Chapter 5
STEFAN
When I step into the Blue Suite, Mikayla is sitting on the edge of the bed, wearing fresh clothes—a simple black sweater and jeans that make her look younger, more vulnerable than her usual head-to-toe black.
The bruises on her face have darkened to purple-green, and there’s a cut on her lip I don’t remember putting there.
“You look better,” I say, closing the door behind me.
She snorts. “Better than what? Roadkill?”
“People who have betrayed me generally look worse.” I move to the window, careful to keep distance between us. Outside, Boston continues its morning routine, oblivious to the war being waged in its shadows. “I’m glad the clothes fit.”
“Is this supposed to be some good cop routine? Because we both know you don’t have a good cop setting, Stefan.”
I turn to face her. “No routine. I wouldn’t disrespect your intelligence like. I’m just... I guess you’d call it remembering. Reminiscing, maybe.”
“Reminiscing about what?”
“Do you remember when I found you? That night outside the fight club in Vladivostok. It was January, cold as hell, snowing so hard you could barely see your own hand in front of your face.”
Her jaw tightens. “Don’t go there.”
“You were naked except for someone’s coat. Not even your coat. Shivering so badly your teeth were chattering, blood on your thighs, death circling you just waiting to see if you’d drop.”
“Stop.”
“Three men in the back room, you said. Fighters who lost their matches and decided to take it out on you.” I move closer, watching her shoulders tense, her eyes grow hooded, her hands clench up on the bedsheets. “You could barely string half a sentence together.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“Because I want you to remember who I was to you before all this. Who I still am, despite everything.”
She laughs, bitter and sharp. “You were never anything to me but a means to an end.”
I sit in the chair across from her. Little by little, I’m eating away at the space between us, both literal and metaphorical. “You begged me to let you stay. Not just that night—for weeks after. You said you’d be useful, that you’d earn your keep. You said—”
“I said whatever I needed to survive,” she interrupts with an acid scowl.
“You said you felt safe with me,” I remind her softly. I tilt my head and give her the gentlest look I can. “When was the last time you felt safe, Mikayla?”
She looks away, but not before I catch the flame of something raw in her eyes. “Safety is an illusion.”
“Not with me. Never, ever with me. Eight years, Mikayla. You remember what I’ve done for you, don’t you? For eight years, I kept you safe, gave you purpose, gave you power. You ran my communications, knew my secrets, had my complete trust.”
“Trust?” She spits that out with a harsh cackle. “You trust no one.”
I shake my head. “I trusted you. More than Taras sometimes. More than anyone except—”
“Except Babushka. I know. I was never family to you, Stefan. Just a useful tool.”
I lean forward, elbows on my knees. A little more distance evaporating. “You were both. That’s why this hurts.”
“Don’t pretend you’re hurt. You’re just angry your perfect plan got disrupted.”
I stand, pacing now. “You think any of this was planned? Meeting Olivia, the pregnancy, these feelings I can’t—” I stop myself, running a hand through my hair. “What happened to us, Mikayla? You used to trust me.”
“I never trusted anyone. Least of all you.”
“Yes, you did. I think you still do. You’re just angry with me right now.”
She looks up sharply. “Why would I be angry with you?”
I meet her gaze directly. “Because I can’t love you the way you want me to. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have love for you.”
“You’re lying.”
“Am I? You’re a professional liar. You should know the difference, Mikayla.”
Her mask cracks. She bites at her lip for just a second before she realizes just how glaring of a tell it is and she schools her face neutral again. “You just want her back.”
“Yes, I do, but not for the reasons you think.” I move back to the window and gaze out. “She’s pregnant with my baby. That’s the only reason I want her back. I don’t care about her, but I do care about that child. I care about my heir.”
The lie tastes like shit, but I sell it because I have no other choice. Mikayla watches me, searching for the giveaway she knows must be there. But I learned to lie from the best—my mother—and right now, I need Mikayla to believe this fiction more than I’ve ever needed anyone to believe anything.
“An heir,” she repeats slowly. “That’s all?”
“What else would there be? You know me, Mikayla. You know what matters to me. Legacy. Power. Continuation of the bloodline. Olivia is...” I pause, as if searching for words. “She’s a means to an end. A particularly complicated means, but nothing more.”
“Then why defend her so fiercely?”
“Because she’s carrying my child. That makes her valuable until she delivers. After that...” I shrug. The gesture is calculated to seem indifferent, but inwardly, I’m hoping like hell that all this works—because saying it is fucking shredding my soul to pieces.
Mikayla stands, moving closer to me. “You’re really that cold?”
“You’ve known me for eight years. Am I anything else?”
She reaches out, almost touches my arm, then stops. “That night at the club, after you killed those men, you held me while I cried. That wasn’t cold.”
“That was practical. You were hypothermic. Body heat was the fastest way to warm you up.”
“You stayed with me for three days.”
“You were an investment. I saw your potential.”
“You taught me to shoot. To fight. To read people.”
“All useful skills for someone in my employ.”
She’s close enough now that I can smell her shampoo—the same jasmine scent she’s used for years. “And when I had nightmares? When I woke up screaming for months after?”
“I needed you functional. Sleep deprivation would have made you useless.”
“You’re rewriting history, Stefan.”
“No—I’m clarifying it. You saw what you wanted to see, Mikayla. You always have.”
Her hand finally makes contact, fingers wrapping around my wrist. “I saw a man who saved me.”
I don’t pull away from her touch. “You’ve been essential to me.”
“Essential.” She tastes the word and closes her eyes, as if that is all she ever wanted.
I turn my hand to catch her fingers in mine. “Mikayla, my mother is using you. You know this. She’ll discard you the moment you’re no longer useful.”
“Unlike you?”
“I’ve never discarded you. Even now, after everything, I can’t. You want to know why I really brought you up here instead of leaving you down in that cell?”
She nods, eyes wide.
“Because I remember that girl outside the club. Broken but not beaten. Wounded but still fighting. That girl became the woman who helped me build an empire. I can’t forget that. I won’t.”
“Even though I betrayed you?”
“Even though you betrayed me.” I squeeze her fingers gently. “But Mikayla, I need my heir. I need that baby. And if my mother hurts Olivia, if she causes a miscarriage...”
“She won’t. She needs leverage over you.”
“Then you know where they are.”
Mikayla rips her hand away and wraps her arms around herself. “If I tell you, your mother will kill me.”
“I would never let that happen.” I step closer, close enough that she has to look up to meet my eyes. “I will protect you the same way I did the night you were assaulted by those men.”
“That was different. You weren’t fighting your own mother then.”
“My mother is just another threat to handle. You know what I’m capable of, Mikayla. You’ve seen me work.”
She’s quiet for a long moment, staring at something beyond my shoulder. When she finally speaks, her voice is barely above a whisper. “There’s a house in Gloucester. Near the water. She bought it under a shell company—Genevieve Holdings.”
“Address?”
“47 Seafoam Drive. She has two men with her, possibly three.”
“Security systems?”
“Standard alarm, but she’s probably added more. She’s paranoid about you finding them.”
“With good reason.” I move toward the door, then pause. “Mikayla, this doesn’t absolve you. You understand that?”
She nods. “I know. But, Stefan... be careful. Your mother, she’s not the same woman you remember. She’s had fifteen years to plan this.”
I open the door. “She thinks she knows me. But the boy she knew died with his father. What she’s facing now is something else entirely.”
“What are you?”
I look back at her. “I’m a father protecting his family. There’s nothing more dangerous than that.”
I close the door behind me, already pulling out my phone to text Taras. Gloucester. That’s forty minutes from here if we speed. My mother has had Olivia for almost twenty-four hours now. Twenty-four hours to poison her against me, to twist truth into weapons.
But she made one mistake: She taught me everything she knows.
And then I learned more.