Chapter 34
Liev
The boats shift against each other with a slow, grinding rhythm, hulls knocking softly as the lines strain and settle again.
The water is black and endless in every direction, broken only by the harsh white beam of the single light I’ve allowed.
Men pass crates from one pair of hands to another, voices low under the hum of engines.
I stand at the edge of it, watching. That’s what I’ve been reduced to.
Observing. Directing. Waiting while other men do the work I should be doing myself. Even as a new Pakhan, I can’t seem to adjust to taking a backseat. It’s not how Kazimir and I ever ran things.
The pull in my chest is still there, a reminder every time I breathe too deeply that I’m not fully back yet, no matter how much I want to be.
Two more weeks before I get clearance out of that doctor one way or another. Until then…this.
“You’re on edge,” Viktor murmurs a few feet away, smoke from his cigarette shifting in the hot night air.
“You’re surprised?” I grunt back, shooting him a glare. Only three days ago Ryder told me what she’d uncovered—that her father was the one behind the hits.
I acted surprised and upset at the time, but I wasn’t; not really. Only a man like Hinto Moreno would be dumb enough to try to kill a business partner with a cartel stretching up and down the eastern seaboard.
Thinking of her, I turn to search the deck. It’s a small boat, only thirty-two feet, but she’s there moving through the chaos like she belongs in it.
She has a clipboard in one hand, a phone in the other, cross-checking manifests against what’s actually being transferred.
Her voice cuts cleanly through the noise when something doesn’t match, sharp and unquestionable.
Once again, she’s taken control of this without asking permission, and a smile flits across my lips before I can hide it.
Viktor notices, so I double-down with a scowl, already feeling too vulnerable on the sidelines.
I should be focused on the transfer. It’s mostly ammunition bolstering an international shipment that our partner in Maine received weeks ago. Oleg has done his homework and made sure that the Coast Guard is in-between patrols for forty-five minutes.
This needs to be over in fifteen.
But something isn’t right. I crack my neck, intuition burying itself like a bug beneath my skin. Inevitably, my eyes land back on my wife.
It’s subtle at first. A slight lag when she turns, a pause that doesn’t fit her usual rhythm. She presses her fingers briefly against her temple as if a headache is coming on.
Maybe it is. She’s been sleeping more than usual, dead to the world as late as six a.m. Perhaps she’s sick and, hypocritically, trying to power through.
I step closer, closing the distance between us as another crate is hauled past. “You’re slowing down.”
Her eyes flick up to mine, sharp as ever. “I’m being thorough.”
Giving her a once-over, I catch her elbow when the boat pitches on a wave. Ryder’s face goes gray, then red. “I’m fine, Liev.”
“You don’t look fine.”
“I’m just trying to make sure this shipment doesn’t get us both killed.”
There’s bite in it, but it’s thinner than usual.
I watch her for another second, longer than she likes, then step back. If she wants to push through it, I’ll let her. For now.
The transfer continues. Ten more minutes of crates being hauled over a foot-wide gap between the decks, numbers getting checked. Cash will change hands soon.
And then Oleg appears at my side.
He doesn’t look at me directly, just stands close enough that his voice doesn’t carry. “Your wife is sick.”
My focus sharpens immediately. “What?”
“She’s been off for the last few minutes,” he murmurs. “Thought it was motion sickness, but…” He trails off slightly, shrugs. “She almost dropped the manifest. And now—”
That’s enough.
I move across the deck, ignoring the pull in my side, scanning for her. She’s not where she was a minute ago, by the manifests, or near the crew.
Then I see her at the far edge of the boat, bent over the side. Crossing the distance faster than I should, my chest tightens in protest. But the slight pain is easy to ignore as soon as I realize that she’s retching, her hand braced hard against the railing.
“Ryder.”
She turns to face me, just breathes through it, shoulders tense, hair pulled back in a messy ponytail.
When she finally straightens, she wipes her mouth with the back of her hand and glances at me.
Even nauseous, her beauty catches me off guard.
Loose strands cling to her cheeks, and her eyes practically glow with annoyance.
“Well,” she says, her voice rough but steady, “that was attractive.”
I have to clench my teeth to keep from admitting that I find her attractive more often than makes sense. Instead, I focus on giving her a once-over. Only this time things look worse.
Her color is off. Her breathing isn’t right. There’s a tightness in the way she’s holding herself that has nothing to do with the movement of the boat.
“How long?” I ask.
“Five minutes,” she says. “Maybe ten. I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine.”
“I’m on a boat in the middle of the ocean. Motion sickness exists.”
Another wave hits her before I can respond.
She turns sharply, gripping the railing again as she’s sick a second time, harder now.
I step closer, one hand settling on her back without thinking, steadying her as the boat barely shifts beneath us.
My thumb brushes back and forth. Maybe it’s the scent of diesel in the air?
Or the darkness masking our surroundings?
No, that doesn’t quite make sense. Ryder grew up here and spent a lot of time out on the water.
Carmela told a few stories about her daughter getting into waterskiing before graduating and helping with illegal crossings from South America before college.
Ryder has spent time on boats, boats much smaller than this, in rougher seas and more dangerous situations.
This isn’t motion sickness.
She straightens, lingers for a second, breathing through it, her forehead resting briefly against her arm.
I don’t give her a chance to brush it off again.
“What is it?” I ask, my voice low but firm. “Tell me the truth.”
She looks at me, and something in her expression shifts. For a second, I think she’s going to lie again.
Then she exhales.
“I’m pregnant.”
The engines. The water. The men moving around us. It all fades back a step.
Leaving just her.
I can’t speak. For once, there is no immediate calculation, no instinct to take control of the situation and problem-solve the way I did for decades for Kaz. I just look at her, at the way she’s bracing herself. My heart stutters with the realization that she’s scared.
The reality of what she just told me starts to sink in. The deck shifts under our feet; the boats knocking together again, but everything else feels distant compared to this.
Pregnant.
With my child.
The fierceness behind the thought surprises me as my gaze drops briefly to her belly, her arm wrapped around it. There’s absolutely no question in my mind that it’s mine. We promised each other, right from the start, that in this marriage there would be only us. No room for anyone else.
But a child?
Ryder’s brows pull together slightly as I lower myself onto one knee in front of her, the movement steady despite the protest in my chest. The deck is cold and damp beneath me, the sounds of the transfer continuing around us. Everything is wrapping up, but all I can focus on is her.
“Liev…” she starts, confusion threading through her voice.
“I’m not going to take this from you,” I say, my voice quiet but somehow cutting through the sounds around us. Ryder is bowed forward, leaning into me, the way she always does and doesn’t want me to notice.
“What?” she asks.
“You heard me.” A beat passes; the air between us taut in a different way now. “I know what you expected,” I continue. “I know exactly how this would have gone if it were him.”
I don’t need to say Hinto’s name. It’s already there, has been for days. Her father betrayed her and is willing to sacrifice her for something he willingly gave up. It’s like a storm, a weight I’ve watched pressing down on her.
“You’ve spent your entire life being treated like something that belongs to someone else. First him. Then anyone he decided had a right to you.”
Her eyes flicker away, out to the dark water, but I don’t stop. “I’m not doing that,” I say. “Not with this. Not with you.”
Ryder’s gaze snaps back. The arm around her middle loosens, and I reach up, fingers grazing hers as they fall.
“You’re capable,” I continue. “You’ve proven that more times than I can count.
You want to be involved in this; you will be.
You want to help bring him down, you’ll do it beside me. Whether you’re pregnant or not.”
“Boss.”
Viktor leans out of the cabin, his expression professionally inscrutable. Ryder’s hand clamps around my forearm, then the other on my shoulder as she helps me rise. We try to pull ourselves together, but I can’t help stepping in front of her, pressing a hand to her lower back.
“We’re heading out. It’s about a forty-five minute ride back to shore. Found this.” He holds up a dented ginger ale can, and Ryder sighs. I give Viktor a sharp nod, and he returns inside as the boat alongside us pulls off slowly.
When I turn back, we’re inevitably closer—drawn together, the same way I’ve felt about her from the moment I set eyes on her and that infuriatingly smart mouth.
With the small crew securing the crates in the cabin, there’s some privacy at the back now.
It’s just us, and this secret. I brush the backs of my knuckles across her belly, her skin beneath her shirt warm.
“I’ll protect you,” I murmur. “I’ll protect our child. But I’m not taking your choices away from you to do it.”
Ryder sways into me. For a moment I worry that she’s going to be sick again, but she only wraps an arm around my back and tucks herself against my chest.
“You’re serious,” she says finally, face hidden against my shirt. I reach down, cup her chin, and gently force her to meet my eyes.
“I don’t say things I don’t mean.”
Her hand comes up, brushing briefly against my jaw before she leans in and kisses me. It’s possibly the most unexpected thing she could’ve done, and the one thing that makes me fall harder than I thought I could.
My hand slides to her waist, trying to pull her in even closer. Until there’s no space between us. She fits against me like she’s meant to be there, like something that’s been resisting finally settling into place.
When the kiss ends, I don’t open my eyes. I want to live in this moment as long as possible. Finding out that we’re having a child. My wife, warm against me. The night air and the boat vibrating beneath our feet.
“I think…” Ryder starts, then stops.
I watch her carefully, already recognizing that hesitation for what it is. Reality has come creeping in already. “You think what?”
“I think I have a way to stop him,” she says.
My attention locks in completely. This isn’t just about Miami, and it isn’t just Ryder and I now. The look I see in Ryder’s eyes tells me that she’s willing to do anything to protect what we’ve created.
“How?”
“I traced the communications,” she continues.
“The ones tied to the hit. It took a long time, and I had to break into Backscatter. I wouldn’t be surprised if it shuts down soon.
They’ll clock that someone was in there.
They don’t go directly to him, but they branch out.
Different points, different handlers. But I know who’s involved. Not the amateurs. The real players.”