Page 66 of Baby for My Ex’s Dad

I set the phone down on the desk with a care that costs me everything I’ have, because the alternative is to throw it through the window. “Home. Now.”

Lev is already speaking into his own phone, summoning the car and the two men from the outer room. He does not waste breath on “Are you certain,” or other inane questions. He moves.

Yuri at the wheel, we haul ass through the city as carefully as we can to avoid attention. He’s a wizard at it—not once do I worry about getting pulled over.

My worry is with Thea.

Lev sits beside me, opposite two mostly identical men facing us with their coats open over what they carry. They share the same dark brown hair, but one wears it tied back, while the other sports a buzzcut. Skin so pale white that they could be mistaken for ghosts. All black clothes, the signature of their trade. Sergei and Chaucer are ready and silent, always. Lev calls them his big guns. The ones he calls in when shit goes sideways.

The city smears past the glass in ribbons of light. I’ve made this drive a thousand times and never this fast. Still, it is not fast enough.

Nothing is.

I could have taken my helicopter, but they don’t arrive silently, and I mean to take this enemy by surprise. It’s the only leg up I’ll have. I see all of it while the bridge cables strobe past.

Klaus knows the estate. He grew up there, insofar as he was ever home. He knows which windows stick and which cameras sweep wide. My people are good, but inside information is priceless, and he has it in spades. I moved every gun I own to a waterfront three hours from my own front door because I’m a fool who fell for his trick.

He made me believe he was just a disgruntled son. One who sided with the man who wants me dead. Seemed a clear enough message. It was personal—me versus Alexei and Klaus. Fine. I can handle that.

But I didn’t see this coming.

“I never once thought my son had slipped so far into hatred that he would move on Thea like this.”

Lev blinks at me. “We don’t know⁠—”

“We do, Lev. You said I wasn’t naïve. Don’t you start.”

He exhales loudly. Not a sigh. More a release valve, steaming out. “Alright. This is an attack on the mansion. What do we know?”

“No one’s answering their phones. Not even the landline or the satellite phone.”

“What else?”

That’s the part I don’t have an answer for. “Klaus hates me. His offer from Alexei was either give Alexei the piers, or give Thea to Klaus. He⁠—”

Chaucer asks, “That is odd, don’t you think?”

I’m unaccustomed to him or Sergei speaking. About anything. They show up, and problems are solved with violence, not words. I never knew how thick their accents were until now. “How so?”

“Why would Alexei agree to help Klaus get his woman back? Why would he accept her in place of the piers he wants so badly?”

My insides twist. “I’d not considered such a thing.”

“Neither had I,” Lev admits. His mind runs with it. “There is no reason Alexei would take Thea for the piers, Maxim. Do you think Klaus is working Alexei, too? Massaging the deals until he gets what he wants out of them?”

“One more consideration to add to the fucking pile.” I sit back, trying for a breath that never comes. I’ve been afraid perhaps four times as an adult, and each time I turned it into motion, because fear that cannot become action is a luxury item.

This fear is something else. It sits in my chest like swallowed ice and refuses to move. Fear sits alongside rage.

At Sokolov. At my son.

I offered him the path back to our family. He answered with a threat against Thea, and even then, fool that I am, I told myself some door remained ajar. No door remains now. Not if he truly is involved in whatever this is.

Strange. I have an urge I’ve not felt in years. To bargain. With Alexei. Klaus. Or God himself. So, I pray.

In my mind, I beg, “Not her. Not them. Not this. Take the ports. Take the company, the name, the years I’ve left, spend them however you like. I don’t care about any of that. Save them.”

Lev’s hand closes on my forearm, once, hard, then nods. He says nothing. There is nothing to say. We drive, and the early morning light pours toward us, and I do my best not to vomit.