Chapter 35 Stefan
STEFAN
Taras always knows when I want to be left the fuck alone. That’s when he most likes to bother me.
The crystal decanter sits heavy in my hand as he materializes in my doorway like a specter summoned by my extended silence. My phone has been ringing on the corner of my desk for I-don’t-even-know-how-long, so I’m assuming that’s why he’s here.
I raise the decanter and take a long sip. It’s a futile attempt to burn away the memory of Olivia’s terrified eyes during the shootout.
Not to mention the sadness in them as I left her room a few hours ago.
“Radio silence after a shootout, you brooding asshole? What, did you lose your phone along with your common sense?” Taras scans the surroundings for threats, like I might be being held hostage in my own office.
He keeps jabbering when I don’t answer. “Your security feed shows bullet holes in your Maybach. Since when do we not call for backup when someone’s trying to ventilate our very expensive cars? Eh? Eh?”
Since Olivia was at my side when it happened.
Since my only thought, even as I watched bodies drop to the concrete, was for her safety.
The only reason I didn’t grab her and run was because I could feel her pulse thrumming beneath me. I knew she was still breathing, and I wanted to keep it that way.
I pour myself a fresh two fingers of scotch and offer him the decanter. “It was a minor inconvenience.”
“Minor— Jesus H., man.” Taras swallows his retort as he takes the liquor from me and pours himself a glass.
“We should post security at her clinic,” he suggests in a somewhat more serious voice.
“Her home, too. Since they targeted you while she was with you, we don’t know that she wasn’t the target. Just as a precaution—”
“Unnecessary.” Taras arches a brow, and I sigh before I let the truth spill out. “She’s staying here now.”
The glass freezes halfway to Taras’s lips. Disbelief crosses his features before erupting into incredulous laughter that ricochets off the walls like stray bullets. “Get the fuck out of here. You can’t be— Are you— My God, you are. You’re serious.”
Again, I don’t answer.
It tells him everything he needs to know.
He starts cackling, doubling over with laughter until tears dot the corners of his eyes. He laughs and laughs and laughs as I sit there in silence.
Eventually, he drags himself upright. “Sorry, but Stefan Safonov moving a woman into his home? A civilian woman, no less? That’s like a wolf adopting a lamb for the stimulating conversation. Next, you’ll tell me you’ve taken up knitting and started a book club.”
I rotate my signet ring, watching light fracture across its surface. It was my father’s ring. I wear it now as a symbol of everything I’ve sworn I’d never become: a man undone by love.
“You’re protective of her,” Taras observes.
“I’m protective of my investments.”
That’s another lie. I’ve been collecting those lately.
I brace for Taras to push the way he always does. I don’t have the answers he’s looking for—fuck, I can barely explain to myself why Olivia is here in my house.
Thankfully, he leaves it alone. Instead, he shifts the conversation sideways.
“The feds have been interviewing our dockworkers,” he informs me softly.
We’re in my home, my office, but he still knows some things are meant to be whispered.
Our entire lives, we’ve known walls have ears and secrets are the only sure way to survival. “Three flipped already.”
I know this already. Mikayla sent me a report this morning that I only half read. “Low-level runners.” I dismiss them with a wave. “They don’t know enough to matter.”
But a tendril of unease coils at the base of my spine. Betrayal always starts small—a whisper, a glance, a moment of hesitation. I learned that lesson standing over my father’s cooling body.
I had my doubts about my mother, my uncle. I’d seen the two of them in enough dark corners, heads tipped together, to have questions.
But I ignored them just as my father did.
He paid the ultimate price. I don’t intend to do the same.
“They may not yet, but they met with Iakov. A few times, by the looks of it. We can’t discount this, Stef. They could be building something—a court case, an army, I’m not sure which.” Taras drains his glass and sets it down.
The mention of Iakov sends ice through my veins, but I keep my face neutral. “Iakov doesn’t have the influence to take control, much less the balls. Not with a dead father who was merely a captain. He has no blood claim to anything.”
A muscle in my jaw tightens as I remember Iakov’s father, Mikhail. He doesn’t have my family’s blood in his veins, but he helped to spill it. “Merely a captain”—but that “mere captain” helped my uncle Vasily poison my father’s drink in exchange for being his right hand.
In the end, what it really earned him was my wrath.
I didn’t kill the man. That would be too easy. I left him blacklisted and penniless. I stole everything from him until, finally, he did my dirty work on his own.
It wasn’t murder. Still, Iakov has always blamed me for the death.
“He may not have a legit claim, but combined with whatever case the feds are building…” Taras lets that sentence stay unfinished.
“Last I checked, the only reason you were fucking with Olivia Aster was to protect yourself from the feds. Though, with your new living arrangement, I’m starting to wonder what else I’ve missed. ”
I clench my jaw. “How many men has Iakov spoken to?”
“Five took the meeting. Three flipped. The other two…” He makes a slashing gesture across his throat.
“He killed our men?”
“Or it was an inside job. You know we hate nothing as much as a rat.”
“You aren’t sure?” I snap.
“They were clean kills. Professional. Nothing like Iakov’s usual mess. So it’s hard to say.”
I don’t like that. Iakov has never been known for subtlety. If he’s evolving, adapting… The thought is unsettling.
Taras must feel the same, because he leans back in his seat. “Tell me about what happened today.”
I rotate my glass in my hand and watch the amber liquid slosh around.
“It was suspiciously amateur. Probably mercenaries. A message, not an assassination.” My mind replays the scene: the flash of gunmetal, Olivia’s startled gasp, my body moving on instinct to shield her before a single conscious thought could form.
“Could be Walsh,” Taras suggests. “Maybe she’s not just after Olivia’s business. Maybe she figured out what you’re really after with the clinic. Unless…” He tilts his head. “Unless that plan’s changed, too?”
“Walsh isn’t a concern.”
“And how the fuck do you know that?” Taras’s eyebrows shoot up as he reads the death sentence in my eyes. “Christ, Stef. Tell me you haven’t gone off-script already. We agreed—”
Before I can answer, I hear a sound in the hallway. A gasp. I’m up before I know it, crossing the room in three strides, yanking open the heavy oak door.
And on the other side…
I fucking knew it.
Olivia stands frozen, eyes wide. Her pulse visibly jumps in her throat. A frightened bird trapped in a too-small cage.
How much did she hear?
Taras slides past us with a muttered, “Well, this oughta be fun,” leaving me alone with the woman who’s the center of my plans and could be the end of them.
It’s right now, in this moment, with her horrified eyes holding mine, that I realize I’ve made a terrible mistake.
I’ve let her see too much. Hear too much. Know too much.
The question now is simple:
Do I pull her deeper into my darkness? Or shove her out into the light where she belongs?