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Chapter Six

Dario

Something is wrong.

The thought hits me the moment Aldo and I finish talking, because Katya should be here. She always is. It doesn’t matter how late I get back from the city or how much work has kept me away lately. I’ve gotten used to opening the door and finding her somewhere nearby.

Usually, she has that beautiful frown on her face because she thinks I work too much. Or she’s curled up on the sofa with a book. Or waiting in our bedroom because she knows damn well I sleep better with her in my arms.

I tell myself I’m only looking for her because it’s become a habit, but that’s bullshit, and I know it. I need to see her. Need to put my hands on her, hear her voice, make sure she’s here.

“Where is she?” I ask, already walking away from Aldo.

He looks toward the hallway. “I assumed she was with you.”

Of course, he did.

I don’t bother answering as I head upstairs, my instincts already screaming that something isn’t right. Katya doesn’t disappear without telling me. She might be stubborn as hell, and she has no problem challenging me when she thinks I’m being too controlling, but she doesn’t simply vanish.

I push open the bedroom door and find it empty, the bed still carrying the faint scent of her perfume and my shirt hanging over the chair where she left it this morning. For one stupid second, relief loosens something in my chest because maybe she’s in the bathroom, or downstairs, or maybe I’m making a fucking mountain out of nothing.

Then I step into the en suite. The pregnancy test is sitting beside the sink. I stop breathing. There are two lines.

For several seconds, I simply stare at the little piece of plastic as though it has been written in a language I don’t understand. But I know exactly what it means. I know because I’m not dumb, and because something deep inside me has already recognized the truth before my mind catches up.

Katya is pregnant. We’ve been fucking like bunnies and I’d never intended to use protection because I’d claimed her as mine and there is no going back for me. And definitely not for Katya.

My baby.

Holy fucking shit. I pick it up, staring at those two lines again as an unfamiliar warmth spreads through my chest. Followed almost immediately by something far more violent. Fear. Not for myself.

Never for myself.

For Katya. For my child. For everything I have built around me that suddenly feels like a target painted directly onto the woman I love. Because that is what she is. The realization is so fucking simple it almost pisses me off.

I love her.

I’ve been avoiding the word for weeks, pretending what I feel is possession, obsession, lust, anything but love because love is a weakness in my world. It gives people something to take from you. My parents taught me that lesson with their deaths when I was twelve. And I spent the years afterward making damn sure no one would ever have that kind of power over me again.

Then Katya walked into my life and apparently decided all my carefully constructed defenses were nothing but kindling.

“Fuck,” I mutter, already pulling out my phone.

I call her. Straight to voicemail. I try again. Nothing. My jaw locks as I head toward the guest house, my footsteps carrying me across the property faster than they should. I throw open the door and immediately know she’s gone. Her things are missing. Not everything, but enough.

Her bag, some clothes and her car. My blood turns cold. She ran.

The first instinct is anger, hot and brutal, the kind that has made grown men piss themselves when they see it in my eyes. But beneath it is something worse. Panic. Katya is carrying my child, and she has disappeared because she is afraid of me.

I pull out my phone and open the tracker. The little dot appears on the map. She is in Los Angeles. After I zoom in on the location, I realize it’s a luxury apartment building. I stare at it for a moment, then call one of my men.

“Find out who she knows there. Now.”

I don’t explain. I don’t need to. My people know better than to waste time asking unnecessary questions when I need answers. I pace the room while I wait, the pregnancy test still clenched in my hand. My mind races through every possibility.

An enemy? Someone she knows? Someone who has discovered our relationship? Maybe she was threatened.

Maybe she’s hurt. That thought nearly sends me through the fucking wall.