Page 94 of The Pakhan’s Unwanted Bride

A little while later, Samuil sighs and gets out of bed. He starts dressing, then turns to look at me. "We need to search Gregory's room."

I look at him with raised eyebrows. "We do?"

Samuil nods. "I think he was the one who let it leak that you're pregnant. But it's his sudden disappearance that bothers me. He didn't say a word to me. He just left, taking all his things with him. No one knows where he is, either."

We dress quickly and move through the quiet hallways to Gregory's room. Samuil unlocks the door, and we step inside. The room is abandoned, the bed unmade and closet doors hanging open.

I examine the dark wood desk with its brass fittings while Samuil searches the rest of the space.

"Here." My fingers find a seam in the wood that doesn't quite match the rest. I press carefully, and a hidden compartment springs open with a soft click.

Inside are papers covered in Gregory's handwriting. Notes about the mysterious symbol we found carved into the bookcase beam. References to a secret society that predates the Bratva. Observations about the Rostova family and the pattern of deaths throughout our history.

I pull the papers out carefully and spread them across the desk surface. Samuil moves to stand beside me, reading over my shoulder. The early notes are clinical and detached. But as I flip through the pages, the handwriting becomes erratic and emotional, words pressed harder into the paper. Gregory became consumed by this.

"Look at this." I point to a passage. "He's writing about duty and guardianship."

Samuil's jaw tightens. "Keep going."

I turn to the final page, and fear grips my heart. The handwriting is violent, the pen tearing through the paper. Gregory writes about ancient oaths and blood debts, about families who failed their sacred duty and paid the price for generations.

Samuil reads the last paragraph, and his expression changes completely. The color drains from his face, and his hands grip the edge of the desk hard enough to make his knuckles white.

"What?" I demand. "What does it say?"

He looks at me with horror in his eyes. "Gregory didn't uncover the secret society." His voice is barely above a whisper. "He became part of it."

48

SAMUIL

The next morning, I'm alone in my office, staring at Gregory's papers. His handwriting covers every page, becoming frantic and desperate as the entries progress. I've read them three times, searching for something I missed. There's nothing. Or maybe I just didn't want to see it.

I lean back in my chair and close my eyes, but that only makes it worse. Behind my eyelids, I see the frightened twelve-year-old boy I pulled from the wreckage of his parents' car. I see the teenager who followed me everywhere, desperate to learn and prove himself worthy of the second chance I'd given him. I see the young man who stood beside me through territory wars and business negotiations, who I trusted with my life and my organization's future. The man I believed would inherit everything I'd built.

Where did I fail him? The question circles through my mind like a vulture over a corpse. Was it when I married Ana? When I chose a wife over the unspoken promise that he would be my heir? Or was it earlier, something I missed in all those years of raising him, some fundamental flaw in his character that I was too blind to see?

The door opens quietly, and I don't need to look up to know it's Ana. Her footsteps are soft against the hardwood floor, and she doesn't speak immediately. She just moves to stand beside my chair, her hand resting lightly on my shoulder.

"You've been in here all night," she says gently.

"Couldn't sleep." My voice sounds rough, worn down by hours of silent self-recrimination. "Kept thinking about what I missed, what I should have seen."

Ana's fingers tighten slightly on my shoulder, a gesture of comfort that I don't deserve. "You can't blame yourself for his choices. You gave him everything. You loved him like a son. What he did with that love, the choices he made, those are on him. Not you."

"I raised him," I say quietly. "Everything he knows, I taught him. If he's capable of betrayal, then I made him that way."

"No." Ana moves around the chair to face me, her blue eyes fierce with conviction. "Love and loyalty can't be forced, Samuil. You can't control what's in someone's heart, no matter how much you give them or how well you treat them. Gregory made his own choices. He chose to join that organization. He chose to betray you. Those decisions are his alone."

I reach up and take her hand, threading my fingers through hers. The simple contact grounds me, pulls me back from the edge of the dark spiral I've been circling all night. She doesn't try to justify Gregory's actions or make excuses for him. She just stands beside me, solid and unwavering, and that means more than any words could.

"Thank you," I tell her, and I mean it. "For not walking away from this mess." I pause and meet her eyes. "From me."

"I'm your wife." She squeezes my hand gently. "Where else would I be?"

The answer is so simple, so matter-of-fact, that it almost makes me smile. Almost. But the weight of Gregory's betrayal is still too fresh, too raw, for anything resembling humor.

I stand up from the chair, pulling Ana close for a moment and pressing a kiss to her forehead. "I need to handle this. We can't let grief slow us down or make us vulnerable. There's too much at stake."