Chapter 5
Gregor
The stairs groaned from the first step, which was fair. Men built like artillery should not be climbing rickety stairs. Maeve went first, one hand sliding along the wall, needing the balance because being with her mates was making her knees wobbly.
Fergus pattered up ahead with his head high, though one ear flopped. He still looked like he thought he was in charge. At the landing, he turned and fixed all three of us with a look that said he had survived worse than Russian men and was prepared to do whatever it took to protect his owner.
I liked that about him.
Ivan hit the wall with his shoulder on the first turn. "Christ. Did they build this place to house dolls?"
"It’s cozy," Maeve said, without looking back.
"Cozy is what people say when a room is trying to strangle them."
“Cozy is where people live who don’t have lots of zeros at the end of their bank balance.”
Artem said nothing. He stared at her like he was afraid she might disappear if he blinked.
Reasonable concern. I knew how he ticked.
He was going over the nine months of dead ends, the bribes, flights, and bad tempers, and now the missing omega was three steps ahead of us and pregnant with our child.
“These steps are one hard sneeze away from collapse,” Ivan added.
“You’re being dramatic,” she retorted.
At the top, Maeve pushed the door, it creaked open, and Fergus marched in first because apparently he was responsible for security.
We followed and discovered the flat was even smaller than it had looked from outside, which felt almost ambitious.
One bed in the corner. One sofa that was so old it had seen empires rise and fall.
A kitchenette barely large enough for a kettle and a mug at the same time.
Ivan lowered himself onto the sofa, and it objected violently. He swore and lurched to his feet. A spring stood up proud in the center. "What the hell is this?"
"Vintage," Maeve said.
"It’s deadly," Ivan corrected.
“Still being dramatic.”
Artem ignored the sofa, Ivan, and possibly gravity. He stood in the middle of the room and looked around at the crooked bookshelf. At the single mug in the sink. And then his gaze lingered on the baby clothes folded in careful little stacks on a box.
I was too busy looking at the half-built cot in the corner with the instructions spread beside it like a formal surrender when he finally murmured.
His throat moved once. Twice. Nothing more came out.
For a man who could stare down gunrunners before breakfast and customs officials before lunch, he looked completely unarmed.
Maeve noticed. Of course she noticed. She crossed her arms over the curve of her stomach and gave a long-suffering sigh that suggested this entire catastrophe had now been accepted as part of her weekly routine. "Sit down. If you can find somewhere that isn’t offensive."
Ivan folded himself onto the floor. "This works."
Artem still didn’t move. His hands flexed once at his sides as he stared at the cot, like he wanted to touch everything and was afraid he had not earned the right.
Maeve turned to the tiny fridge, took out a box of eggs and started cracking them into a pan on the small stove with enough force to suggest the eggs had personally betrayed her. "It’s late, I assume you’re all staying for dinner."
"We’re not leaving," Artem said. His voice came out rough, scraped raw.
She didn’t turn. "I didn’t ask you to."
Ivan grinned. "Very romantic. Practically a proposal."
I stayed by the door and did what I always did in a new space.
Count exits. Note blind spots. Check sightlines.
The hallway outside. The only fire escape being the window.
The weak point in the lock. Old habits had bone-deep roots.
If this had been a job, I would already have had three contingency plans and a preferred line of retreat.
But it wasn’t a job. It was her. Our mate. This was worse.
Maeve slid the omelette onto a plate and split it like someone used to making food stretch farther than it should. She handed the first portion to Ivan because he was closest to her. He accepted it as if she gave him the holy grail.
The second she offered to Artem. He stared at the plate. Then at her. Then at the plate again, as if she had handed him a live explosive and expected gratitude.
"Eat," she said. “I’m not trying to poison you.”
When Artem took it their fingers brushed, and his breath caught so sharply even Fergus’s ears twitched. Artem dropped onto the bed. Fergus studied him for a moment, then climbed straight into his lap like he had made an executive decision on the matter.
Artem froze, plate in hand, as if the dog were a bomb with fur.
Maeve’s mouth twitched.
Maeve handed me the last plate. “Thank you,” I said as I took it and leaned against the wall.
Ivan was halfway through his share before the rest of us had properly begun. He pointed his fork at Maeve. "Terrible hosting. No wine. No caviar. No linen napkins. I don’t know how you expect a man to live like this."
"I’m pregnant," she said flatly. "And poor."
Ivan glanced at the omelette, then at her stomach, visibly rearranging his priorities. "Right. Well. This is excellent, then. Rustic. Honest food."
Maeve smiled as she set a cake box on the counter. "I brought chocolate caramel cake from the cafe." Her eyes slid to Artem. "I saw you looking at it."
Artem looked up so fast it would have been funny if his expression had not been so naked. "You did."
She shrugged, pretending it was nothing. "It's hard to forget the noise you made as you inhaled the smell."
“I did not make a noise.”
Maeve closed her eyes and moaned as she inhaled.
“I didn’t moan,” Artem grumbled.
He did.
Ivan nearly choked. "Oh, this is my favorite conversation already."
Maeve chuckled as she slid a knife through the cake, cutting Artem the first slice. He took it carefully, like it was precious.
The room was too small and too intimate for comfort.
Artem sat on the bed, cake forgotten every few seconds because he kept looking at Maeve instead.
Ivan decided the floor was too hard and was now balanced on the sofa’s least murderous edge.
I remained at the door with my plate in one hand and my back to the wall watching her.
Maeve leaned against the counter and watched us like she was in a fairytale and just realized she’d accidentally let three wolves into her house and now regretted it.
Too late.
Fergus abandoned Artem’s lap and came to sit by my feet.
I looked down. He looked up.
This, at least, was correct.
Without thinking, I broke off a piece of omelette and held it low. Fergus took it with great care, as if we had known each other for years and not half an hour. Maeve saw. Her brows lifted.
"He likes you," she said.
"He has poor judgment," Ivan said.
Fergus bared tiny teeth at him.
"No," I said. "That was sound judgment."
Maeve laughed. A real one. Quick and surprised. It changed the room.
Ivan finished his omelette and reached for a slice of cake. He pointed his fork at Artem. "This is the best thing I’ve eaten in months."
"You had dinner at a Michelin-starred restaurant three nights ago," Artem said.
"That was business. This is real.” Ivan set his fork on the plate. “We need somewhere to stay the night. It’s getting late.”
Something in her face softened before she caught it. "You can stay one night," she said. "On the floor."
"Done," Artem said immediately.
Ivan stared at him. "You didn’t even pretend to negotiate."
"One night," Maeve repeated.
Artem nodded once. "We only need one night."
Ivan looked at me as if I might save him from sleeping on old floorboards in a flat built for people half our size. I did the math. It was ugly.
"We will fit badly," I said.
"Gregor, that is not supporting my argument to go to a hotel."
Maeve rubbed her temple. "There’s a hotel on the main road. The George. I’m sure it has comfy beds and plumbing from this century."
"We’re not leaving," Artem grumbled.
Ivan shut his mouth. That was the thing about Artem. He didn’t need to raise his voice when he had already decided the shape of the world. The rest of us just adjusted around it.
Maeve looked between us, then settled on him. Whatever she saw there made some last resistance go out of her shoulders. "Fine. But you’re sleeping on the floor. And one of you is buying me a new sofa."
"Artem will buy you anything you want," Ivan said, because volunteering Artem’s money was one of his purest talents.
Artem barely seemed to hear. He was still watching Maeve with his cake in his hand.
I’d seen Artem after fights, after funerals, after boardroom negotiations that ended in blood.
I’d never seen this expression on his face.
Not victory. Not relief. Something quieter.
Reverence, maybe. The kind that makes a man like Artem dangerous.
Maeve turned away to stack plates, but not before I saw her hands shake.
Later, the flat settled around us with all the grace of an irritated cat.
Fergus snored. The floorboards creaked every time Ivan breathed too enthusiastically.
Maeve took the bed because none of us were suicidal enough to argue with a pregnant omega in her own flat.
Ivan claimed the sofa despite its obvious intent to kill him in his sleep.
Artem stretched out on the floor beside the bed.
I kept the place by the door. Though, now I was sitting.
“Bathroom,” Maeve squeaked when the room got quiet and the scent of us rose.
She shut herself in the bathroom. Water ran through the pipes with a hollow rattle.
I pictured her in there with her face tipped over the sink, taking a few minutes to breathe.
Pretending, perhaps, that this was normal.
That three men who had spent nine months trying to find her were now asleep in her flat because apparently fate had the sense of humor of a drunk uncle.
Ivan was the one who broke the quiet. "We need to talk about father and Mary. How do we tell Maeve about Mary?"
Artem put an arm over his eyes. "Not now."
"Artem."
He exhaled hard and moved his arm. "What."
Ivan leaned forward, elbows on knees. "Father is not going to let this go. The McCarthy alliance..."
"Is not happening."
"You think saying that makes it true?" Ivan asked. "He has contracts drafted. The McCarthys think it’s settled."
Artem’s voice went flat in a dangerous way. "Mary is not marrying me. Or you. Or Gregor. She is eighteen."
"She’s also an omega," Ivan said. "And our father has never once in his life let morality interfere with logistics."
I said nothing, but my grip tightened on the blanket that Maeve placed over my legs earlier. Ivan was right. The Pakhan did not release leverage once he had his hand around it. Mary McCarthy was young, strategic, and useful. Three qualities that guaranteed misery.
"We’re not doing it," Artem said again.
Ivan gave a humorless laugh. "And when Father learns about Maeve? The baby? What then? You think he’ll send her flowers?"
Artem’s eyes cut to the bathroom door. The water had stopped. "He doesn’t have a choice."
"He always thinks he has a choice."
"He’ll see her as leverage," I said.
Silence.
Artem turned his head and looked at me. "Gregor."
"You know I’m right." My voice stayed low. It usually did. "He will use her if he can. The baby too. You most of all."
Artem’s jaw flexed. He looked away toward the cot in the corner, half-built and waiting. "We’ll handle it."
Ivan scrubbed a hand over his face. "That is not a plan."
No one answered because there was no answer worth giving. The Pakhan would learn. Men like him always did. And when he did, he would come with smiles, contracts, threats, or guns. Possibly all four.
The bathroom door opened. Maeve came out with damp hair, a scrubbed face, and a look on her face that told us that she knew she had walked into a problem. She took one look at us and sighed. "I thought you’d have gone to The George by now."
"Against all odds we’re staying," Ivan said.
She rolled her eyes and climbed into bed, dragging the covers to her chin. Fergus leapt up after her at once, circled twice, and planted himself at her feet like a devoted guard.
Artem stood without a word and moved closer, settling on the floor beside the bed instead of the far wall. Ivan followed with a theatrical groan as the sofa rejected him for a second time. I remained at the door. Some habits were older than language.
Maeve looked at all three of us in turn. Long enough to count. Long enough to feel. Then she reached over and switched off the lamp. Streetlight spilled in through the thin curtains, laying pale bars across the floor.
"Goodnight, Gregor," she said softly into the dark.
I was not good at soft things. Or answering soft things. "Night," I said anyway.
There was a small pause. Then, from the bed, "You’re all ridiculous."
Ivan chuckled. "And yet you never screamed for us to leave."
Maeve didn’t answer, but I heard the smile in the silence that followed.
Fergus lifted his head, looked once toward the door to make sure I was still there, and went back to sleep.
For the first time in nine months, I let myself believe we might not be too late. That maybe this cramped little flat above a cafe, with its murderous sofa and impossible omega and suspicious dog, was the first place any of us had been honest in a very long time.