by Sophia Gray
Pregnant belly and all. Not that I was showing yet but it was only a matter of time.
You hadn’t been able to find a job outside of Anton’s offer. What makes you think you’ll find a job now?
I’ll find something.
I hoped.
To my surprise, the doorknob didn’t turn. My mom never locked the door. Maybe it was a blessing in disguise she had locked it. Better to be safe. I shoved in my key, turned the lock, and found my mom on the couch, reading a historical romance.
She lowered her book and glanced up with a smile. “Lily. What are you doing here?”
To delay, I put my stuff down on the coffee table carefully. Then I hugged her. “Where’s Clara?” I asked.
“Clara went to the grocery store,” Mom said, eyeing me. “What’s wrong? You look upset.” She shifted her legs off the couch so I could sit beside her.
“Well…it’s a long story,” I warned. What would she think when I told her?
“I don’t have anywhere to go.” My mom closed her book and set it on the coffee table next to my pile. “What’s going on?”
I couldn’t bring myself to say anything. I just stared at her book. The woman looked adoringly at her bare chested man, who was gazing back at her as if she was the only woman in the world. Books always had happy endings. Too bad this was my life. I hadn’t had a happy ending ever.
“Is it about your new job?” Mom asked.
And there it was. I nodded and swallowed past a lump in my throat.
“What exactly is your new job?” My mom tilted her head to the side. “I can’t remember you telling me much about it.” She rubbed her temple. “Don’t tell me my memory is going, too. I can’t handle that on top of—”
I grabbed her hand and gave it a tight squeeze. “No. I haven’t told you about my job.”
She threw me a shrew glare. “And there’s a reason you’ve kept it from me, isn’t there?” she asked.
With my free hand, I rubbed the back of my neck. “Yes.”
My mom closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. “What is it?” she whispered as she opened her eyes, but then she didn’t give me a chance to answer, just added, “Tables. You’re dancing on tables, aren’t you?”
“No.” I shook my head.
“A hooker, then, is that it?” she demanded.
“Not exactly,” I hedged. I couldn’t look at her.
She blinked rapidly. “Not exactly? What does that even mean?” Her voice sounded strong and firm, something it hadn’t in a while. I should be glad, but oh God, if she was this worked up already, how would she react when she learned the truth?
I sighed. I so needed a drink.
Wait. No alcohol.
Great.
“I signed a contract,” I started.
“For…” my mom prompted when I just stopped talking.
“This isn’t easy.” I exhaled loudly. I wanted to rub my stomach. Strange. It wasn’t like that I was a habit of mine, and I wasn’t that far along at all. Must just be a sub-conscious pregnancy thing.
“Are you in trouble?” my mom asked quietly.
Kind of. “I signed a contract with Anton Kovalsky.” I waited to gauge her reaction.
She frowned. “Is that name supposed to mean something to me?”
Considering I hadn’t recognized him by name either, I wasn’t surprised to learn she didn’t know him either. “He is Alec’s boss. You remember Alec, right?”
“That guy who dated Denise. You couldn’t stand him. Thought he was bad news.” She did a double take. “Didn’t you think he was in the mob? And if this Anton guy you’re working for is his boss…” Her eyes narrowed, and her jaw tightened. “Just what was the contract for, Lily?”
“He paid me a million dollars—”
Mom stilled, but I could see her mind was churning, thinking about all of the things a man — a mob boss — would want in exchange for that kind of sum of money.
Best to just blurt it out.
“—for an heir,” I said in a rush. “A son. He was supposed to pay me another million once I gave birth, but now that I’m pregnant—”
My mom burst into tears, huge sobs that shook her body. “Why would you do such a thing?”
I was crying, too. The tears burned down my cheeks. “I…I had no choice. I lost my job. I was fired. The bills were mounting, and your treatment… I swear this was not an easy decision. I didn’t want to…but there weren’t any other jobs. I searched. Denise searched too. I saw the opportunity, I saw the money, I took it, and now…”
My mom started to cry even harder now. I held her close, rubbing her back as she trembled in my arms. This wasn’t good. She shouldn’t be this stressed out. I never should’ve told her the truth. I hated stretching the truth as it was with her. My mom was the one person I relied on. She was all the family I had left. I was terrified. I wasn’t sure I could get through this by myself. If she wasn’t on my side, there was no way I could do all of this, could handle it.
Starting a new family by myself.
“I’d never…” my mom started, but she had to pause to composure herself. “I’d never want my daughter to have to do such a thing. You did this for me, and—”
“Don’t worry, Mom.” I clasped her hands to my chest. “I will never leave you again, Anton or no Anton.”
Maybe I could bring her with me. She would need a new doctor, but we might be able to make it work.
Her gaze drifted to my belly. “If he’s a… The contract. If you…you’re thinking about…you came here because you’re leaving him? Running away with his child?”
I nodded, defiant, ready…well, as ready as I could be.
“I don’t know,” she murmured. She freed a hand and touched my stomach. “He will not let you both go. You have to realize that.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said stubbornly. I shook my head, but my stomach churned. She was right.
“He has the power, the money, the prestige…” Mom grimaced. “What if he has his men kidnap you? What if he drags you to court? What if he demands his money back because you tried to breach the contract?”
I pulled away and stood, staring down at her. “What are you saying?” I asked, my voice trembling. I wrung my hands. “What do you think I should do?”
“I think…” My mom shifted and stared out the window for a long moment. “I think,” she said finally, “you need to work things out with Anton, for the baby’s sake.”
Work things out? She couldn’t be serious.
“But you don’t know what he’s done!”
“Has he hurt you?”
“No,” I admitted.
“Do you think he’ll start hurting you?”
“No, but—”
“He’s a man with resources. He would be able to hunt you down, Lily. If you stay, he’ll make sure you are cared for, that the baby is cared for.”
She had a point.
But he had killed a man. While I didn’t think he would harm me, he was clearly desperate for a child. If push came to shove, would he threaten me? Would he hurt me? I’d like to think he wouldn’t, but did I really know him?
I shook my head. “I don’t know.”
My mom appraised me. “There’s something else,” she said quietly. “What else is it?”
“What? No.” I rubbed my throat. She always could tell when I was trying to hide something. “There’s nothing—”
“You feel for him, don’t you? It’s bad enough you signed that contract and got yourself pregnant and now have to give over your baby—”
“I won’t give over my baby,” I said firmly. My hands curled into fists.
“I don’t think you have much of a say in that,” my mom said sadly. She looked so forlorn that I felt torn up about everything all over again.
“I…I can’t. I can’t.” Can’t love him. Can’t leave him. Can’t do anything. I was stuck.
“It is your life,” my mom said. “You aren’t a child. I can’t tell you
what to do.”
“If you were me…”
“I wouldn’t have signed the contract,” she said wryly.
“Not even to save your mom?” I asked, crossing my arms. Even she couldn’t deny my intentions were good.
“Well…” My mom considered her options. “I wouldn’t risk leaving. You took his money. You spent his money. Clara. And the chauffeurs. They’re from Anton I take it?”
“Yes.”
“Were they part of the contract?” she asked.
I hesitated. “No.”
My mom nodded as if that explained a lot. “Did you ask him to provide them?”
“No.” I shook my head.
“So he did that on his own, without any prompting.”
I nodded.
Silence descended. I tried to think, to reason things through, but I couldn’t concentrate. I had been with a few men before Anton, but I hadn’t fallen for any of them as hard as I had Anton. With them, there hadn’t ever been a point of time when I thought I might be with them for the rest of my life. With Anton, I might’ve thought that once or twice, but that had been before I learned for certain of his job and before he told me he had killed a man. He hadn’t told me why he had killed him, and I hadn’t asked.
My mom cleared her throat. “Is he a good man?” she asked quietly.
Was he? For being a mob boss, he wasn’t a terrible man, but that didn’t mean he was good. “I don’t know,” I finally answered.
“What has you running? You came here wanting to leave. Why?”
“I just found out I’m pregnant.” I hunched down, curling into a ball, my arms wrapped around my belly.
“So you got scared?” My mom was watching me closely.
“Yes.” Not a lie, but it wasn’t the complete truth either.
“I don’t know all of the ins and outs about this, but I hate that you felt the need to get involved with a man like him. I hate that I’m sick. I hate that I can’t work, can’t provide for myself, for you. That you would feel the need to—”
“Mom, I did what I had to in order to help provide for us.” And if I went back in time, I doubted I would make another choice. I hadn’t had another viable option.
“I just don’t…” She shook her head and wouldn’t meet my gaze.
“Mom.” I sat back down beside her and hugged her tight. “I don’t resent you. Is that what has you worried?”
She looked back at me, tears in her eyes again. “I’m sorry.”
“You have no reason to be,” I reassured her. “I’m not sure what I’m going to do tomorrow, but for now, I’m staying right here.”
Yes. I’d stay the night and think things over and figure out what the heck I was going to do. Running might not be the easy option I wanted it to be. My mom made a good point: Anton would have the means to locate me easily. He had the resources.
But someone was obviously targeting him, someone powerful enough that he desperately wanted an heir. Would he be too caught up in that to worry about me?
Maybe he could easily forget about me, but there was no way he was going to forget about the baby I was carrying.
I had no idea what to do.
Chapter 26
Anton
Life was looking up. Everything was falling into place. My plan for Vanya Golovkin was slowly coming together, and Lily was pregnant. I didn’t need anything else. Revenge and a new start, together.
I was even whistling as I sped along. Happy. Imagine that. Happiness wasn’t a feeling I enjoyed too often, honestly, but that was exactly how I could describe my current mood. Too bad happiness only lasted for a few short minutes.
My phone vibrating from what had to be several calls had me pulling over to the side of the road. I removed my phone from my pocket. Leo. A bad feeling formed a rock in my stomach and another in my throat.
“What is it?” I asked, not bothering with niceties. If he were calling, he wouldn’t have good news to share. Had something happened to Lily? Had something happened to the baby? Maybe I should’ve called the doctor as soon as I woke up this morning.
All kinds of scenarios, each one worse than the previous one, ran through my mind as I waited with baited breath for Leo to answer.
“It’s Lily,” Leo said. He sounded nervous. It took a lot to make Leo nervous. He was generally unflappable, which was why I assigned him to Lily in the first place.
“What about her?” I growled.
“She ran off.”
I closed my eyes. Out of all the things that could’ve happened, I couldn’t believe it. How dare she run off! My free hand curled into a tight fist. Anger rolled through me. What had she been thinking? Obviously, she hadn’t been. I couldn’t believe she would be so stupid as to endanger herself and our child just because of a spat. Yes, I should’ve known better than to tell her I had killed a man, but I had been pissed that she hadn’t immediately told me when she discovered she was pregnant. She had been playing games with me, so I decided to play back. I wasn’t the kind of guy to take betrayal well.
I hadn’t even given it enough thought as to why she had kept her pregnancy a secret from me in the first place. Why had she kept it a secret? Was she thinking about backing out? About ditching the contract and ignoring our deal? Was she trying to keep the baby from me? The baby I had paid for? The baby I wanted more than anything?
I hadn’t bothered to explain to her why I had killed the man. Maybe I should have, but I had my reasons. One, I would’ve had to tell her everything about Golovkin and my revenge, and, two, my goal had always been to keep her separate from my work life. I wanted to keep her away from that part of me. I cared for her more than I should. It’s not fair for me to want her as much as I do. She could never be safe while with me; that much was clear. The two aspects of my life couldn’t remain separated. If she was going to be the one to give me my child, she would need to understand what exactly she was getting into, and, yes, I had probably done her a great injustice by not being upfront from the start, but how could I be certain she, or any other woman, would stick around to give me an heir if they knew the truth? That not only was I a mob boss but my biggest enemy was on the loose. That I had plans for revenge. That I would kill and kill again. That I had more enemies than just Golovkin. That my life had plenty of danger to it. That my life might soon be ended if I weren’t careful.
And what killed me was that Lily actually knew or at least suspected how dangerous my world could be. She had been accosted and instructed to give me a threat from one of Golovkin’s goons already. I had no issue with her seeing her mother, but that she had once again left without a bodyguard suggested something much worse. Leo would know if she had been taken, so if she had left, it was of her own free will.
I closed my eyes and counted to ten. I needed a level head. “When did she leave?” I asked.
“I…I’m not sure. There hasn’t been any activity to suggest foul play.”
I doubted very much that Golovkin or his men would’ve made a move against my house. Not when I wasn’t there. Maybe it was innocent, and I was jumping to an erroneous conclusion. “Do you think she went to see her mother?”
“The last few times she’s visited, she brought me along with her,” Leo stated. There was a hint of worry in his voice. There was something else to the story.
“What did she take with her?” I asked, dreading the answer. A migraine was beginning to pound.
“Some clothes. Her purse. Her phone and her phone charger.”
Did she plan on returning? I doubted it, and yet I hoped my doubts were unfounded. Lily was smart. She would come to realize that staying with me was her only option. If I weren’t mistaken, I was starting to believe I meant as much to Lily as she was beginning to mean to me. I never talked to another woman like I did with her. I never shared so much of my future hopes and dreams with another woman. The others had solely been about the sex, and while that had been the very reason why Lily and I got together, it had changed and morphed and became so much
more.
Not just for me…right?
“When did you first realize she was gone?” I growled out, putting the call on speaker so I could continue driving and floor it back to my house. I could have some of the men searching for Lily while a few could start to set in motion a trap for Golovkin. Maybe we could set up a fake meeting between him and pose as Garcia Trucking. But I couldn’t concentrate on my revenge. Not with Lily gone. “How long ago?”
“About an hour ago. I tried looking for her everywhere—”