27. Ruslan
Ruslan
I know something is wrong before I admit it.
The morning started well enough. Better than well, actually.
For the first time since arriving in Colorado, I woke without immediately thinking about Andrei.
I made coffee. Burned one piece of toast. Made another.
Considered waking Emma with breakfast in bed before deciding she would mock me mercilessly for the gesture.
Then I walked into the bedroom and found it empty.
The bathroom was empty too, but that didn’t mean much.
The hotel had a café downstairs. After weeks of chaos, perhaps Emma simply wanted a few moments to herself.
And there was last night. It was more than I’d expected it to be.
Emotional, rapturous, finally giving meaning to the word intimacy.
I wouldn’t be surprised if she needed a minute to absorb what happened between us.
That was two hours ago.
Now I’m standing on a Denver sidewalk with cold air creeping beneath my jacket, scanning crowds while every instinct I possess screams that something is wrong. I’ve already texted Frank, who got back to me immediately that he hadn’t seen Emma at all this morning or heard from her.
People hurry past holding coffee cups and shopping bags, wrapped in warmer layers they didn’t need a week ago. I barely notice any of them.
I keep searching faces, intersections. Every passing vehicle.
The rational part of my brain reminds me that Emma is an adult capable of walking down a street without supervision. The rest of me doesn’t care.
I pull out my phone again. No messages or calls. I made her promise after that day Andrei grabbed her that she’d let me know if she was leaving the Four Seasons without any of my men to keep an eye on her.
The irritation that has been simmering for the last hour begins hardening into something darker.
Stepan answers on the second ring, despite the fact that it’s barely 8 a.m. there.
“Boss.”
“I may need a team.”
There’s a long pause, one that must be holding back half a dozen questions.
“Is there a problem?” he asks cooly.
“I don’t know yet.” I hate admitting that. I know where my money is. I know where my shipments are. I know where politicians hide their secrets and which businessmen are skimming from their own companies.
“I don’t know where Emma is.” When I finally grit that out between clenched teeth, I half-expect Stepan to quit on the spot. He’s made it clear, through Frank’s intercession, that he isn’t happy with the focus I’m putting on Colorado while he runs things back in Santa Barbara.
“Do you want me to start calling people?” Stepan asks.
My gaze tracks a black SUV turning the corner. For one horrible second, I imagine Andrei stepping out of it and Emma getting shoved into the back seat. Surely, he wouldn’t be stupid enough to do that the day after his wedding?
“Not yet, but be ready,” I say. “I’ll call back.”
A month ago, I crossed half a continent to destroy my brother. Now I stand on a street corner, realizing I haven’t thought about him in hours.
The revenge, the wedding, finding an “in” to take him down; none of it feels particularly important. Not compared to the fact that Emma is missing.
I start walking again, heading toward the hotel entrance for what must be the tenth time. Security has already reviewed the cameras. Nobody saw her leave with anyone. Nobody saw her in distress. She simply walked out, carrying her purse, and disappeared into Denver.
Which somehow makes it worse.
Because if she chose to leave—no.
I stop that thought immediately. She wouldn’t. Not with a signed contract.
Not after last night.
Would she?
The question lodges beneath my ribs like a knife.
Then I see her across the street, and my entire body relaxes. She’s weaving through the morning crowd toward the hotel, her curls disheveled by the wind. Her eyes are red. Her expression looks shaken. One hand clutches her purse while the other holds a small white shopping bag.
For a split second, relief hits me so hard it almost weakens my knees. Then anger follows immediately behind it.
I cross the street without looking for traffic. A horn blares somewhere behind me.
Emma spots me halfway across the intersection and freezes.
“Oh.”
That single syllable tells me everything. She knows exactly how much trouble she’s in. I stop directly in front of her, but neither of us speaks. The city is nonexistent around us. My adrenaline is still raging from two hours of imagining increasingly violent scenarios.
Emma swallows. “Hi.”
I stare at her, then exhale slowly through my nose.
“What,” I ask very calmly, “is in the bag?”
Emma swings it behind her back, her eyes darting past me. The same look from weeks ago, before she ran.
It’s then I notice the man lingering near the corner of the building, a cigarette dangling from his lips. He has his cell phone out in one hand, but the other hides a small digital camera.
“Come on,” I say, gripping Emma’s upper arm lightly and steering her toward the entrance. There’s still a frisson of worry and anger in me, but mostly I want to protect her.
* * *
“Out.”
The cleaners assigned to our suite, who often operate in the background unnoticed, stiffen at the tone of my voice.
The two women glance at each other and move toward the door quickly.
Emma has her head ducked down, the bag still tucked against her side, and a sense of foreboding ripples through me.
Whatever happened this morning is not what I thought. She wasn’t running, but something is still very wrong.
Once we’re alone, she wipes at her eyes angrily, as if she’s offended by the existence of her own tears. “I’m fine,” she bites out, her voice rough.
“What happened?” I ask for what feels like the fifth time. This is the first time I’ve said it aloud; it’s only been an echoing worry up to now.
“Nothing.”
“That is obviously a lie.”
She shoots me a glare. “Maybe I don’t want to talk about it.”
My patience, already hanging by a thread, frays further.
“Two hours,” I growl, pacing toward her and getting the desired result.
She slips around me, further into the suite, arms crossed as she tucks into the living room.
“Two hours of imagining you getting kidnapped, accidents, Andrei retaliating, and every other nightmare scenario my brain could invent. Do you know the things I’ve seen, Emma?
And for two hours, I’ve been imagining you in every single one of those scenarios. ”
Tears tremble at her lashes, finally spilling down her cheeks. But this woman, my l’vyonak, tips her chin upwards in defiance.
“If you don’t tell me what happened, I’m going to assume that someone needs to die.”
The laugh that she laughs is bitter and quick. She claps a hand to her mouth, smudging the tears and the emotions playing across her face.
“What is in the bag?”
She shakes her head.
“Enough, Emma. You need to tell me what’s going on. You can’t disappear like that.”
“No.” Something about the panic in her voice catches my attention. There’s a surface layer of defensiveness, but underneath that—fear.
The realization only makes me more determined.
She still doesn’t know that I know that she’s stood up to armed criminals, entire syndicates, and me. Her face has gone pale. Her hands are trembling. Whatever is in that bag matters.
A lot.
“Emma.”
“Rus, please.”
The plea stops me for half a second. Then she tries to move past me. Mistake.
I catch the handles before she can stop me. Her eyes widen.
“Ruslan.”
Too late. The bag comes free. Emma makes a frustrated sound somewhere between a curse and a groan as I pull it away from her.
It’s a small pharmacy bag. My brow furrows. Then I pull out the first box.
Both of us go still. A pregnancy test.
Slowly, I reach back into the bag.
Another.
And another.
And another.
Five total.
One is unopened, but four are messily torn into. The blood drains from my face. Carefully, almost mechanically, I look down at the small result windows. Positive, a plus sign, another plus sign, “pregnant” on the screen of the last.
The world tilts, and for a moment, my chest feels like concrete, unable to draw breath. Every sound inside the suite disappears. The city beyond the window disappears.
Even Andrei disappears.
There is only the white plastic stick in my hand and the impossible realization forming in my mind. I’m too old for this; aren’t I? Forty-five, too old to hope for anything remotely like a family.
Only steps away, Emma looks utterly devastated.
My gaze lifts slowly, and her eyes meet mine. I don’t know what to say. I’ve put together catalogues of seasonal couture, tortured men to the brink of death, but nothing prepared me for this.
Emma’s lower lip trembles. The shopping bag drops from my fingers, and suddenly every detail from the last few weeks rearranges itself in my head. I’ve been so focused on setting roots back in Colorado and trying to find a way to expose Andrei that I didn’t notice the signs. But why would I?
For the first time in my life, I’m completely at a loss about what to do.