Chapter 42 Stefan
STEFAN
Babushka bustles around, pulling down her good china, the delicate porcelain with tiny roses that she saves for special occasions. She hasn’t brought those out in ages, but apparently, now is the perfect fucking time.
“This isn’t packing,” I scold.
She completely ignores me. “Sit, sit.” She presses Olivia into a chair at the small wooden table. “You look like you haven’t eaten today.”
“I had coffee—”
“Coffee is not food.” Babushka is already pulling cookies from a tin. Homemade pryaniki, spiced and sweet. She sets them in front of Olivia. “My grandmother’s recipe. Stefan used to steal them from the cooling racks when he was small.”
I’m checking the window locks, scanning the street through lace curtains. “We don’t have time for stories, goddammit.”
“We have time for humanity,” Babushka shoots back. She turns to Olivia and smiles fondly. “What my grandson lacks in vulnerability, malyshka, he also lacks in manners.”
“Babushka—”
“Hush.” She pours tea with steady hands. Steam curls up in the air between them. “This young woman should know what she’s getting into, don’t you think?”
Olivia accepts the cup and mumbles her thanks. “I think I’m beginning to understand.”
I want to demand what exactly she understands, because I’ve found myself understanding less and less about myself and this whole fucked situation with every passing day.
“Good.” Babushka settles into her chair at the table. “Too many women think they can change dangerous men. Better to know the truth from the start.”
“I’m not dangerous to her,” I growl.
Two pairs of eyes turn to me. Babushka smiles.
“No, Stefushka. You’re not dangerous to her.” She sips her tea. “You’re afraid of her.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Is it?” She purses her lips and lets the silence speak for her.
“We need to go,” I say firmly. “Now.”
“Pah, we have five minutes.” She flaps a wrinkled hand at me and turns back to Olivia. “Malyshka, tell me about your work. We had so little time to chat last time you were here. Stefan says you help women have babies?”
And just like that, I’m dismissed. Relegated to packing bags while they chat like old friends. I storm through Babushka’s bedroom, gathering her medications, her favorite shawl, the well-worn rosary she keeps by her bed. But I can hear their voices drifting from the kitchen.
“… important work,” my grandmother is saying. “Creating life, creating families. Much better than destroying things, don’t you think?”
I scowl as I check out the window. The street is quiet and still. For now.
“Stefan protects people,” Olivia replies quietly. “He protected me.”
My hands go still on the gauzy curtains. She’s defending me. To my grandmother, who needs no convincing of my worth, she’s defending me.
“Yes,” Babushka agrees. “He protects what he loves. The question is whether he knows the difference between protecting and possessing.”
I strain to hear Olivia’s response, but a passing car muffles whatever she might’ve said. In its wake, there’s only the clink of china and the soft rustle of the tablecloth.
When I return with the packed bag, they’re standing by the window. Babushka is pointing out her herb garden while Olivia nods attentively.
“Ready?” I ask.
They turn toward me in unison, and I catch the tail end of some shared look—conspiratorial, amused. Like they’ve been discussing me.
“What were you talking about?” I ask my grandmother as we walk to the car.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Babushka’s eyes twinkle with mischief.
I hold the car door open for them both, watching as Olivia helps my grandmother settle into the back seat.
As I drive toward the estate, their conversation continues behind me. Babushka asks about Olivia’s family, her education, her dreams.
“In my day,” Babushka remarks, “if a man wanted you, he brought you soup when you were sick and fixed your roof when it leaked. None of this… what do you call it? ‘Netflix and chill’?”
Olivia laughs. “I think the principle is the same. Just different methods.”
“Hmm. And what has my grandson brought you? Besides trouble?”
I catch Olivia’s eyes in the rearview mirror. Something passes between us—heated, complicated. Then she looks away.
“Security,” she says simply. “He makes me feel safe.”
At the estate, I expect them to separate—Babushka to her usual guest room, Olivia to the suite I prepared for her. Instead, my grandmother links her arm through Olivia’s.
“Come, malyshka. Let me show you the garden before we’re whisked away to wherever Stefan has planned for us next. His grandfather planted those roses sixty years ago, you know…”
I watch them walk away, Babushka’s slight figure beside Olivia’s taller frame, their heads bent together in conversation. I feel a pang of something cold and ugly in my stomach, and it takes me a moment to place it.
Jealousy.
I’m jealous of my own grandmother.
The realization is so ridiculous, so pathetic, that I want to put my fist through something breakable. Instead, I pull out my phone and call Taras.
“Status report,” I bark.
“It’s been quiet, man,” he replies. “Both the feds and Boston PD have been out of sight and out of mind since the initial crackdown. No sign anywhere of Iakov. Things seem to be settling down, but… I dunno. I don’t trust it. Quiet, like I said.”
“Yeah. Too quiet.” I watch Olivia bend to smell a white rose. “I want The Antonia prepared. Full provisions, skeleton crew.”
“The yacht? Boss, that’s overkill for a few federal raids.”
“It’s not about the raids,” I snarl. “How long have I been trying to get Babushka to agree to extended security? Years. But the moment I mention Olivia needs protection…”
Taras laughs in surprise. “The old woman actually agreed?”
“Turns out Olivia was all the bait I needed.”
“You sound pissed about that.”
I am. But not for the reasons I should be.
“Just have the boat ready,” I snap. “And add a secondary team at the house.”
Taras is puzzled. “For what? I thought you said you were getting on the boat.”
“Olivia and I are,” I answer. “Babushka will be safe here.”
I end the call before he can ask more questions I don’t want to answer.
Through the French doors, I can see them still walking the garden paths.
Babushka is gesturing animatedly, probably telling stories about the family who lived here before us, or sharing gossip about the neighbors, or about the migratory patterns of the fucking birds, for all I know.
Whatever she’s saying, Olivia is utterly raptured.
She fits here. In my grandmother’s kitchen, in my mansion’s garden, in the spaces I’ve kept separate from my work, my violence, my darkness.
She fits like she belongs.
But she doesn’t fucking belong. This is temporary. When the threats pass, when she’s done carrying my child, when the clinic is secure—she’ll go back to her own life.
Her own world. Far the fuck away from mine.
The rational part of my mind knows this.
The rest of me is blind with rage at the thought of anything separating her from me.
I step outside. My footsteps crunch loud on the gravel path. They turn at my approach. “We need to leave,” I announce. “Tonight.”
“Leave?” Olivia frowns. “But we just got here.”
“It’s not safe enough. I have a boat—”
“A boat?” Babushka raises an eyebrow. “Stefushka, I’m eighty-three years old. I don’t do boats.”
“I know. You’re staying here,” I tell her. I look at Olivia. “You’re coming with me.”
She’s already arguing. “Hold on— What are you—?”
I’m on her instantly, hemming her in against a thorny hedge marking the path. Surrounded by the scent of vanilla, orchids, and the fresh tang of crushed leaves, I snarl in her face, “What part of what I just said sounded like a question to you, Doctor?”
Her face goes pale with fear. It’s been a while since I spoke to her like this, and it shows. She’s forgotten what I am. What I’m capable of being, of doing.
She’s been long overdue for a reminder.
“There’s nothing to discuss.” I continue in a heated growl. “You wanted protection? This is what it looks like.”
Her breath catches. For as long as that inhale is locked in her throat, the whole fucking world narrows to the space between us.
“The boat leaves at midnight,” I say. “And you’ll be on it. Whether or not you like that fact is completely fucking immaterial to me.”
Olivia still says nothing as I turn and stomp away. Gravel crackles underfoot. Night falls, thick and dark around us.
And the justifications for my actions swirl through my head over and over again.
I’m taking Olivia away because it’s safe. Because it’s secure. Because it’s remote. Because it’s controlled.
But above all, I’m taking her away for one reason and one reason only.
I don’t want to share her with anyone.