Chapter 37 Petyr
PETYR
A day later, the doctor clears them both. Sima and the baby are healthy. No complications. No reason to stay another night.
“Thank you, Dr. Agar.”
“Just doing my job.” She gives Sima and Lilia a radiant smile. “I’ll see you in a week for your check-up and the appointment with the pediatrician, okay?”
“Of course.” Sima grins. “I’d never keep you from your favorite patient.” She’s talking about Lilia, but I suspect Sima has gotten on the doctor’s soft side, too.
It’s hard not to love her.
Hardest thing in the world, really.
I sign the discharge papers while Sima finishes packing. She folds each blanket and every tiny outfit, as painstakingly as she can. She’s so focused that I almost don’t want to distract her.
Lilia sleeps in the bassinet beside the bed, her little fists tucked against her cheeks.
I ought to feel nothing but relief. They’re both alive, as safe as can be. But the hospital walls are thin, and I can’t stop thinking about getting them home. Home, where I control who comes in and who doesn’t. Where the security is mine. Where no one can touch them.
After what happened with Dimitri, I can’t be too careful.
“It’ll be easier once we’re back,” I say. “You’ll have the nursery. The guards. Everything you need.”
Sima doesn’t answer right away. She’s quiet, but I see her hands still over the baby bag. When she finally looks up, her eyes are uncertain.
“Petyr,” she says softly, “I don’t know if I want to go back there.”
I frown. “What are you talking about?”
“The house,” she says. “I don’t feel safe there.”
“After everything that’s happened, that’s the safest place you can be. You know that.”
She shakes her head. “It’s not that. It’s—” She hesitates, then exhales. “Promise you won’t think I’m crazy?”
“Never.”
“You’ll never think I’m crazy, or you’ll never promise?”
“Sima.” I grab both her hands. “I promise I won’t think you’re crazy.”
She takes a slow breath. “The night I fell… I heard a baby crying.”
“A baby?” I frown. “But Lilia—”
“Wasn’t born yet. I know. Remember how I asked you not to think I’m crazy?”
I nod. “Go on.”
“At first, I thought my mind was playing tricks on me. You know? Old house, creepy noises—your place is basically every horror movie director’s wet dream.”
“I did not know that, but continue.”
She looks me in the eye. “I followed the sound, but when I got to the stairs… someone pushed me.”
For a second, I’m convinced I’ve heard her wrong. “What?”
“I fell down the stairs. I managed to grab the railing, but my arm is still killing me from that.” She massages her shoulder. I realize I’ve seen her rolling it a lot in the past few days, but with all her aches from the birth, I didn’t think about it too deeply.
Now, I realize I should have.
“What happened next?”
“I looked back. No one was there.” Her voice trembles. “And the crying stopped.”
I stare at her and try to process what she’s saying. “You think someone was in the house?”
“I don’t know,” she mumbles. “Maybe I imagined it. Maybe it was the pain clouding me. But it felt real, Petyr. The crying, the shove—it felt real.”
I move closer and rest my hand on her good shoulder. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because it’s insane!” she blurts. “Crying babies in a big old mansion at night? Come on. It makes zero sense.”
“Maybe not, but you could’ve been hurt. Or worse—” I stop myself before finishing. The thought is too much.
“I know.” She looks down at Lilia, then back at me. “That’s why I don’t want to go back there. Not yet.”
I take a slow breath. Logic tells me it doesn’t make sense. My systems didn’t detect an intruder, and my men didn’t say anything, either. There were no signs of forced entry. If there had been, I’d have heard about it.
But something in her face makes me pause. The fear there isn’t imaginary. Whatever happened that night, I can tell it was bad, and that she believes it.
I’ve been dismissive of Sima before, and it almost cost me everything.
I’m not going to make the same mistake again.
“I’ll have the place swept again,” I say. “Every room, every camera. I’ll triple the guards if I have to. No one will come near you or the baby. Not ever again.”
She nods, but her expression doesn’t ease. “I just… I don’t want to feel trapped again.”
Guilt stabs at me. I was the one who made her feel trapped. If she really did imagine what happened that night, it was because of all the stress I put on her.
“You won’t.” I meet her gaze. “Not this time.”
She studies me for a long moment, then looks down at Lilia again. “Okay,” she says finally, her voice barely above a whisper. “If you say so.”
As we get ready to leave her hospital room, slow fury builds in me.
Pushed. Sima said she was pushed. If that’s true, then someone tried to kill her under my own fucking roof.
I can’t imagine anyone in that house being that stupid. Every man on my payroll knows what happens when someone crosses me.
Still, the thought is persistent. Someone put their hands on her, on my wife, in my house… The idea alone is enough to make my hands curl into fists.
“Could you have dreamed it?” I wonder. “You’ve been under a lot of stress. Maybe you walked in your sleep.”
She shakes her head, firm. “No. I was awake. I hadn’t even gone to sleep yet.” She looks at me with fear in her eyes. “It was real, Petyr. I know it was.”
I study her face, searching for any sign of doubt.
There isn’t any.
My jaw tightens until it hurts. I run through every possibility in my head: guards, staff, anyone who’s ever set foot in that house. None of them fit. They’d never fucking dare.
But if she’s right, then someone slipped past all of us. Someone on the inside.
My stomach turns cold.
The image of her falling belly-first down the stairs flashes behind my eyes. The slow burn of anger turns into something heavier, darker. A pulse of rage that feels almost physical.
I pace once across the room, then stop. “I’ll find out who did it.”
“Petyr—”
“They tried to hurt you,” I cut in. “They tried to hurt our child. I don’t care who it was or why. They won’t walk away from it.”
I force myself to take a breath, to stay in control. For both their sakes.
But inside, I’m already seeing red.
The moment Sima steps out to check in with her pediatrician, I call Luka into the room. He’s been waiting in the hallway, leaned against the wall like he’s trying not to hover. I must have marked my territory well enough that day in the delivery room. He’s barely come anywhere near Sima since.
But the second he steps in, I see the question in his face.
“You heard what she said,” I tell him.
He nods. “Yeah.”
“Did you see anything that night?”
He shakes his head. “No. I was in the kitchen when it happened. If there was noise, I didn’t hear it from there.”
I try to read his tone, his body language. Anything that might tell me he’s hiding something.
But Luka’s not the type to play games. Not with me. He was honest even when it wasn’t in his best interest to be.
Besides, he’s the one who found Sima in labor and brought her here. If he meant her any harm, he could have easily done it then.
“Alright,” I say. “When we get back to the house, I want you to pull the security footage. Everything from that night.”
He straightens a little. “You want the full sweep?”
“Every angle,” I confirm. “Outside, inside, driveway, garden—everything. If there’s anything out of the ordinary, no matter how small, I want to know about it.”
Luka gives a short nod. “You got it.”
I don’t add that I don’t expect him to find anything. Most of the cameras are outside. There’s nothing covering the second floor, or near the stairs where she fell. I’ve never allowed cameras in private spaces. Too many secrets live in that house already.
Still, I can’t leave it alone. Someone hurt her. If there’s even the smallest clue, I’ll find it.
“Start when we get back,” I order. “I want eyes on every screen.”
He meets my gaze. “You think it was someone on the inside?”
“I don’t know. But until I do, no one’s in or out without my say-so.”
Luka nods once more and leaves the room. The door shuts behind him. I’m left with the steady beep of the monitors and the soft sound of my daughter’s breathing.
The anger doesn’t fade, though. It just settles deeper, colder.
Whoever did this thought they could touch what’s mine. They’re about to learn how wrong they were.
I drive us back in silence. The only sound is the engine and the even breathing from the back where Sima and the baby sleep.
Part of me wants to file it away as a bad dream. After everything, that would be the easier explanation. Fewer loose threads. Less work.
But Sima isn’t someone who makes up danger for the sake of drama. She’s practical, stubborn, and honest in a way that always cuts through bullshit. If she says someone pushed her, then I listen.
I’ve already made the mistake of ignoring her warnings too many times.
I study her sleeping face in the rearview mirror. She looks fragile and fierce all at once. The baby is wrapped tight and small on top of her chest.
Who would risk stepping into my house and touching her? Who would think they could get away with it? The list is short, and the answers are uglier than I want them to be.
When we pull into the driveway, the gates close behind us with the familiar thud. Guards are posted where they always are.
I watch Sima and the baby as we move through the foyer. For the first time since this started, I feel the house as a place that can be violated.
I tell myself there’ll be more checks. Cameras in places that have no right to see anyone. Men watching screens for hours. New locks. I’ll make the house a fortress until my paranoia stops being useful.
But the truth is nastier.
If someone managed to get in and do that, then they were patient. They played the long game. Waited for the perfect opportunity.
God help them once I find them.
I can think of a dozen ways to teach them regret. I don’t need to be violent on a whim. I can wait, too. Because this is personal now. Whoever this was won’t know pain until I make sure it’s the only language left for them.
For now, I’ll watch Sima and Lilia like a hawk. I’ll sit up all night and listen to every sound in the house. Stand by the nursery door with a gun at my feet if that’s what it takes.
And when I finally get my hands on them, they’ll be begging for death.