Chapter 8
Maeve
Three days later, a phone rang.
The sound came from Artem’s suit jacket, draped over the back of my new velvet sofa. As well as the new sofa, I now had a new archway into the apartment next door, new bed, reinforced windows, extra locks, enough square footage to make staying here more luxurious.
Apparently when I said I needed time and space, Artem heard ‘expand the flat like a Victorian duke solving a problem with money.’
The phone rang again.
The sound sliced straight through the room. Through the smell of plaster dust and fresh coffee and the remains of Ivan’s attempted pancakes. Through the warm haze of pack scent and domestic nonsense and my own very pregnant wish to ignore reality for another hour.
Artem was still behind me, one arm around my middle, one broad hand spread over my stomach. His thumb moved in slow circles like he was learning the shape of me by touch. He had only just kissed my temple. Nothing dramatic. Nothing that should have mattered.
It did.
The phone stopped and then rang again.
“Is anyone going to answer that?” I asked.
Ivan opened one eye from the sofa, where he was sprawled in an apron over tailored trousers because apparently cooking was exhausting. “If that’s the contractor asking whether we want Italian marble in the bathroom, tell him yes. I’ve adjusted very quickly to privilege.”
“You were born into privilege,” I said.
“Yes, but now I can confirm that living like a pauper has been character-building.”
“You redecorated my flat, knocked a hole in a wall to make it bigger and bought new furniture in one day. That is hardly enough time to build character.”
“I slept on the floor for one night.”
I nodded. “And even then Gregor protected you.”
Gregor stood by the new window, arms folded, scanning the street below like Edinburgh itself might try something. He had inspected every lock twice, every hinge once, and the dog bed with the seriousness of a man assessing military infrastructure.
“Keep me out of it,” he grumbled.
Fergus’s feet ran in the air while he slept in his new dog bed with his four paws in the air.
The phone kept ringing.
“It could be Father,” Ivan said. “Wanting to talk about the problem.”
Artem went still.
Every part of me tightened. One second he was warm against my back and the next he felt distant, like he had stepped away from me before his body actually moved.
Then he let me go. The loss of his heat left a cold shape behind.
“Fuck,” he said quietly. "Call Killian, make sure everything is okay.”
Artem crossed the room, took a black phone from his jacket pocket, and answered it with one word. “Yes.”
His chest rose and fell as he listened.
The whole room changed. Everyone felt it.
Ivan left the room, the softness vanished out of him in one clean motion.
The flat suddenly felt smaller, even with all the new space. The new velvet sofa. The widened doorway. The polished wood. The fresh paint. The absurdly large bed in the next room. All of it had appeared because three Russian alphas had looked around my tiny flat and decided absolutely not.
Now their world had come calling.
I knew it as I watched Artem’s face. It had gone controlled. And then the control cracked.
His jaw tightened so hard a muscle jumped. His free hand curled into a fist. The smell of champagne in his scent turned harsh and metallic, all the warmth stripped out of it. Something in me curled around my baby on instinct.
“When?” he asked.
Nothing in his voice. No grief. No shock. No panic. Just icy words.
A bus sighed at the curb on the main street. Somewhere nearby a door slammed. Edinburgh went right on being wet and gray and deeply inconsiderate while the center of the room seemed to move under my feet.
“And the council?”
A pause.
Ivan came back into the room and stood watching his brother.
Gregor looked at me.
“Understood,” Artem said. “Forty-eight hours.”
Then he ended the call.
He didn’t put the phone away. He tossed it onto the sofa, then he looked at Ivan.
“Father is dead.”
The words landed hard and flat.
Ivan shut his eyes for less than a second. His hand flexed once at his side. “How?”
“The Turkish shipment,” Artem said. “He went himself. Three men with him. The Turks were waiting.”
I stood there trying to fit that into anything that made emotional sense.
Their father was dead. Such poor timing.
It meant the three men in my flat had just stopped being men in my flat and become something else. Something more dangerous.
I pressed a hand over my stomach.
The baby rolled under my palm, slow and heavy, like he objected to the sudden tone of the room.
Same, little man. Same.
“Uncle Mikhail is calling the council,” Artem said. His voice changed and was pure strategy now. Whatever grief had hit him had already been folded away and locked somewhere I could not reach. “Moscow. Forty-eight hours. Every family head will be there.”
Gregor’s gaze flicked to the window, the camera, the door, the angles of the room. Already calculating.
“And we have a complication,” Artem said.
“What kind of complication?” Gregor asked.
“Cousin Yuri.”
Ivan’s mouth twisted. “Of course. Mikhail wants his son to lead the European operations.”
“It’s Yuri who is contesting my succession,” Artem said. “He filed the grievance thirty minutes after Father’s body was identified.”
I stared at him. “Thirty minutes?”
Three pairs of eyes turned toward me.
“That’s not enough time for decent mourning,” I said. “That’s barely enough time to put the kettle on and perform one respectable biscuit.”
Ivan’s mouth twitched. “What grounds?” he asked.
“Stability,” Artem said.
Then he looked at me.
The air in the room changed again.
I knew before he said it. My body knew. My throat tightened. My skin went cold.
“Yuri is arguing that a Pakhan without a bonded omega or a secured political marriage is vulnerable,” Artem said. “That unbonded alphas are unstable. Too easy to manipulate.”
Marriage.
There it was.
Of course it was.
Everything always came back to that, eventually. To someone deciding a woman’s body was political infrastructure. To someone telling her this was necessary. For the family. Always for the family, and for stability and peace.
My skin tingled, remembering before my mind did. I slid my hand to the back of my neck.
My father saying I would do what was required.
Finn looking at me like I was something he owned but didn’t like.
I could still smell that house when panic hit hard enough. Leather. Whiskey. Men who thought possession was greater than love.
I turned and stared at Artem. He was going to ask me to marry him and show my throat so his family would believe Artem was settled.
Icy fingers stepped down my spine.
I could run again.
I hardly knew Artem. That was the terrible part. I knew his scent. I knew the weight of him behind me. I knew he had expanded my flat because he knew I needed time and space. I knew he looked at me like I was both a miracle and a problem he would kill for.
But I had known Finn once too.
That was the trick of men, sometimes. They didn’t arrive wearing signs.
“So what do we do?” Ivan asked.
“We go to Moscow,” Artem said. “You and I. We walk into that room and remind Yuri exactly why this seat is mine.”
Ivan smiled. “Finally. A productive meeting.”
Artem turned to Gregor. “You stay here. If needed, take Maeve to the London compound.”
“No.” The word came out before I could make it more graceful.
All three of them looked at me.
“No,” I said again, because apparently I had committed. “You cannot just announce you’re leaving for Moscow in the middle of some succession war, casually mention political marriage, tell Gregor to pack me up like a parcel, and expect me to smile politely.”
Ivan opened his mouth.
I pointed at him. “Don’t. I’m on the edge of crying and if you make a joke I’ll never forgive you.”
He shut his mouth.
Artem crossed the room in three strides and cupped my face in both hands. His palms were warm. His thumbs brushed my cheekbones once, carefully, like I was already something he had to handle with care.
“Maeve.” I hated the way he said my name. Like it meant more than it should. Because the softness in his voice was enough to have my body almost crumble against him.
“I have to go,” he said. “If I don’t secure the seat, and Yuri learns about you and the baby before I control the council, he will use you. Whatever way hurts me most.”
My pulse was everywhere. In my throat. In my wrists. In the base of my spine.
“Once I am Pakhan,” he said, “no one will ever touch you.”
It should have comforted me more cleanly than it did.
Instead it wrapped around me like a promise and a threat at the same time.
“That is an extremely mafia sentence,” I whispered.
His mouth softened just a little. “I am an extremely mafia man. But I’m not a bad man. Never to you, anyway.”
“You are making jokes now. This is my area.”
“It’s no joke, please trust us.” He lowered his forehead to mine. “Don’t run, Maeve. We’ll come back for you.”
His words hit something deep and I wanted to believe him. I wanted to fall against him and tell him I was his…theirs. But—
“You’re scared.” He pressed his lips against mine. “Me too. Please trust me. Trust Gregor. We’re never going to hurt you.” He said it like he knew running had kept me alive. Like staying would cost me more.
And God help me, I knew he was right.
I could feel it in my bones. In the way my body relaxed into them even while my mind still threw up every alarm it had.
“Be careful,” I said. The thought of Artem and Ivan flying into a room full of men who might want them dead made me feel physically ill.
“London is secure,” Gregor said, already on his phone. “Surrey is better. We can move now.”
“Surrey?” I repeated.
“Family estate,” Ivan said. “Big house. Too many guns. Portraits of dead Petrovs glaring at you for existing.”
“I hate that the guns are the reassuring part. And the portraits sound scary as hell.”
“You’re adapting very fast,” Gregor said.
Ivan stepped closer to me.
He wasn’t smiling now. Not even a little.
The nonsense was gone. The coffee apron. The flirting. The chaos.
He kissed my forehead.
“We’ll be back before you know it,” he said.
“Don’t get shot,” I whispered.
My voice shook, so naturally I made it worse.
“I mean it. You cannot die before you learn to make one edible pancake. That would be terrible character development.”
Ivan’s eyes flashed. “Impossible. I still have lattes to make, a baby to meet, and a dog who clearly loves me best.”
From the dog bed, Fergus snorted in his sleep.
“That sounded noncommittal,” I said.
“He adores me.”
Gregor grunted. “He tolerates incompetence selectively.”
Ivan pointed at him. “You mind your business.”
For one breath, the room almost felt normal.
Then Artem’s hand slid to the back of my neck and everything narrowed back down to him.
“Gregor will keep you safe,” he said. “Surrey is secure.”
I grabbed his jacket. “Just come back. Please.”
“I swear it.”
Then he kissed me with hunger and urgency and the kind of promise that left bruises. For one foolish second I held on like I could keep him there through sheer stubbornness.
Then he pulled away.
Ivan grabbed his coat. Artem picked up the black phone.
Neither of them looked back when they left, which somehow made it worse. If they had looked back, I might have begged them to stay. If I begged, I would hate myself. If I hated myself, I would cry. And if I cried, Fergus would bark and Gregor would probably classify it as an incident.
So I stood there with my hand on my stomach and listened to the locks thud shut behind them.
The flat felt enormous after that.
A week ago, I had barely been able to turn around without bruising myself. Now there was a new sofa, a bigger bed, an archway, fresh walls, room for a future I had not agreed to and had somehow stepped into anyway.
Gregor moved methodically through the flat, pulling the blackout curtains closed one by one.
The city disappeared.
“We need to move,” he said.
“I want to stay here.” The words came out dangerously close to a pout.
Gregor turned and gave me the look of a man weighing the risk of arguing with a pregnant woman against the risk of ballistic attack.
“Maeve. Until the council is settled, this is not secure.”
“It’s my flat. Who knows about little old me?”
“Anyone who wants to.”
I stared at him. “You truly know how to seduce a woman.”
His face didn’t change. “I prefer you alive. Once the threat is over we can reconvene getting to know you on your terms.”
“Very hard to argue with that.” I reached for my fluffy white coat. The one that still smelled faintly of Prague if I buried my face in it, which I absolutely did not do because I had some dignity left.
My hands were shaking badly enough that I got the sleeve twisted inside out. “Will someone try to kill me and the baby?”
Gregor was suddenly there. His hands on my face. “Not on my watch.”
That almost broke me.
He stepped away and took my coat and held it open for me.
“I can do it,” I muttered.
“I know.”
I slid my arms into it.
Fergus came over and nudged my ankle.
“We’ll be grand.” My Irish accent thickened around the lie. I picked Fergus up. “Looks like we’re moving.”
Then the baby moved.
Not the usual roll. Not a lazy elbow. Not one of the internal rearrangements that made me mutter, be careful.
This was different.
It was love, hot and tight.
My breath caught.
Gregor’s head came up instantly. “Maeve?”
“I’m fine.” I lied as another pain tore through me, this one was sharp enough to knock the air out of my lungs. My knees buckled. My hand shot out and caught on the sofa.
Then warmth rushed down my legs.
I dropped Fergus onto the sofa and stared at Gregor. “I need to go to the hospital.”
His eyes took in everything at once. Me. The floor. My face. The fluid. The phone in his hand. The distance to the door. The route to the stairs.
The silence lasted one second too long.
Then he was there, catching me as I folded as the first contraction hit with a force it knocked me over.
“Well,” he said, with horrifying calm. “Change of plans.”