This motel sucks.
I’ve been staring at the same water stain on the ceiling for three hours now, watching it morph from an amorphous blob into what looks suspiciously like my life crumbling before my eyes.
Metaphors are coming on strong today.
My phone rings for what must be at least the forty-seventh time. I don’t have to look to know it’s Vince. Again.
His texts have evolved from commanding (Call me immediately) to concerned (Where are you?) to something that might almost panic (Please just let me know you’re safe).
I almost feel bad.
Almost.
Then I remember everything.
Turns out I don’t feel bad at all.
I roll onto my side, wincing as my tender breasts press against the mattress. Morning sickness has been replaced with all-day nausea, a cruel reminder that no matter how far I run, I’ll never truly escape Vincent Akopov.
Not with his baby growing inside me.
The thought sends me scrambling for the bathroom again, where I empty the meager contents of my stomach into a toilet that was already gross several hundred occupants ago.
When I’m done, I rest my forehead against the cool porcelain, not even caring about germs anymore.
“You okay in there, baby?” I whisper, my hand finding its way to my stomach. “I’m sorry things are so messed up. I didn’t know… I still don’t know…”
Tears threaten again. How, I’ll never know. I’ve cried more in the last eight hours than I have in the past five years. At this point, the liquid coming out of my eyes is pure Pedialyte.
Back on the lumpy bed, I grab my laptop—my own, not Vince’s—and open a fresh browser window. My fingers hover over the keyboard for a moment before I type:
Grigor Petrov Russian Bratva
The search results load, and suddenly, I’m staring at the face of a man who is allegedly my father.
Silver hair. Unforgiving eyes. Scars pockmarking his cheeks and forehead.
He looks nothing like me, but I could swear there’s a glimmer of something familiar in the set of his jaw.
Or maybe I’m just imagining things, because I desperately want some part of this to make sense.
I click through article after article, piecing together a picture of the man who apparently contributed half my DNA. Grigor Petrov: notorious Russian crime boss, sometimes-enemy of the Akopov family, responsible for countless deaths and disappearances over a decades-long blood feud interspersed with periods where the families pretend to get along before inevitably stabbing each other in the back again.
Also, my father.
Or so Vince says.
One article mentions his family: a wife, two sons, no mention of a daughter. Nothing about an American woman named Margaret St. Clair.
Could it really be true? Could my absentee father—the man Mom always described as “just some guy who couldn’t handle responsibility”—actually be one of the most dangerous criminals in Brighton Beach?
Mom. I need to see her. But what would I even say?
Hey, Mom, funny story—remember my deadbeat dad? Turns out he’s actually a Russian mob boss! Oh, and the father of my baby has been investigating me for five years because he thought I might be a plant! Pass the Jello?
I close the laptop, feeling sick again. Not morning sickness this time. Just pure, unadulterated despair.
How could I have been so stupid? So naive? I let myself believe in fairy tales—that Vincent Akopov, of all people, had fallen in love with plain, ordinary me. That the most powerful, violent man I’d ever met had somehow seen past all his options to choose the girl from Marketing with the secondhand clothes and the mountain of medical debt.
But it was never about love. It was about control. Keeping your playthings close and your enemies closer.
My phone vibrates again.
This time, it’s not Vince, but Natalie.
Hey girl, just checking in! Haven’t heard from you in a few days. Lunch soon?
That gut punch hurts almost as bad as all the others.
My so-called best friend. Five years of friendship, and it was all a job. An assignment. All those late-night heart-to-hearts, the shoulders cried on, the secrets shared—nothing but intelligence gathering for Vincent fucking Akopov.
I hurl the phone across the room.
It bounces harmlessly off a pillow because even in my rage, I’m practical enough to know I can’t afford a new one.
Sleep eventually takes me, but it offers no escape. In my dreams, I’m running through endless corridors while men with silver hair and ice-blue eyes chase me, their hands reaching for the child I clutch to my chest.
No matter how fast I run, in the end, they catch me.
They always catch me.
“You look terrible, honey,” Mom says as soon as I walk into her hospital room.
She’s sitting up in bed, looking better than she has in months. The treatment is working—at least that much wasn’t a lie.
“Thanks for the confidence boost.” I force a smile, leaning down to kiss her forehead. “You, on the other hand, look great.”
“Don’t change the subject.” She pats the bed beside her. “Sit. Tell me what’s wrong.”
I perch on the edge of her mattress, wondering how much I can safely say. How much she already knows.
Is my entire life a carefully constructed fiction? Did Mom knowingly have a child with a Russian crime lord, or was she just as manipulated as I’ve been?
“Just pregnant stuff,” I lie. “Morning sickness. Fatigue. The usual.”
She studies my face, clearly not buying it. “And things with Vincent?”
The sound of his name alone makes my chest ache. “Complicated.”
“Relationships usually are.” She reaches for my hand. “Especially when the men in question are strong-willed.”
I look up sharply. “What do you mean by that?”
“Just that your fiancé strikes me as a very determined man.” She shrugs. “The type who’s used to getting his way.”
“You have no idea,” I mutter.
“Try me.” There’s something in her voice: a steeliness I don’t usually associate with my gentle, long-suffering mother.
For a moment, I’m tempted to spill everything. To ask if she knows who—or what—Grigor Petrov is. To demand the truth about my parentage.
But one look at her face stops me.
She’s finally getting better after years of suffering. The last thing she needs is to learn that her daughter is caught between two warring crime families, carrying the grandchild of one and possibly being the biological child of the other.
Some truths are too heavy to bear.
“It’s nothing,” I say, squeezing her hand. “Just pre-wedding jitters, I guess.”
“Hm.” She doesn’t believe me, but she doesn’t press. “Well, whatever’s happening, I’m here if you need to talk. I always have been.”
Have you? I think. Or have you been keeping secrets, too?
We spend the next hour making small talk about her treatment, the hospital food, the new nurse with the unfortunate combover who keeps flirting with her.
Normal things. Safe things. As if my entire world isn’t collapsing around me.
When I finally leave, promising to return tomorrow, I spot them immediately: two men in dark suits, trying very hard to look inconspicuous near the hospital entrance.
Vince’s security detail.
Rage bubbles up so fast I’m halfway across the lobby before I even realize I’m moving. I march right up to the taller one—Dimitri, I think—and poke him in the chest.
“Tell your boss if he wants to know where I am, he can ask me himself instead of having me followed like I’m some kind of criminal!”
Dimitri blinks down at me, clearly surprised by the five-foot-four tornado suddenly in his face. “Ms. St. Clair—”
“No, you listen to me.” I’m causing a scene, but I don’t care. Can’t care. Not anymore. “I am not Vince’s property. I’m not a surveillance target. I’m a person, goddammit!”
“A person who’s about to get herself killed if she keeps shouting in public like this.”
I whirl around to find Arkady standing behind me, his usual easygoing demeanor replaced with something tight and wary. His eyes scan the hospital lobby constantly, like he’s expecting an attack from any direction.
“What do you want?” I demand.
“Not here.” He takes my elbow and starts to guide me toward the exit. “Let’s go somewhere private.”
I jerk away from his touch. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“Rowan.” His voice drops, uncharacteristically serious. “You are currently standing in the open with at least three different hitmen watching your every move. We need to leave. Now.”
“Wh-what are you talking about? What hitmen?”
He sighs, exasperated. “The ones who now know you’re Grigor Petrov’s daughter carrying Vincent Akopov’s child. You might as well have a flashing target on your back and a neon sign that says Please Kill Me.”
My blood runs cold. “How— How do they know?”
“Information travels fast in our world. Especially information this explosive.” He nods toward the exit. “Car’s waiting. We can talk there.”
Against my better judgment, I follow him. Something in his tone—the urgency, the genuine concern—cuts through my anger.
Once we’re in the back seat of a dark SUV with tinted windows, Arkady turns to face me. “The situation is complicated,” he begins.
“No shit,” I interrupt. “My fiancé’s been investigating me for five years because he thinks I’m the daughter of his family’s biggest enemy. My best friend is on his payroll. My entire life is a lie. Please, tell me more about how complicated things are.”
Arkady fidgets uncomfortably. “I understand you’re upset—”
“Upset? I’m not upset, Arkady. I’m fucking devastated.” My voice cracks on the last word. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to discover your entire life is some kind of sick surveillance operation?”
“Vin’s intentions were never—”
“I don’t give a damn about his intentions!” I snap. “I care about the fact that he lied to me.”
Arkady sighs, running a hand through his blonde hair. “Fair enough. But right now, we have bigger problems.”
“What could possibly be a bigger problem than finding out the father of my child has been manipulating me since day one?”
“How about the fact that Andrei Akopov’s enemies now see you as the perfect leverage against him and his son?” Arkady’s voice is grim. “Or that Grigor Petrov’s rivals would love nothing more than to get their hands on his secret American daughter?”
I stare at him, the full implications slowly sinking in. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that the moment your identity became known, you became a walking target.” He holds my gaze. “The Solovyovs already have a plan to grab you. The Egorovs are watching your apartment. And those are just the ones we know about.”
I close my eyes, trying to process this new nightmare. “So what am I supposed to do? Hide forever?”
“Go back to Vin,” Arkady offers, as if it’s the most obvious solution in the world. “Let him protect you.”
I laugh in his face. “Right. Because I can totally trust him.”
“You can trust that he won’t let anything happen to you or that baby.” Arkady looks at me with unexpected seriousness. “Whatever else he’s done, whatever lies he’s told… That much is true. You know it is.”
I turn away, looking out at the city passing by. All these normal people living their normal lives, blissfully unaware of the shadow world lurking just beneath the surface.
“Take me back to my motel,” I say finally. “I need to think.”
“Rowan—”
“My motel, Arkady. Now.”
He sighs but relays the instruction to the driver. When we pull up outside my seedy temporary refuge, Arkady hands me a card. “My private number. Call anytime, day or night, if you feel threatened.”
I take it reluctantly. “Thanks.”
“Rowan…” He waits until I look at him. “Vince may be many things—arrogant, controlling, occasionally homicidal—but he does love you. That wasn’t part of any plan.”
I step out of the car without responding.
I don’t want to hear any of it.
