Page 85 of Baby for My Ex’s Dad

The girl is not playing a part. The fact settles coldly into me as I look at her radiant, expectant face. She isn’t bluffing. This isn’t a game to her. This is Anya Sokolov at her most honest. And it’s terrifying.

I’m not sure where to begin. “You have romantic feelings for me?”

“I fell in love with you the day you defied him.” She says it plain, like reciting a fact of geography. “Do you understand how rare that is? Grown men go pale when my father looks at them. Pakhans, killers, senators. They all kneel.”

“The respect comes with the territory.”

“It does.” Her eyes shine. “But you sat across a table from him and told him no, right to his face, and you walked out with your back to him like he was nothing, and you lived. No one does that and lives, Maxim. You did both, and I thought, ‘That’s the only man in this world fit to stand next to me.’ Everything since has been me clearing the road to you.”

“The men in my house? Was that you?”

“Daddy’s stupid stunt. That’s why I’m handing him over to you.”

“I’m promised to another.” I watch the words hit like shrapnel. I’ve wounded her. But I’m not going to lie about any of this. “You know I’m with someone. We have a child coming, Anya.”

“I know.” The shine in her eyes goes dead in a flash, the lover gone, replaced by a monster. “Why do you think I sent Kirill for her?”

“You said that was your father’s stunt.”

“Most of it was, yes. But I gave the kill order on the girl. Messy, I know, but it should’ve aligned with Daddy’s plans.” She shrugs one silk shoulder. “It’s a real disappointment that she lived. The little bitch is luckier than I counted on.”

“She will not be an easy person to kill, Anya. She’s survived more than you know.”

The smile comes back. “But that’s a solvable problem, my love, and here’s the wonderful part—you have the power to fix it for me. Bring me her head, as your first gift as my husband. Show me and the world that the old life is behind us, and let’s start anew with a fresh, clean slate.”

She’s out of her mind, and she has a gun pointed at me. I’m what stands between Thea and a terrible fate at Anya’s hands. If I’m dead, she won’t hesitate to take cold vengeance on Thea.

I have to survive this… whatever this is.

“Put your gun down,” she says gently. “I’m not an unreasonable woman, Maxim. I only want to be heard.”

I need time to plan an escape, so I have to drag this out. “First, tell me one thing. Did Lev betray me? Was any of that true?”

She rolls her eyes, a girl irritated by a tedious question. “No, absolutely not. Your Lev was incredibly loyal all the way through, perhaps a bit obsessively so. My father made that part up during a phone call to throw you off, aiming to leave you feeling unprepared and confused instead of calm and careful.” She gestures with the gun, impatient. “I told him it was beneath us, but he never listens to me.”

At least I have that.

Her patience thins. “It worked, though, after a fashion, didn’t it? Look at you now. Anyway, the gun. Down. You first, and then we talk like civilized people.”

I believe her regarding Lev, which stings in a different manner, because it means that my oldest friend has died a loyal death. The grief for that will arrive later, if there is a later. At present, there’s only the gun on my person and the cold assessment of the room, and the assessment says a man cannot cross fifteen feet more quickly than a steady finger moves.

So I crouch, slow, and I set my gun on the carpet, and I do not take my eyes off her.

“Good.” She beams, and pats the mattress beside her, girlish and delighted. “Now, I want to hear everything about the man who defied my father and lived. Tell me who you truly are.”

I’m profoundly disturbed as I position myself on the edge of the bed. The plan, as it stands, necessitates her composure, and her calmness relies on my cooperation. I’m halfway down, with my weight shifting and my hand a foot away from the gun on the floor, when the sound of engine rumblings approaches.

There are not just one or two, but many—a rising tide of motorcycles, producing a continuous, flat buzzing sound. There must be dozens. Beneath this, the deeper tone of heavy vehicles as they motor down the long driveway of the Sokolov estate.

Anya quickly leaves the bed, keeping her weapon pointed at me, as she moves toward the window and delicately twitches the curtain with two fingers. “What the fuck,” she breathes. “What is this, what⁠—”

I look past her through the gap, and my heart stutters.

Three dozen sportbikes, pouring onto the grounds in a river of bright colors and black leather. I know those colors. They belong to Sensei. Rolling in among them, a pair of armored SUVs the exact gunmetal gray of my own fleet.

My men. My men and the Yakuza, together, come for me.

I don’t know how they knew or who organized our two organizations into one assault in the space of an hour, and in this moment I do not care. The cavalry is mine, and the balance of the room has tipped over. Anya is one gun. What’s coming through that door in the next sixty seconds is an army that answers to me.