Chapter 24 - Raya
“Right, you wanna tell me what’s going on? Something’s clearly up, and I’m your favorite person in the world.”
I jump, blinking hard as Sofie’s voice shatters the silence of the bedroom.
She doesn’t bother knocking—she never does—and is already halfway across the rug, holding a fresh green smoothie in one hand and a plate of buttered toast in the other.
She sets them down on my nightstand right next to the untouched coffee Yakov left me an hour ago.
I lean back against the headboard, pulling the duvet tighter around my chest. “I’m not going to throw up. I’m tired.” I’m totally going to throw up if she doesn’t get that bogey-looking drink away from me.
Sofie doesn’t buy it for a second. She sits on the chair beside the bed, crossing her legs, and gives me the look.
It is the same ‘don’t pull that bull shit with me’ stare she’s been using on me since we were kids.
You cannot lie to Sofie Volkov; she’s like a bloodhound when she gets even the faintest whiff of untruth.
Reaping the benefits of this ability is great when you want a gossip session, not so great when you’re on the receiving end of it.
“Raya, you haven’t finished a single meal in three days,” she says, her voice dropping.
“Your face is turning the same shade of green as the smoothie, and there is an entire cup of cold coffee on the table. You think Yakov hasn’t noticed?
The man looks like he’s ready to waterboard somebody to get an explanation. ”
My throat tightens, a sudden wave of heat washing over my skin. “It’s the stress from everything with Alek. My body is just catching up—”
“Nauseous?” Sofie interrupts softly, with terrifying precision. “Missed your period?”
The room feels suddenly devoid of air. My eyes fill with tears before I can stop them—a mortifying, involuntary reaction that makes me curse my own biology. I blink hard, looking away from her because if I keep looking at her, the truth will spill out. And once it is out, everything changes.
“What do I do, Sofe?” I whisper, my voice cracking on her nickname.
Sofie doesn’t freeze. She doesn’t panic. True to form, her analytical brain immediately goes into overdrive. She reaches into her pocket, pulling out her phone.
“You’re ill,” she states firmly, already typing rapidly.
“That’s our story. I’m taking you to a private clinic in town tomorrow morning.
It’s small, quiet, and they cater to people like us—meaning they charge a premium to keep schtum.
I’ll tell Matvei we need a guard. He’ll sit outside the examination room.
Nobody in this house is going to know what you’re asking a doctor until you are ready to tell them. ”
She looks up from her screen, her expression softening enough to let me breathe. “It’s going to be fine, Raya. Really.”
But the next morning, sitting in this small, sterile white room with a plastic strip held tightly in my palm, “fine” feels like a different universe.
The doctor has left the room, giving me time to process the confirmation.
In the early stages, I’ll arrange an ultrasound.
As I stare down at the tiny, definitive lines on the test, the entire world rearranges itself around that single piece of plastic.
I am pregnant. I knew I was, really. It’s not like we’d been careful.
In fact, we’d been reckless, and as I sit here on the examination table, the truth hits me with a terrifying clarity.
I hadn’t pushed him to use protection. Not once.
In fact, I didn’t want him to; on every occasion, I had desperately wanted him inside of me, to feel the depths of his desire for me as he filled me.
My logical brain had a million excuses about stress and survival, but deep down, my body wanted this.
My heart wanted this. I wanted a permanent, unbreakable piece of the man who had torn his way into my life and rewritten my soul.
I wanted a piece of him before I was ever brave enough to admit it out loud.
A fierce wave of protectiveness slams into my chest, so sudden it steals my breath. This isn’t about surviving my father-in-law anymore. This is so much bigger than any of this. There is a heartbeat inside me now. A tiny, fragile future that depends entirely on us to keep it safe.
“Raya?” Sofie asks quietly from the doorway, her voice breaking my trance. “You okay?”
I close my fist around the test, hiding it in my palm, and force a breath into my lungs. “Yeah. Let’s go home.”
As our guard leads us out of the clinic doors into the crisp, biting winter air of the parking lot, my mind is spinning at a million miles an hour. One of the other guards is already waiting by the SUV, watching our backs as we approach.
I have to tell him today, I think, my chest tight with anticipation. I can’t keep this a secret from him. He already knows something is wrong. I will just say it. The second he gets back home, I’ll ask him to come upstairs, open my mouth, and say the words.
Sofie is walking beside me, her heels clicking sharply against the sidewalk as she talks at a million miles an hour, as always, listing dietary changes, prenatal vitamins, and three different cover stories we can use to keep our brothers off the scent till I’m ready to share the news.
I am only half-listening, my focus consumed by the phantom warmth of the test in my hand, trying to script the exact words I will use with Yakov.
The mechanical clack-slide sound of a side door on a dark gray transit van unlocking cuts right through the low hum of the idling SUV engine across the parking lot. In the quiet zone of a private clinic, a sound that abrupt doesn’t belong.
My brain instinctively knows something is wrong before my body does.
Time slows down, stretching, pulling thin like warm glass.
My head turns sharply toward the noise. The van is parked three spaces over, tucked into the shadows of the concrete retaining wall.
The side panel door is sliding back, and three men step out onto the asphalt.
They don’t look like local street thugs, and they’re certainly not Volkov soldiers.
These men move with a synchronized, rigid discipline.
They are dressed identically in long, heavy, military-style wool coats that sweep around their shins, dark jeans, and heavy combat boots that make no sound against the sidewalk.
Their hair is sheared in harsh, zero-fade military cuts that expose the pale skin at the side of their skulls.
Even from twenty feet away, their faces are carved from Eastern European steel.
Wide cheekbones, heavy brows, and dead, clinical eyes that are fixed on me.
Stone-cold dread fills me; these can only be Alek’s men.
My father-in-law’s personal enforcers. How the fuck did they find me so fast?
Stupid question. Why would I think they wouldn’t?
Yakov has been frantic about my health for days, practically begging to call a private doctor to the compound or drive me into the city himself.
It took all of my acting skills and Sofie’s sharp tongue to convince him to let us have a quiet, girls-only trip to the clinic.
He only allowed us to go if we agreed to the non-negotiable condition of a full escort.
We have four heavily armed Volkov guards with us today.
Two are stationed near the entrance of the parking lot in a black chase vehicle; Lev, who has known us since we were kids, escorted us into the clinic and stood guard, and one is right here with our armored SUV, waiting to drive us away.
We thought we were safe. We thought this was impenetrable armor for a quick medical run.
We were dead wrong.
The center man reaches beneath the heavy fold of his wool coat. The motion is smooth, fluid, and terribly efficient. His hand emerges wrapped around the grip of a suppressed handgun, the long black cylinder catching a glint of the winter sun.
At the same moment, the side window of the transit van slides open an inch. The matte-black barrel of a rifle pokes through.
They don’t hesitate. It is a synchronized execution.
Phwt. Phwt. Phwt.
The suppressed shots sound like wet, heavy sneezes in the quiet parking lot, but the devastation is immediate.
Down by the parking lot entrance, the windshield of the Volkov chase vehicle instantly spiders with neat, crimson-bloomed bullet holes. The two guards inside probably never even drew their guns from their holsters.
Right in front of us, Lev reacts. He is one of Matvei’s oldest, hand-picked men.
He’s been guarding our family for what feels like forever, the kind of loyal protector who used to look the other way when we sneaked out of the compound or got up to no good, and who only got married three months ago.
He is also a hardened professional, and the second the van door slides, his hand is already plunging beneath his jacket, his fingers grasping for his weapon.
He clears leather. He gets the barrel halfway up, his face twisted in a fierce, protective snarl.
Phwt.
The bullet catches Lev directly in the throat.
The impact jerks his head back with a sickening, wet snap.
A high-pressure spray of crimson erupts from the wound, painting the silver hood of our SUV in a horrific arch of red.
He drops instantly, his knees buckling outward as his body hits the tarmac with a dull, heavy thud.
Behind the wheel of the SUV, the second guard takes a round straight through the side glass, his head cracking hard against the steering wheel as the horn begins to blare a continuous, deafening wail.
“No!” Sofie screams, her voice slicing through the cold air, drowned out by the screaming car horn.
I look at her, and the image burns itself into the back of my eyelids.
Horror is etched into every line of her face, her eyes wide, her mouth open in a jagged, breathless wail.
She stretches a hand out toward me, her fingers grabbing at the empty air between us, trying desperately to pull me back toward the clinic doors.
But everything is moving too fast now. The slow-motion illusion shatters, slamming me back into a violent, chaotic reality.
They are on us in seconds. The first man lunges for Sofie.
She doesn’t run. True to her blood, she fights like a feral animal, her manicured nails instantly scratching at his eyes, her heavy boots kicking hard against his shins.
She manages to slice a bloody line down his cheek before the second man steps in, his arm swinging in a brutal, horizontal arc.
His fist connects with the side of her face.
The sound is horrific, and Sofie goes down hard.
Her legs give out underneath her, causing her face to slam against the cold sidewalk, blood instantly pouring from her nose and split lip, staining the concrete.
She lands half-across Lev’s body, completely limp.
“Sofie! Sofie!” I scream, lunging forward, my fingers reaching for the collar of her coat, but a pair of massive, heavy arms wrap around my chest from behind. Where the fuck is everybody? Why is nobody here helping?
I don’t drop. I don’t give up. I have another life inside of me now, and the sheer, blinding terror of what they will do to my baby turns my blood to liquid fire.
I drive my elbow backward with everything I have, feeling it connect with a hard nose.
A grunt of pain echoes in my ear, and the grip loosens enough for me to twist. I drive the heel of my boot down onto his instep, hopefully stomping hard enough to break a bone.
He curses in heavy, guttural Russian, but before I can break away to run, the third man tackles me from the side.
We hit the ground together, the air tearing from my lungs as my knees strike the asphalt. I scratch at his face, biting, kicking, screaming until my throat feels like raw glass, but my arms get pinned behind my back, forced into an agonizing lock.
“Feisty little thing, aren’t you?” one of them looks down at me and chuckles, and looks to the man behind me. “Hold her head.”
A thick, leather-gloved hand clamps over my forehead, wrenching my neck back. “My husband and brothers are going to-” is all I get out before a white cloth is shoved over my nose and mouth.
The smell hits me instantly. It is sweet. Sickeningly, chemically sweet, a suffocating wave that burns the back of my throat.
Chloroform.
I’ve seen it in movies and always wondered if it really is as instantaneous as they make out; as a cold, heavy gray fog rushes into the edges of my vision, I get my answer.
No, it isn’t. It’s a slow, agonizing theft of my autonomy.
I fight it, thrashing my head side to side, holding my breath until my lungs scream, but the man holding the cloth presses down with crushing weight.
My body finally betrays me, as instinct takes over, and I am forced to take a deep breath of the vapor.
It floods my system. My limbs turn from muscle and bone to heavy, immovable lead. My legs stop fighting. The violent thrashing of my torso slows to a weak, pathetic twitch.
The parking lot begins to tilt and spin violently as the gray fog at the edges of my vision turns into a heavy, suffocating black.
The last image I see before the sidewalk swims up to swallow me whole is Sofie lying perfectly still in a pool of darkening blood, her eyes closed.
And the last thought I have before the darkness takes me is a single name.
Yakov.
I never got to tell Yakov.