Knocked Up By the Russian Boss by Bella King

Chapter 40

MAXIM

My conversation with Emery started out very composed, based on facts and data gathered about the state of Sergei’s body and where he was found. After he told me where he had been dug up, I felt like I went deaf for the rest of the call.

Sergei’s body was found in the freshly-dug grave of someone else, whose body was found slumped against a wall near a separate cemetery in the middle of the city.

I had never heard the name of the person who was dug up to sacrifice their grave for Sergei, and when I looked them up, nothing of note turned up in the search. Burying Sergei in this person’s grave was completely senseless. It was for nothing.

My body feels numb to the ground below me, to the chill of the wind around me. I don’t remember how the rest of the call went or when Emery hung up. There was a part of me that thought he couldn’t hang up, not until I was ready to handle the weight of the news on my own.

But he’s gone, and I’m standing here in the middle of the sidewalk, completely lost and bewildered by grief.

I’ve never been one to let grief settle in. When our mother died when I was fourteen, I buried the sadness somewhere that, even now, I can’t locate in the recesses of my mind. If I were ever to unearth that sorrow, I don’t know that I’d ever fully recover.

That was the age that Sergei started drinking, and he never slowed down.

The grief needs to turn to rage, like water to wine. I need to transform it into something useful, something that will not only ease the presence of the pain but give me the inspiration to find the person who has done this and tear their fucking limbs off with my bare hands.

Sergei was a loose cannon, but he was my brother, and he was the only person who truly knew who I was on the inside and loved me anyway. I would annihilate his murderer’s entire family if I knew it would bring him back for just one day.

For now, though, I need to focus on my first meeting with Steven Mae.

Ivory’s pissed at me, for sure. She didn’t deserve for me to be so short with her, but I have no fucking idea how I’m going to get through the night without telling her that the person in the horrific photo was my dead brother. There would be no way for me to explain it to her without giving away exactly who I am and what I do, in which case I’m not certain I can trust her not to turn me in. I’m drowning in anger, frustration, and heartbreak.

How am I going to get through this? Ivory’s pregnant, just as I wanted her to be, but now I need to exact revenge for the murder of my brother, and I have no idea where to begin.

Ivory will need me with her every step of the way throughout the pregnancy. She’s so young and has so little figured out that this entire process will be terrifying for her regardless, but my presence with or without her could be what decides our fate as lovers.

I need her in my life. I need to keep her close to me to keep her safe. If I could apologize to her for involving her in all this, I would do it ten thousand times if it meant she would forgive me and stay with me.

The whole entire point of accessing Ivory was to not only get her pregnant but to infiltrate her father’s estate and gain information that I can use to extort him. If I go through with it and leak the information, she’ll know immediately who it was.

There’s no way for me to hide it, and the thought of her entire world collapsing as she realizes who I am is too much for me to bear.

I send her a quick text letting her know that I’m getting ready for the night.

I find my best tux and slip into it, wondering if my physical presentation will make a difference in how Steven Mae perceives me. I’ve struggled my whole life with not being able to read other peoples’ perceptions of me, and part of me has always been painfully self-conscious about having the aura of a criminal, something I can’t turn off or conceal. It sounds insane, but it’s something I’ve never been able to shake.

Ivory doesn’t answer me, and I don’t blame her. In fact, I’m proud of her for realizing that I was treating her poorly and that I don’t warrant an immediate response or her forgiveness. She might be young, but she’s a lot more in-depth with her self-worth than other girls her age, and that’s something I hope she can hold onto as she raises our baby.

For somebody raised by two narcissists, she’s really got her shit together mentally.

All of the equipment that I’ll need to hack Steven’s computer is small enough for me to keep concealed in my jacket. If I’m correct, he’s probably pretty old-school as far as security goes, so I won’t need to worry about tripping a sophisticated security system that’ll get my ass thrown into prison.

I’ve got to make a plan in my head of how exactly I’m going to access the computer, much less find it in his fucking huge house. It’s not going to be so easy.

There weren’t a whole lot of other targets in the political world, not for me at least. If I was insane, I could have chosen to marry one of the younger, less influential women, all of them recent graduates of political science and still completely true to their cause. Ivory is equal parts connected and corruptible, still uncertain of her motivations and plans for the future.

Now that I’ve enmeshed my life with hers, I feel more responsible to keep her safe and happy than I did before. I didn’t think I’d allow her this much access to my emotions, but here I am, and I need to make things right between us.

I don’t know how, but I’m going to have to pull off something far greater than a heist. I have to pull off love.