Chapter Fourteen
Alexei’s POV
Chaos had always been my element; I thrived in it.
While other men crumbled under pressure, I sharpened.
The more complicated the situation and the more variables in play, the clearer my mind became.
It was a skill honed through years of navigating the Bratva world, of learning that survival meant being three steps ahead of everyone else, always.
But this chaos was different.
This chaos wore my wife’s face, slept in my bed and carried my child, and I didn’t know how to fix it.
Kirill stood across from my desk, his expression carefully neutral as he delivered the report I wished I didn’t have to listen to. “Boss, the tech team found activity on one of the old landlines. The one in the greenhouse.”
“When?”
“Two days ago. Incoming call, lasted approximately one minute.” He disclosed. “It’s a line that hasn’t been used in years. Not even registered in our current security protocols.”
Of course it wasn’t. The greenhouse had been my parents’ sanctuary, built when security was handled differently, before we’d modernized everything.
I’d left it largely untouched after their death, a memorial of sorts.
The old rotary phone on the wall was a relic, something I’d never thought to remove or monitor.
Someone had known that. Someone had done their research.
“Can we trace the call?”
“Dead end. Burner phone, activated that day, destroyed immediately after. Whoever made it knew what they were doing.” Kirill’s jaw tightened. “But the timing—”
Lined up with her sudden behavior change.
“Mila.” I finished the thought, my voice flat. “I know.”
I’d watched Mila carefully over the past forty-eight hours, cataloging every flinch, every distant stare, every moment she retreated inside herself.
The phone call in the greenhouse explained everything—the pale face, the trembling hands, the way she’d looked like she’d seen a ghost when I’d found her that evening.
Someone was reaching her. And she hadn’t told me.
“Maybe I should send one of the guards to call for her so she can clarify things?” Kirill asked, his tone tentative.
“No.” The word came out harder than I’d intended. “I’ll handle it.”
He nodded and left, and I was alone with the knowledge that my wife was keeping secrets that could get us all killed.
The rational part of my brain—the part that had built an empire on cold calculation—knew what I should do. Confront her immediately. Demand answers. Use every tool at my disposal to extract the truth, because in my world, secrets were weapons and ignorance was death.
But there was another part of me, newer and more dangerous, that remembered the fear in her eyes. The grief. The way she’d looked so fragile in that greenhouse, like one wrong word would shatter her completely. That part made me hesitate. It made me weak.
So instead of confronting her, I watched.
I hated that I’d been reduced to surveilling my own wife like she was an enemy asset. But I couldn’t bring myself to push her, not yet. Not until I understood what I was dealing with.
**********
The next afternoon, I tracked her movements through the house via the security feeds. She’d spent the morning in Anya’s room, attending virtual classes. Then she’d disappeared into the library for an hour, ostensibly studying but mostly staring at the same page.
Then she’d moved toward the gardens.
I intercepted Dimitri in the hallway, keeping my voice casual. “I’m going for a walk. Make sure no one disturbs me.”
He understood immediately. His eyes flicked to the security monitor showing Mila’s slim figure moving through the rose garden, and he nodded. “Yes, boss.”
I followed her at a distance, moving through the grounds with the practiced silence that had kept me alive this long.
She didn’t meet anyone. Didn’t make a call.
She just stood among the bare winter roses, one hand clutched in her coat pocket, her whole body trembling despite the thick layers she wore.
I positioned myself behind a line of evergreens where I could watch without being seen. She stood there for nearly ten minutes, not moving, barely breathing. Her face was turned toward the gray sky, and even from this distance, I could see the tears on her cheeks.
She wasn’t meeting a lover. Wasn’t conducting some clandestine exchange. She was just… breaking. Quietly. Privately. Where she thought no one could see.
It was worse than any betrayal I could have imagined.
Because I knew that look. I’d seen it in the mirror after my parents died, after I’d realized that grief was a luxury I couldn’t afford in this life. I’d buried it deep, channeled it into rage and ambition and the relentless pursuit of control.
But Mila wore her grief openly, and it made her vulnerable in ways that terrified me.
She finally moved, pulling something from her pocket. A slip of paper, folded small. She stared at it for a long moment, then crushed it in her fist and shoved it back in her coat. Her shoulders shook with silent sobs she wouldn’t let become sound.
It shook me to the core. The sight made my chest tighten with actual physical pain. I wanted to go to her. To wrap her in my arms and demand she tell me everything, promise I’d fix it, swear that whatever was hurting her would stop hurting her because I’d destroy it utterly. But I didn’t move.
Because the problem was clear now—she was afraid of what I’d do with the truth. Afraid that my solution would be worse than the problem.
I watched her cry until she pulled herself together, wiping her face with shaking hands and straightening her spine with visible effort. Then she walked back toward the house, moving past my hiding spot without seeing me, her face blank again.
**********
That night, I couldn’t keep up the pretense anymore.
We’d eaten dinner in near-silence, Mila pushing food around her plate while I pretended not to notice. Anya had tried to fill the awkward gaps with chatter about her classes, but even she’d eventually given up, shooting worried glances between us.
Now Mila stood at our bedroom window, staring out at the snow that had started falling in thick, heavy flakes.
She wore one of my shirts, the fabric hanging loose on her frame.
Her hair was down, falling in dark waves over her shoulders, and she looked so young and lost that something in my chest cracked.
I couldn’t do this anymore. I couldn’t watch her suffer in silence while I played the patient husband waiting for her to break.
“Who is contacting you?”
She went rigid, her reflection in the window showing eyes gone wide with shock. “What?”
“Don’t.” I kept my voice quiet, controlled, even though rage and fear warred inside me. “Don’t insult me by pretending you don’t know what I’m talking about.”
Her heart was visible in the pulse at her throat, stuttering and racing. When she turned to face me, she whispered, “No one.”
“The landline in the greenhouse. Two days ago. One-minute call from a burner phone.” I watched her face drain of color as her hands started to shake. “Want to try again?”
“I—” Her voice broke. She swallowed hard. “It was a wrong number.”
“Mila.” I moved toward her, slowly, like someone who was approaching a wounded animal. “You’re lying to me.”
“I’m not—”
“You are.” I was close enough now to see the tears gathering in her eyes, the terror she was trying to hide. “And I need to know why. I need to know what you’re protecting, because if there’s a threat against you, against our family—”
“There’s no threat!” The words came out too loud, too desperate. “It’s nothing. Just leave it alone.”
“I can’t do that.” My hands clenched at my sides, fighting the urge to grab her, shake her, force the truth from her lips. “Someone found a way to reach you in our home. Someone knew about that phone line, knew when you’d be alone. That’s not nothing.”
She backed up until she hit the window; there was nowhere left to run. “Please. Just trust me.”
“Trust you?” The laugh that escaped me was bitter. “You’re asking me to trust you while you keep secrets that could get you killed?”
“No one’s going to kill me!”
“You don’t know that!” The control I’d been maintaining snapped. “You don’t know who’s playing what game, you don’t know what they want, and you’re too fucking stubborn to let me help you!”
“Because if I tell you, you’ll destroy everything!” The words ripped out of her, raw and desperate. “You’ll mobilize your entire organization, you’ll tear the city apart, people will die—”
“I don’t care!” I closed the distance between us, caging her against the window with my body. “I don’t care who dies as long as you’re safe. As long as our child is safe. That’s all that matters.”
“That’s exactly why I can’t tell you.” Her voice dropped to a whisper, tears streaming down her face now. “You’re wired to destroy anything you consider a threat without thinking about the consequences, without considering that maybe some things can’t be fixed with violence.”
The words hit like a physical blow. “You’re just realizing that I’m a monster.”
“No.” She shook her head frantically. “No, that’s not—God, Alexei, I know what you are. I’ve always known. But this is different. This is…” She closed her eyes, more tears spilling over. “Please. Just let this go.”
“I can’t.” My forehead dropped to hers, our breath mingling in the small space between us.
“I can’t lose you. I can’t let someone hurt you because I was too patient, too careful.
Don’t you understand? You’re everything.
You and this baby, you’re everything that matters, and I will burn the whole fucking world to ash before I let anything take you from me. ”
“You’re scaring me.” Her voice was barely audible.
“Good.” The word came out savage. “Maybe you should be scared. Maybe then you’ll understand how serious this is.”
She tried to push me away, her hands against my chest. “Let me go.”
“No.”
“Alexei—”