Page 43 of A Surprise Baby for the Russian

Afterward, the room is thick with a heavy, peaceful stillness. We lie tangled in the cotton sheets, my head resting flat against his solid chest, listening to the slow, steady thump of his heart beneath my ear. Neither of us says a word.

At some point, the rhythm of his chest changes. His breathing slows down, so I gently turn my head on his chest, looking up at his face in the faint moonlight.

This is the version of Yakov Mykros the rest of the world never gets to see. The lethal, razor-sharp control is gone. The paranoid watchfulness is switched off. All of it has been silenced. Just for now, in sleep, safe inside our room.

He looks younger, with the stress he carries in his face wiped away. A profound wave of tenderness squeezes my throat. I should tell him that I see this, I think, my fingertips lightly brushing his arm. I should let him know that I understand exactly what it means that he can sleep this deeply beside me. That I know it is a gift he doesn’t give easily. That it’s everything.

I don’t wake him. I close my eyes and settle beside him, the thought still beautifully forming in my mind when the darkness takes me, too, and for the first time in longer than I can remember, I am not worrying about tomorrow.

Chapter 23 - Yakov

Raya hasn’t been herself for days now. Sure, she’s still up and about, walking and talking, flattening her brothers with her quick wit when they push her, but I can see she’s muted, like her fire isn’t burning as brightly. I’ve caught her a few times staring absently into space when she thinks she’s alone. There is a low, persistent hum at the base of my skull, a warning system I have learned never to ignore.

She’s barely touched her food, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned about the Volkovs since coming here, it’s that they’re big on food. I watched her push a plate of eggs around yesterday morning until the yolk went cold, and today, she didn’t even look at the coffee I set on her nightstand. Raya not immediately reaching for her coffee is definitely not Raya.

I’ve asked her straight out, and she says it’s stress; her body is simply catching up with the chaos of the last few months, and that she’s likely coming down with a common cold.

Any normal person would accept that. She isn’t wrong; her body has every reason to be feeling the exhausting weight of the safe houses, the adrenaline crashes, and the terror of my father’s reach. But I am not rational when it comes to Raya. I step up to the side of our bed, the morning sun cutting through the heavy drapes in pale, thin needles. She is sitting against the headboard, her dark hair a tangled silk halo around her shoulders. She looks pale. Fragile, almost, though I know better than to say that out loud to her; she’d try to kick my ass to make a point.

I slide onto the bed, sitting beside her, and press the back of my left hand flat against her forehead. Her skin is warm, but not burning.

“You’re not hot,” I murmur, my thumb tracing the smooth line of her brow. “But you look exhausted, malysh.”

She swats my hand away, though there is no real venom behind the gesture. “Thank you, Yakov. You sure know how to make a girl feel good. Real romantic.”

“I am worried about you,” I tell her plainly, my hand dropping to cup her jaw, my thumb gently tracing her skin. I lean in, crowding her space under the sheets until I can smell the clean vanilla of her hair. “You haven’t eaten a real meal in days, Raya. You’re losing weight, you look pale, and it’s driving me crazy. Tell me what’s wrong.”

“Nothing is wrong,” she insists, her dark eyes flashing with a spark of that stubborn fire I love. She pulls the duvet tighter around her chest, trying to look strong, but she can’t hide the exhaustion in her face. “I’m run down, Yakov. Go do whatever it is you have to do with my brothers and leave me alone.”

“I’m not leaving you alone when you look like you’re about to collapse,” I murmur, my voice dropping lower, thick with an authority I only use when I need her to understand I am not negotiating. “You’re my wife, Raya. If you’re sick, or if you’re hurting, it’s my job to fix it.”

“I’m not sick,” she whispers, looking away from me first, her fingers stroking the soft fabric of the blanket. “I need a few hours of quiet. Seriously, Yakov. Go.”

I study her face for another long beat. I don’t believe her for a second. There is a tension in her shoulders and a shadow beneath her eyes that tell me she’s hiding something, but I force myself to give her space.

“I want you to rest today,” I tell her, keeping my voice low. “I have to be in Matvei’s study with Adrian Nikolai. We’re doing some work on the computers that needs our total concentration. It’s going to take hours. But if you need me, send the word, okay? I’ll come straight away.”

She sighs, leaning her head back against the pillows, her dark eyes tracking mine. “Is it the sleeper viruses you were telling me about?”

“Exactly,” I reply, leaning down to press a firm, lingering kiss to her temple. The scent of her—that intoxicating blend of coconut and vanilla—fills my lungs. “We can activate them if and when we want, freezing his entire logistics network from the inside out. Blowing everything up gets a bit obvious. So this is like permanent insurance. Adrian and I have been mapping the delivery system for days. I’ll come check on you the second we’re done.”

She waves a dismissive hand toward the door. “I’m fine, Yakov. Go do your tech-voodoo. Go.”

I study her face for three more seconds, memorizing the slight shadow beneath her eyes, before I force myself to stand. I buckle my holster over my shoulder, slip into my leather jacket, and step out into the hallway.

The residential wing of the Volkov house is quiet at this hour, but as I cut through the dining room toward the kitchen, I find Sofie leaning against the marble island, tearing into a piece of toast. She looks up the second my boots hit the tile, her knowing eyes appraising me with an intensity that matches her sister’s.

I halt at the breakfast counter. “Check on her for me?” I ask her plainly.

Sofie pauses, the toast halfway to her mouth. She looks at me for a second before she settles into a faint, reassuring smile.

“Of course,” she says simply.

I give her a solitary nod of thanks and turn on my heel.

The meeting in Matvei’s study is the exact kind of work I was built for. It is cold, technical, and brutally precise. There is an exquisite, dark beauty in planting a shadow network beneath a man’s feet without him ever realizing the trap is set. Alek Mykros has spent a lifetime building an invisible financial web, and Adrian Nikolai and I spend the next four or so hours ensuring we hold the master key to the back door.

Adrian is formidable in this area. I knew his reputation, obviously, but watching him manipulate the Western syndicate databases with the same clinical, effortless precision that I use on the Eastern pipelines earns my absolute respect. We don’t make small talk. We operate in a silent rhythm, planting dormant viruses deep into the vulnerable areas of various financial servers. Matvei watches from the leather armchair, a heavy, silent presence of approval. This isn’t about destroying him and his empire today—we are simply placing a digital gun to its head, waiting for a reason to pull the trigger.