Knocked Up By the Russian Boss by Bella King

Chapter 29

MAXIM

Isteel myself for an aggravated sigh, a “what are you doing here,” or a quick slam of the door as Ivory freaks out from seeing me again. Choosing to come to her door again so quickly after I almost blew my cover with her is a huge risk. If I’m able to explain away some of my suspicious activity by lying more, I can at least buy myself some time before it happens again.

When she opens the door, her face is brushed with panic already.

Is she really that scared of me?

As soon as she realizes it’s me, though, her eyes soften, and she exhales so deeply that I would believe she had been holding her breath for five minutes before she saw me. She seems … relieved?

“Oh my god, I’m so happy to see you. Come inside! Please!” she says, opening the door wider and grabbing me by the arm, pulling me inside, and slamming the door behind me. She’s clearly manic about something, but it must not have anything to do with me if she’s so desperate to have me near her.

“I just wanted to come by and see that everything was alright. You seemed a little bit bothered when I dropped you off earlier,” I begin, hoping that my lame preamble into my false apology or explanation is sufficient for her.

“Don’t worry about that. I need to show you something,” she replies, her nervous energy returning as she scampers into the kitchen and retrieves her phone from the floor.

When she comes back, she holds out the phone for me to take, and I’m confused at first.

“This is some guy in the woods,” I reply.

“No, that’s Chad. The guy who got killed?” she says, waiting for me to remember. The name brings back a flood of memories from the night I met Ivory, the battalion of squad cars lighting up the night like a solar flare.

“Yeah, what of him?” I ask, still confused.

“Somebody is posing as him to psych me out, and I don’t know who or why,” she replies, crawling out of her skin from anxiety and subtle terror.

“Why would somebody do that?” I ask.

I don’t doubt that the people at her university are sick fucks who don’t have the depth of character to develop real hobbies aside from terrorizing assault victims. This seems like a new low, though, and I’m curious of a motive. Who would do something so stupid when a phone number can be traced so easily?

Could Sergei be behind this?

The possibility of my own brother being behind this creates its own nervous energy in me, which sells my reaction to the photo even better.

“I don’t know, but I know that there’s some shady stuff about his death, and since the cops came here once already, I just feel unsafe. I feel like a target, and I didn’t even do anything,” she replies, guiding me over to the tiny couch I’ve grown so familiar with and sitting next to me.

Our legs touch as we meet in the middle, and she doesn’t shy away from me at all. Her body is warm and soft against me.

“Okay, let me take the phone number and see if I can find the source of the messages. I know a few people who might be able to help,” I reply.

Ivory squints at me. “How would you know people like that?” she asks.

I’m sure my “involvement” with the police and the laptop was unconvincing.

“People learn to hack for fun all the time. I had a friend in high school who could jam the internet capability of any fast-food restaurant in five minutes,” I reply. That part is true enough. A high school kid with a little bit of extra time and motivation could learn how to break into the president’s email if they wanted to.

“Um, okay, yeah. Write down the number and see if you can find out who it is. I really think I should call my father, though. I feel like this is bigger than me,” she says.

The idea of her contacting her father about this puts a pit in my stomach. Even though it’s my ultimate goal to infiltrate his estate, I can’t let him know I exist in the midst of such suspicious circumstances, especially if my brother has something to do with it.

I’m sure Steven Mae has access to loads of detectives. I don’t fear them, but they would definitely set me back significantly. I’d have to lay low, and that would set off all kinds of red flags in Ivory’s pretty head.

“Hey, don’t worry about that right now, okay? You might be overthinking yourself into a panic attack,” I say, gently placing my hand over her phone as she dials the number. “I’ll take care of this, okay?”

She hesitates but closes the phone screen and sets it down on the table in front of us, right by the burn mark I left on it with my cigar.

“Okay, but if you can’t find anything, I’m calling him. I might even go stay at the estate for a while if it gets bad enough,” she replies.

I can feel her trembling next to me. If I find out Sergei is behind this, I’ll make sure he wishes he was dead.

“I just don’t want you to get involved if it’s dangerous,” she continues. Her concern for me is endearing, to say the least, and she doesn’t understand the extent of my abilities yet.

Before I’m able to assure her that I’m completely capable of staying under the radar, another text comes in. We both jump at the vibration as the phone buzzes loudly on the hardwood table.

When Ivory opens the message, all the blood runs from her face.

“Oh my god, fuck,” she whispers.

She studies the message for what feels like ten minutes, transfixed and horrified to the point of forgetting to breathe.

“What is it?” I ask, growing angrier that somebody is distressing Ivory so much.

Without a word, she shakily turns the phone toward me, and on the screen is a photo of her, naked in the water at the bat caves, engaging with Chad in a mostly ambiguous manner. She doesn’t look happy to be with him, but she is naked. If I knew nothing about her, I would assume they were lovers in the middle of a petty argument.

“I have no idea who took this photo. It looks like I’m staring almost right into the camera,” she says, her voice breaking as tears form in her eyes.

The situation is getting more and more out of hand every five minutes, it seems. I can’t imagine how terrified she must be. It infuriates me. This has to stop.

“Stay with me tonight,” I say with no forethought whatsoever.

I can’t let her stay here by herself, and I definitely can’t let her stay with her father if I can convince her to do otherwise. If she stays with him, my contact with her is significantly limited.

She automatically perks up a bit at the suggestion, maybe a little more than she intended to. “Do you mean that? I mean, I would be right here with all my things ...” she trails off, considering the proposal.

“You would be near your stuff, and nobody would ever assume you’d be hiding in a different apartment in the same building. You could throw them off your trail that way,” I reply.

I’m not wrong. Nobody would ever assume she was staying in the apartment directly below hers. As far as I know, none of her friends live in this building.

“Okay, let me get a small bag together, and I’ll go down to your place with you,” she agrees after a short session of pondering.

Ivory is staying with me tonight. Someone is executing scare tactics on her perfectly, and it’s pushing her right back into my arms. I should thank them, but not before breaking their goddamn neck.