. I notice the extra guards stationed at the perimeter without mentioning it. It’s a reality that is both deeply reassuring and intensely pointed. I love my brothers for it, even when the constant surveillance makes me want to scream. They are watching Yakov to ensure his loyalty holds, but they are also watching over me, keeping me safe from the fallout. I’m not naive about what’s coming. Alek Mykros is out there in the dark, rethinking his strategy, and a narcissistic psycho like that doesn’t absorb a massive loss and move on. He festers and plans, waiting for the perfect moment to strike back.

But I trust my brothers, who have kept this family standing through horrors I don’t want to look at. And I trust Yakov—a truth that is now simply absolute.

Chapter 21 - Yakov

The delivery happens at a marina forty miles north, just past midnight—a stretch of abandoned slips that nobody has any real business coming near. Sergei’s waiting on the dock when Matvei, Simon, and I arrive, a duffel bag slung over one shoulder, his breath fogging in the cold.

“Everything we agreed on: Twenty-five AK-47s, thirty-five Glock 19s, the Saiga shotguns. Two thousand rounds for the rifles, fifteen hundred rounds of nine-mill for the pistols. Forty RGD-5 grenades, and the suppressors,” he says, nodding toward the boat behind him, where two of my men are already hauling crates onto the dock.

“That’s Mikhail now,” Matvei says, looking down at his phone. “Nikolais people will be here in ten to take possession.”

I turn back to Sergei. “You didn’t have to come out here for this.”

“I know.” He looks at the crates, then back at me. “Ten years, and I think this is the first time any of it’s actually mattered to something bigger than either of us. Wanted to see it through.”

I clap him on the shoulder, and neither of us says anything else about it.

Mikhail’s men arrive on schedule, and the crates quickly change hands in under fifteen minutes.

“Get some sleep,” I tell Sergei. “I’ll call you tomorrow; we need to hurry the next shipment along. Talk to that boy of yours.”

“Wouldn’t dream of anything else, boss.”

Mikhail’s men finish loading, and we head back to the estate.

The next morning, we’re eating breakfast when the crack of a single gunshot outside splits through the quiet conversation at the table.

Every man in the room moves at once. Matvei’s up, weapon drawn, headed for the window. “Stay here.” his eyes are on Raya and Sofie. “Don’t move from this room until we say so.”

I’m two steps behind him, Glock in hand, as we make our way out to the front to see what’s going on.

The guardroom’s already crowded—three of the security men hunched over the monitors, muttering and swearing between themselves.

“What the fuck happened?” Matvei barks.

One of them points at the screen to the crumpled form against the base of the gate. A body.

It takes me all of five seconds to place the shape of him—the width of the shoulders, the hands—before the recognition hits like a punch to the gut.

Sergei.

“Open the fucking gate,” I growl, striding straight over to it. Three men come with me to give me cover. Not that I’ll need it. Whoever dumped him here hasn’t hung around. The shot was to get our attention, not start a gunfight.

There’s a single shot to the back of the head, close range, execution-style. No struggle. No defensive wounds. Only hours ago he was telling me this was the first time he’d felt what he was doing for me mattered. Now he’s a declaration of war delivered to the Volkovs’ door.

I close his eyes with two fingers, making a silent promise of brutal retribution to him, and stand back up.

“Get him inside,” I tell Matvei’s men. “Treat him with respect.”

We gather in the dining room, while Sofie and Raya go to the kitchen to make drinks. There’s enough space for everyone to arrange themselves into a loose circle of weapons and muscle. Every single man is staring directly at me, waiting to see what happens next.

I pull my phone from my pocket and call Illia. Sergei’s son, he’s twenty-six, and has been running our Odesa port operations since his father came over here to work directly with me.

He picks up on the second ring. “Boss. Everything alright?”