Chapter 20 – Anya
I stirred when Erin’s voice floated through the haze of exhaustion that had been my constant companion for days. My head felt like it was stuffed with cotton, thoughts moving through thick syrup as I tried to focus on her words.
“Juice. You should drink something.”
The concern in her voice sounded genuine, but there was something underneath it—a note I couldn’t quite identify. I blinked hard, rubbing my forehead where a headache had been building behind my eyes like storm clouds gathering.
“Did you get my phone?” The words came out rougher than I’d intended, my throat dry as paper.
Erin paused, and in that split second of hesitation, something cold unfurled in my stomach. Then she gave me that sweet smile, the one that had been making my skin crawl for days without me being able to articulate why.
“Oh. It slipped my mind,” she said, turning quickly toward the door with movements that seemed just a fraction too calculated, too smooth.
I reached for the glass she’d placed on the nightstand, my fingers wrapping around the cool surface. The juice inside was a deep red—cranberry, maybe, or pomegranate.
That was when I heard it.
The loud, violent bang of the main door swinging open hard enough to hit the wall. The sound crashed through the penthouse like thunder, and I jolted so hard the glass nearly slipped from my fingers.
Familiar male voices, urgent and sharp with adrenaline. Heavy footsteps moving fast across hardwood floors. The kind of coordinated movement that spoke of training, of men who knew how to move as a unit.
Then gunfire.
Sharp, precise shots that made my blood turn to ice. I dropped the glass completely, and it shattered against the floor, juice spreading like a sunrise bleeding out across the white tiles—or like blood, my mind supplied unhelpfully.
My pulse thundered in my ears as I scrambled to my feet, bare soles finding purchase on the cold floor as I ran toward the sounds of chaos.
The hallway stretched in front of me, and I could hear voices now—Maxim’s bark of command, Drew’s clipped responses, the sound of someone being shoved roughly against a wall.
I pushed through the open doorway and froze.
The scene in front of me didn’t make sense at first. My brain struggled to process what I was seeing, like looking at one of those optical illusions where the image shifts depending on how you focus your eyes.
Erin was on her knees in the middle of our living room, arms twisted behind her back by Trev’s strong hands.
But this wasn’t the helpful, sweet assistant I’d been living with for weeks.
This girl’s face had been transformed—all sharp angles and cold calculation, her pale eyes holding the kind of emptiness I’d only seen in one place before.
In the eyes of killers.
Casandra, Maxim, Trev, and Drew surround her, guns drawn and pointed with the steady precision of people who had done this before.
And Lev—God, Lev was here, standing despite the crutches leaning against the wall behind him, his face radiating a fury so pure it made the air around him seem to shimmer with heat.
“Lev.” His name tore from my throat like a prayer, and I was moving before conscious thought kicked in.
He caught me as I crashed into him, his arms wrapping around me with desperate strength despite his injuries. The familiar scent of his cologne mixed with hospital antiseptic grounded me, making this nightmare feel slightly less surreal.
“Are you alright?” His voice was rough, hands moving over me like he was checking for injuries, for proof that I was real and whole and here.
I nodded, but the movement made the world tilt sideways. My knees buckled, and suddenly, both Lev and Maxim were supporting my weight, guiding me to the couch with the gentle efficiency of men who had dealt with shock before.
That was when Erin laughed.
The sound was nothing like the soft, musical laugh I’d been hearing for weeks. This was cold, cruel, and sharp enough to cut. It raised every hair on my arms and made something primitive in my brain start screaming warnings.
“Your kid and wife are about to die.” Her voice carried an accent now, something Eastern European that she’d been hiding behind careful pronunciation. “I slipped something in her juice.”
The words hit the room like a physical blow. Silence fell so complete I could hear my own heartbeat, could hear the soft whistle of Lev’s breathing through what might be partially healed ribs.
Lev’s face went pale, his eyes widening as the implications sank in. Kid. She’d said kid. Which meant—
“Lev,” I started, realizing he didn’t know, hadn’t had a chance to process what I’d discovered.
But then something sharp and fierce rose in my chest, cutting through the fog of exhaustion and fear. With sudden clarity, with a voice that surprises me with its strength, I barked out: “I didn’t drink it.”
Every head in the room turned toward me. Six pairs of eyes, all focused on my face with varying degrees of shock, relief, and confusion.
“I didn’t drink the damn juice.” The words came easier now, riding on a wave of fury that burns away the last of my weakness. “I’m off balance because I’m pregnant, and the pregnancy is weak.”
The admission hung in the air like a bomb waiting to explode. Lev’s eyes widened further, his mouth opening slightly as he processed this information that should have been shared in private, in joy, not screamed out during a hostage situation.
But there was no time for proper revelations, no space for the conversation we should be having about the life growing inside me. Because Erin—or whoever she really was—had been in our home for weeks, had been feeding me, caring for me, planning God knows what kind of death.
“Pregnant,” Lev repeated, the word barely a whisper.
I could see him trying to shift gears, trying to process the joy and terror of becoming a father while simultaneously dealing with the immediate threat to our lives. But training kicked in, the survival instincts that had kept him alive this long overriding everything else.
“Trev,” he said, his voice deadly calm. “Take her to the interrogation spot.”
Trev nodded and hauled Erin to her feet with efficient brutality. She didn’t resist, didn’t struggle. Just smiled that cold, empty smile, like she was exactly where she wanted to be.
“Wait.” I grabbed Lev’s arm as understanding crashed over me like a wave. “Who is she? Really?”
Lev’s jaw tightened, and for a moment I thought he might not answer. Then he met my eyes, and I saw something there I’d never seen before—not just anger or determination, but actual fear.
“Mila Kozak,” he said, and the name hit me like a physical blow. “Petro’s daughter. Professional assassin.”
My knees threatened to give out again. Three weeks. For three weeks, I’d been living with, eating food prepared by, trusting my safety to a trained killer whose father wanted my husband dead.
“Sasha.” The name came out as a croak. “Where’s Sasha?”
Lev shook his head, jaw tight with frustration and guilt. “No idea. Nothing yet.”
My voice cracked as the full horror of the situation hit me. “Lev, Sasha is important to me. I want her back alive.”
She was more than important—she was family. The little sister I’d never had, the bright spot in days that had been growing progressively darker. If something happened to her because of me, because of this world I chose when I fell in love with Lev Antonov….
“Trev will find her,” Lev said, pressing a kiss to the top of my head. His lips lingered there for a moment, and I could feel him breathing me in like he was trying to memorize my scent.
As Trev dragged Mila toward the door, she turned back to look at me one last time. That ethereal, almost angelic face was completely transformed now, showing the predator that had been hiding beneath the surface.
“You should have drunk the juice,” she said conversationally. “It would have been easier. For both of you.”
The casual cruelty in her voice made my blood run cold. This wasn’t some crime of passion or a desperate act. This was a professional doing her job, eliminating targets with the same emotional investment most people brought to grocery shopping.
“What was in it?” Drew asked, laptop already open, probably running analysis on whatever surveillance footage he could pull up.
Mila’s smile widened. “Something that would have made sure the Antonov line died with her baby.”
The words hit me like physical blows. Not just poison—something specifically designed to kill my unborn child. Something that would have let me live just long enough to experience that loss before finishing me off.
Lev’s hands clenched into fists, and for a moment, I thought he might launch himself at her despite his injuries. Maxim put a restraining hand on his shoulder.
“Save it for the interrogation,” Maxim said quietly. “We need information first.”
As they dragged her away, I sank back onto the couch, my hands instinctively moving to my stomach. Six weeks along, the doctor had said. Barely the size of a grain of rice, but already so fiercely protected by every instinct I possessed.
“Are you really okay?” Lev asked, settling carefully beside me. His face was drawn with pain, but his eyes were focused entirely on me.
“I think so.” I leaned into him, needing the solid warmth of his body to ground me. “The nausea, the dizziness—I thought it was just pregnancy symptoms. But she could have been poisoning me slowly, couldn’t she? Building it up in my system.”
“We’ll get you to a doctor,” he said immediately. “Full blood work, everything checked.”
“What about you? You’re supposed to be in the hospital.”
A ghost of his old smile touched his lips. “Hospital can wait. My wife and my….” He paused, the word catching in his throat.
“Baby,” I finished for him. “We’re having a baby, Lev.”
For just a moment, the hardness in his face softened. Wonder and terror and something that might’ve been joy flickered across his features before the mask slipped back into place.
“We’re having a baby,” he repeated, like he was testing how the words felt. “In the middle of all this.”
“I know the timing isn’t ideal—”
“The timing is perfect.” His voice was fierce, certain. “This baby is going to grow up in a world where the Kozak name is nothing but a memory. Where you can walk out that door without looking over your shoulder.”
The conviction in his voice made me believe, for just a moment, that it might be possible. That love and determination might be enough to build the kind of life we want for our child.
But then I remembered Mila’s cold eyes, her casual cruelty, the way she’d been planning my death while making me tea and organizing my schedule. And I realized that bringing a baby into this world wasn’t just about love—it was about survival.
“I want to see her interrogated,” I said, surprising myself with the steadiness of my voice.
Lev turned to look at me, eyebrows raised. “Anya—”
“She was in my home. She cooked my food, answered my phone, planned to kill my baby.” My hands curled into fists in my lap. “I want to look her in the eye while she tells us where Sasha is.”
“Interrogations aren’t—”
“I don’t care what they’re like.” I stood up, ignoring the way the movement made my head spin slightly. “I’m done being the innocent wife who gets protected from the ugly parts of this life. That girl tried to murder me and our child. I have a right to hear what she has to say.”
Lev studied my face for a long moment, and I could see him weighing protection against respect, his need to shelter me against his understanding that I was no longer the same woman who used to hide from his world.
“It won’t be pretty,” he warned.
“Neither was finding out I’ve been living with a professional killer for three weeks.”
He nodded slowly. “Then we go together.”
As we prepared to leave—Lev moving carefully but determinedly, me struggling with a combination of pregnancy symptoms and leftover shock—I caught sight of the shattered glass in our bedroom doorway.
The red juice had spread across the white tiles in patterns that looked disturbingly organic, like blood vessels or branching coral.
That juice was meant to kill my baby. To end this new life before it even had a chance to begin.
The thought filled me with a rage so pure and clean it took my breath away.
Mila Kozak had made a mistake. She’d threatened the wrong woman’s child, underestimated the wrong mother’s protective instincts.
And now she was about to discover exactly what kind of monster you create when you corner a Bratva wife.