Chapter 41 Stefan
STEFAN
My fingers drum against the Maybach’s leather steering wheel. From here, I can see five potential entry points to the building, each one a bigger liability than the last. One of the doors is propped open by a worker taking a smoke break, for fuck’s sake. Amateur hour.
I check my mirrors again. Old habits.
Boston’s evening crowd ebbs and flows further down the block. It’s the usual mix—businessmen with loosened ties, students hunched under backpacks, tourists consulting maps. I catalog each face automatically, searching for the telltale signs of someone who doesn’t belong.
The leather seat creaks as I shift. I’m buzzing with unspent energy. This isn’t how I operate. I don’t sit passively. I don’t wait. I don’t let my—
My what? What is she, exactly?
No, better not to answer that question.
Whatever she is, I don’t let Olivia walk into unknown situations alone. Yet here I am, thumb tracing the outline of my concealed Glock, watching the minutes tick by just because she’d looked at me with those pretty amber eyes and asked all sweetly.
The fact that her mouth was around my cock at the time is beside the point.
Because the end result involves me parked on my ass for almost a full fucking hour like some pathetic, domesticated watchdog.
I have nothing to do but imagine every possible threat that could be taking place behind those glass doors.
The woman with the scarf was tall, but thin. Olivia is petite, but I think she could defend herself.
I just don’t want her to have to.
My phone vibrates against my thigh. Once, twice. Then it doesn’t stop.
The screen illuminates with a cascade of incoming notifications—Mikayla, Taras, security systems across my network all screaming simultaneously. Red alert icons flash across my screen as I scan the messages.
Three warehouses hit simultaneously.
Sir, federal agents just showed up at Safonov Holdings with warrants.
Someone deleted the backup security footage.
Whatever you need, Stefan, Mikayla texts. Just tell me where to aim.
She’s ready for an order, for some off-the-cuff command to fly out of my mouth the way it usually does.
But for the first time in my decade-long reign as pakhan, I don’t immediately move to protect my empire. I don’t even spare it a thought.
The only thing on my mind is Olivia.
I’m out of the car before conscious decision-making takes hold. I sprint toward the building entrance. The taste of fear, metallic and unfamiliar, coats my tongue as I burst through the glass doors.
“Olivia!” My voice echoes in the deserted lobby.
No response.
Dread claws up my spine. The meeting room I’d watched her walk into through the glass windows of the lobby is empty now—just a conference table with abandoned coffee cups and the lingering scent of expensive perfume.
“Olivia!” I roar again, louder this time, startling a janitor who pokes his head from around a corner before quickly retreating.
My mind spins through scenarios, each worse than the last. Was the meeting a setup? Is this connected to the attacks on my businesses? Has someone taken her to get back at me?
I slam open a bathroom door—empty.
The stairwell—empty.
Each office along the hall—locked or abandoned for the day.
I rented out this space. I told her not to take the meeting at her office because I imagined her walking up the front path and someone leaping from the roof, out of the bushes, up through the fucking toilet.
The only way I could let her leave my compound is if she went somewhere no one had any reason to suspect she’d be.
So how the hell did they find her?
“Fuck!” I kick an innocent waste bin, sending it clattering across the floor and spilling its guts everywhere.
This was fucking stupid. I should have gone in with her like I wanted. Should have insisted.
No—better yet, I should have kept her home today, safe in my bed where I could watch over her, touch her, make her cry my name until she forgot there was a world outside my walls.
But I didn’t. I let her walk into this glass death trap alone because I didn’t want anyone—especially myself—to think I was getting too attached.
I was so arrogant enough to think I could protect her from the goddamn parking lot.
I pull out my phone, fingers already dialing Taras to mobilize every soldier in my organization—not to protect my business, but to find Olivia—when the elevator chimes softly.
The doors slide open, and my hand shifts to my gun, ready to blow away whoever the fuck walks out of the elevator.
But then… there she is. Olivia. Perfect, untouched, checking something on her phone with that little furrow between her brows that appears when she’s concentrating.
Relief crashes through me with such force my knees nearly buckle. The air rushes back into my lungs. It’s only then I realize I’d stopped breathing.
She looks up. When she sees me standing there, chest heaving, murder in my eyes, her eyebrows lift. “Stefan? What’s wrong?”
I don’t answer. I can’t. There are no words to explain the guilt and rage and desperation storming inside me. Not to her, not to myself, not to fucking anyone.
Instead, I cross the distance between us in four long strides. Our bodies crash together, and I back her against the wall beside the elevator.
She’s breathing. She’s okay.
Thank fucking God.
My hands roam up her sides and down again, checking every inch of her just in case I’m wrong. One hand tangles in her hair, the other grips her waist, pulling her hips flush to mine.
When I’m sure she’s whole, I crash my mouth onto hers with the desperation of a dying man.
She makes a small, startled sound against my lips before melting into me. Her briefcase hits the floor with a thud as her hands clutch at my shoulders.
She tastes like cinnamon. Her lipstick smears across my mouth as I breathe her in, making sure she’s real, she’s safe, she’s mine.
I pull back just enough to see her eyes. She’s confused, turned-on, afraid, just like me. My thumbs press into the delicate hollows beneath her cheekbones like I’m trying to memorize her shape by feel.
“What happened?” she whispers, her breath warm against my lips.
I thought I’d lost you.
“We need to go. Now.” I snatch her arm as cold, ugly reality clicks back into place around us.
“Wait—my meeting just finished— I need to—”
“Now, Olivia.”
She doesn’t argue after that.
I guide her toward the exit. My phone vibrates again. Taras is calling.
I answer, mostly so I don’t throw Olivia in the backseat and crawl in after her to finish what we just started. Spending even those twenty seconds with my eyes closed, my senses dampened, exposed and unprotected, was reckless. I can’t afford another lapse in judgment.
“Where are you?” I growl.
“Depends,” he replies. “Are you heading to your grandmother’s or should I?”
Fuck. I haven’t even thought of Babushka. That in and of itself makes me nauseous.
Olivia has become my first thought, my primary concern. How did this happen? When did she burrow so deep beneath my skin?
“Yes,” I lie smoothly. “We’re on our way.”
We emerge back out into the parking lot. The day is on the verge of evening. A bitter-cold breeze off the harbor has my skin tingling, my breath sharp in my lungs. I double the pace.
Olivia stumbles as we near the car. “Stefan, what the hell is going on? Why are you so—”
“Get in the car first.” I rip open her door. When she still hesitates, I add, “Please.”
The “please”—a word I’ve spoken maybe a dozen times in my life—does it. She slides into the passenger seat, her eyes never leaving my face. I circle around and climb behind the wheel while keeping the phone pressed to my ear.
Taras snorts on the other end of the line. “You’ve never been that polite to me.”
“Shut the fuck up.” I clench my jaw as I start the engine. “Update. Now.”
“Short story is that the feds have warrants for financial records. They’re specifically targeting the shell companies connected to the docks.
” Taras’s voice is tight, concerned, way off-base from his usual teasing tone.
“Mikayla thinks someone’s feeding them information.
The warehouse hits were too coordinated. Gotta be Iakov’s doing.”
I pull out of the parking space, tires squealing against asphalt. “Who’s at the warehouses now?”
“Dmitri’s handling Dorchester. Andrei’s at Somerville.”
“Casualties?”
A heavy pause. “Two of ours. All of Iakov’s men escaped.”
Beside me, Olivia’s breathing accelerates. I glance over to find her gripping the door handle, knuckles white against black leather. Her amber eyes are wide and fixed on the road ahead as I weave through traffic at reckless speeds.
A strange ache pierces my chest. She’s afraid—of the situation, of me, of the world she’s glimpsing behind my carefully constructed facade. I should be pleased. Fear makes her malleable, easier to control when the time comes to take her company.
But I’m not pleased.
Not one fucking bit.
“You handle the feds,” I instruct Taras as I whip onto a side street to avoid the main thoroughfare. “Send Mikayla after any of Iakov’s men we can get our hands on. I’m taking Olivia and Babushka back to the compound.”
“You sure that’s wise?” he asks. “You have a lot on your plate. Maybe it would be easier if you let her go and—”
“Do as you’re fucking ordered, man.”
I end the call, throwing the phone onto the dashboard, where it immediately buzzes again with another incoming call—Mikayla this time. I ignore it.
“Stefan.” Olivia clears her throat. “I think I deserve an explanation.”
The streets of Boston blur past my windows, familiar routes suddenly strange in the haze of emergency. Red light from a passing ambulance bathes her face.
Even now, with her world wobbling on its axis, Dr. Olivia Aster demands order, explanation, control.
“Someone’s making a move against my business interests,” I say finally. “Coordinated attacks. It’s not safe for you to be alone right now.”
“Because I might be carrying your child?”
“Because you’re mine.” I unclench and re-clench the steering wheel. “Or rather, that is what whoever is doing this thinks. So I need to protect you. Because that’s what they’ll expect.”
Another pause, this one tinged with hurt she’ll never admit out loud. “And your grandmother?” she asks softly.
“Also potentially at risk.” I swerve around a car driving too slowly. “We’ll collect her, then go somewhere secure until this is contained.”
She nods. “Okay,” she whispers.
Nothing more.
We screech to a halt outside Babushka’s modest brownstone less than five minutes later.
“Stay in the car,” I instruct, already reaching for my Glock.
“Like hell I will.” She’s out of her seat before I can stop her. “If I’m a target, I’m going to be a moving target.”
“You—”
The argument dies on my lips as my grandmother appears in her doorway. She’s wearing her good coat and practical shoes, pocketbook in hand.
Of course she’s ready. Nothing surprises Elena Safonova—not even her grandson arriving in a panic with a beautiful woman in tow.
“I expected you five minutes ago when I first heard the police scanner going crazy,” she says dryly.
I kiss her papery cheek. “Are you packed?”
My grandmother laughs in my face. “I’ve survived Stalin, your grandfather, and six decades of American fast food.
You think I’m scared of some federal agents?
” Her eyes gleam when she reaches for Olivia’s hand.
“You look pale, malyshka. Come inside. I’ll make tea while Stefan tells me which crisis is disrupting my afternoon soaps this time. ”
“We don’t have time for—”
“Hush, Stefushka.” She tugs Olivia into the house. “There’s always time for tea.”
With a grimace, I follow them in. As we step back inside the warm yellow glow of her kitchen, a place where it feels like nothing wrong could ever intrude, I can’t shake the feeling that everything is spiraling beyond my control.
I wish I knew who the fuck to blame.