32. Damir
DAMIR
Pregnant.
I walk out of the music room because if I stay, I will say the wrong thing or nothing useful at all, and I can see from Sofia’s face that silence has already done enough damage.
Pregnant.
The word follows me down the corridor, through the turn toward the east wing, past two guards who straighten when they see me and wisely say nothing. I keep walking until I reach the smaller sitting room near the terrace, then stop because I don’t remember choosing to come here.
Sofia is pregnant. My wife is carrying my child.
I stand by the window and look out at the grounds without seeing any of it. My hand is still on the back of a chair. I don’t know when I put it there.
I have had men tell me they betrayed me.
I have had doctors tell me my family was dead.
I have had Mikhail stand in front of me after the fire and say there was no one left to recover from the east wing.
I have seen Elena carried from the stones below the terrace, her body covered because there was nothing else to do for her.
I know shock. This is different.
It arrives as possibility, and somehow that is worse because I have forgotten what to do with anything that has not already been damaged beyond repair.
A child.
Mine.
Sofia’s.
Ours.
I think of Grigori’s son asleep against his shoulder, Maksim’s fist twisted in his father’s shirt, his wooden horse always in one hand. I think of Kirill at the table, Irina in the garden, the men who carry my name and call themselves family because blood and survival have left us tangled together.
They are family. I would kill for them. I have killed for them. But this is not the same.
A child would be mine in a way I have not allowed myself to imagine since Elena died, maybe even before that. A child would tie Sofia to me in a way no ring, name, priest, or threat ever could.
Sofia’s face comes back immediately. She told me she was pregnant, and I walked out. I turn toward the door at once, already knowing I have made a mistake, but before I take the first step, Grigori appears in the doorway.
His expression stops me.
“I’m afraid I have some bad news,” he says.
My hand drops from the chair. “What?”
“Come to the study.”
“Say it here.”
“No.” His eyes flick once down the hall, toward the direction of the music room. “Not here.”
That is enough. I follow him.
The study doors are closed when we arrive. Nikolai stands outside with two guards. He opens the doors without waiting for my order.
Mikhail is inside. So are Kirill, Lev Orlov, and Anton Sokol, still stiff from the wound he took at the church. There are papers on my desk, a laptop open, two phones beside it, and a sealed evidence bag with a folded envelope inside.
Mikhail looks at me once.
He knows. Not about Sofia. About whatever this is.
I shut the door behind me. “Talk.”
“We have been chasing leads on the mercenary attack on our warehouse,” Kirill says, dropping a thick file on my desk. “Sergei moved a considerable amount of money into an offshore account just days before the plan was carried out.”
I frown. “Do we know what they were there for?”
“That’s not clear yet,” Kirill says. “But I’m sure we’ll get to the bottom of that.”
“And that’s not all.” Grigori goes to the desk but doesn’t sit. “The truth is I’ve been doing my own investigation. Her disappearance didn’t sit right with me, something about it kept bugging me.”
My face hardens. “What do you mean?”
“A lot of things didn’t add up,” Grigori says.
“At first, I thought we were looking at Dmitri, Sergei, or someone they were using as proxy to take her. The fight at the gallery still points in that direction, but not everything makes sense. And I guess things haven’t for a while… not since the wedding.”
He picks up one of the papers. “But then I remembered something from before the wedding. You wanted to know who couriered you the invitation.”
I go still. The wedding invitation. Sofia sent it. That was the story. A bold, reckless move from a woman trapped in an arranged marriage and angry enough to drag me into the church with everyone watching.
“Who?” I ask.
Grigori looks at Mikhail.
Mikhail doesn’t blink. “Arman Chekonov.”
I look at the evidence bag on my desk.
Inside is the envelope Sofia sent me before the wedding.
Grigori says, “We traced the courier company first. The name on paper was fake. My question is why go through so much trouble to get it to you. Wasn’t it just a silly act of rebellion against her uncle?”
I think about what she told me at the church. I was her way to escape. It had been clear as day. Was that not true? Had she lied to me about her intentions?
“Go on,” I say.
Grigori’s mouth tightens. “That is not all.”
Kirill steps forward and places another paper on the desk. “Arman Chekonov is Anya’s cousin.”
Then Lev says, “Confirmed through her mother’s side. Different surname, old family connection, not public, but not hidden if you know where to look.”
Anya’s lies from the club come back to me. Nothing about what she told me about the events that had transpired after Sofia vanished made sense, but I hadn’t examined them too closely. I was just relieved my wife was okay. I was an idiot.
“And you know who funded his business when he started? Sergei Antonov. He owes him big time,” Grigori says.
“What are you saying?” I ask.
Grigori exhales once, slow. “I believe this may be Sergei’s game against you. And it was all planned from the very beginning, before you even walked into the church.”
He looks at me as if he’s trying to gauge my reaction.
“Spit it out,” I say calmly.
He looks down at the evidence, then back at me.
“Sofia may not have known all of it,” he says.
“But it’s too much of a coincidence to ignore.
She sends you a wedding invitation through Arman’s network—Anya’s cousin—so they had plenty of time to scheme.
She wanted you to be there, don’t you see?
She wanted you where you could be hurt. The invitation was just bait. ”
At this point he’s talking more to himself.
“Don’t you see? They were supposed to finish you at the church, and when they failed, when you chose her as a bride instead and surprised everyone, they changed tactics.
You take her from Sergei and Dmitri in public.
She enters your house. She gets close to you.
Then you’re ambushed twice—first at your own warehouse and then at the shopping she insisted on going on knowing fully well you would follow.
And when it didn’t work out the way she wanted, she got spooked and ran.
Her uncle didn’t want her babbling, so he wanted to take her out, preferably before you got to her.
And it almost happened, but you found her. ”
“Enough—”
Grigori doesn’t stop. “Now, despite everything, she got you back, and she thinks you’re all wrapped around her finger.”
“Enough—” I repeat.
“Even now, I’m certain she’s thinking of ways to manipulate you,” Grigori sneers. “God knows what she’s up to.”
“Enough,” I say so loudly that Grigori visibly flinches and so do the rest of them.
Kirill is the first one to speak up after. “That is what Sergei would want if he meant to weaken you.”
Mikhail is silent.
I look at him. “You agree?”
“I agree the pattern exists,” he says. “I don’t agree we know what it means.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It’s the only honest one.”
Grigori’s voice is lower when he speaks again. “I think Sergei failed to control you at the church, so he may be using Sofia to finish what he could not.”
The room feels colder. This is the worst part. I can’t dismiss his words as just lies, because now that he’s put it in front of me, it’s like the fog through which I couldn’t see earlier has lifted.
Sofia at the wedding, choosing me with blood on the floor.
Sofia in my house, arguing, disarming rooms without trying, making even Maksim ask for her.
Sofia in my bed.
Sofia standing by the piano, hand near her abdomen, telling me she is pregnant.
I grip the edge of the desk. No one speaks.
Grigori says, “Damir.”
I look up.
He hesitates.
Then he says the rest. “She’s been manipulating you all along. You have to be careful.”
Anton mutters something under his breath.
Nikolai, still near the door, says nothing, but his face has changed.
Everyone is thinking the same thing.
Grigori rises. “What are you going to do?”
I look at the envelope again. Then at the men in my study.
They are waiting for the Pakhan.
The Pakhan should order surveillance, detainment, pressure, answers. The husband wants to go back to the music room and undo the look on Sofia’s face when I walked out.
The father—
The word stops me.
Father. I’m not ready for it, but it’s already true if the doctor is right.
I look toward the closed study door. “She is not to be touched,” I say.
No one answers quickly enough.
I look back at them. “By anyone.”
Mikhail nods first. “Understood.”
“She is not to be questioned without me.”
Another nod.
I leave the study before anyone else can speak. The corridor outside feels too narrow. I walk toward the music room, but I stop before I reach the door.
Through the open gap, I can see Sofia sitting at the piano, one hand on the keys, the other resting over her stomach. She’s not playing now. She’s looking down at her hand like she is speaking to someone only she can hear.
Our child.
The evidence in the study follows me.
Sofia lifts her head slightly, as if she senses me near the door.
I step back before she sees me, and lock the door behind me.