Nine Months to Bear By Nicole Fox - 65
65 I stand in the hallway outside Olivia’s room, my hand raised to knock for the third time. The door stays locked. Silent. “Stefushka, mudak !” I turn just in time to dodge Babushka’s open palm. It whooshes past my ear. “What did you do?” She swings again. I duck. “What did you do to that poor girl...
65
I stand in the hallway outside Olivia’s room, my hand raised to knock for the third time. The door stays locked. Silent.
“Stefushka, mudak !”
I turn just in time to dodge Babushka’s open palm. It whooshes past my ear.
“What did you do?” She swings again. I duck. “What did you do to that poor girl?”
“Babushka—”
Her cane comes up to take a crack at me. I step back to avoid it taking off a chunk of my temple.
“She’s been crying for hours. Hours , Stefan. The walls are thin. I can hear everything.”
Another swing. This one catches my shoulder.
“Ow, goddammit!”
“Good. You deserve worse!” She jabs the cane at my chest. “That girl loves you. And you…” She shakes her head. “You broke her heart.”
“That’s not what happened.”
“Then what happened?”
I open my mouth. Close it. How do I explain the journal, the plans, the systematic destruction of everything she built her life on?
“ … I fucked up.”
“Obviously.” She hits me again with the cane. “The question is how badly.”
“Bad.”
“ How bad?”
“She found some documents. Plans I made before… before I knew her.”
Babushka’s eyes narrow. “What kind of plans?”
“Business plans. About her clinic.”
“Ah.” She lowers the cane. “You were going to take it from her.”
She knows me too well.
“It was before—”
“Stop with the ‘before’! Before you fell in love with her? Pah! Tupitsa!” The cane comes up once more to whack me. I shut up, but it doesn’t stop her from smacking me across the shoulders. “You think I’m blind? Deaf? You think I don’t see how you look at her? You love that girl. And she loves you. And now, you’ve ruined it with your schemes and your compulsive need to control everything.”
“I had reasons,” I rasp. “I’m trying to protect her.”
She shakes her head. “You can’t protect people from life, Stefushka. You can only live it with them.”
Through the door, I hear something. A muffled sob. My chest tightens.
“She won’t even talk to me.”
“Would you? If someone you trusted showed you papers proving they planned to destroy you?”
I slide to a seat on the floor, back against the wall, eyes closed. “I need to fix this.”
“Yes, you do.”
“But first, I need to deal with Mikayla. She knows about the baby. About Olivia. If she’s really working with Zakharov—”
“Then you handle it. But Stefan…” She taps my shin with her cane. “If you don’t fix this with Olivia, if you let that girl walk away with your child, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.”
“I know. I just need to handle Mikayla first. Make sure Olivia’s safe.”
“Fine. Go. Play your games. Hunt your traitors.” She turns toward Olivia’s door. “I’ll stay with her. Make sure she eats something and that she doesn’t do anything stupid.”
“Like leave?”
“Like give up on you entirely.” She looks back at me. “You have one chance to fix this, Stefushka. One . Don’t waste it.”
I nod, rise to my feet, and head for the stairs. Behind me, I hear Babushka knock gently on Olivia’s door. “Olivia, dear? I have tea. And cookies. The chocolate ones you like.”
The door doesn’t open, but I hear Olivia’s voice, small and broken. “I’m not hungry.”
“I know, dear. But the baby needs to eat.”
A pause. Then the lock clicks open.
I don’t stay to hear more.
The tech team has taken over my office like locusts. Three men hunched over laptops, cables snaking across my Persian rug, monitors stacked on every surface. They’re good—the best money can buy—but watching them work is fucking agonizing, because I can’t simply take over and do it all myself.
“How long?” I ask the lead tech.
“To lock her out completely? Another hour, maybe two. She had deep access, Mr. Safonov. Like, deep deep. She could see everything. Financial records, security protocols, personnel files—”
“I get it.” I cut him off. Mikayla had her fingers in every part of my operation. Eight years of trust, and she’d used every second to worm her way deeper into my infrastructure.
Taras lounges against my desk, picking at his teeth with a business card. “You know what the real problem is?”
I growl in irritation. “We have about fifty real problems right now.”
“No, just one.” He flicks the card into the trash and points at me. “You’re distracted. You’re thinking about Olivia instead of handling the threat.”
“I’m handling it just fucking fine, actually.”
“Are you? Because from where I’m standing, you’re letting emotions cloud your judgment. Again.”
I turn from the monitors. “Meaning?”
“Meaning Olivia knows too much now. She’s seen your journal, your plans. She’s carrying your kid, which gives her leverage. And she’s pissed at you.” He shrugs. “In my experience, pissed women with leverage don’t make great allies.”
“She’s not going to—”
“What? Turn on you? Go to the feds? How do you know?”
“Because I know her.”
“You knew Mikayla, too.”
The comparison makes my jaw clench. “Olivia’s nothing like Mikayla.”
“No, she’s worse. Mikayla was a professional. This was business. Cold-blooded business, but business nonetheless. But Olivia?” He shakes his head. “She’s emotional. Hurt. Those are the dangerous ones, Stefan.”
“She won’t betray me.”
“Even after what she found?”
“She won’t,” I repeat, but the certainty feels thinner now.
“You sure about that? Because if I were her, feeling betrayed and trapped, carrying the baby of a man who lied to me…” He lets it hang. “I might think the FBI could offer me a better deal.”
“Drop it.”
“I’m just saying—”
“I said to fucking drop it.”
The lead tech clears his throat. “Um, Mr. Safonov? We’ve isolated Mikayla’s remote access, but there’s something weird here.”
“Define ‘weird.’”
“These timestamps. It looks like she was accessing files as recently as… thirty minutes ago.”
“From where?”
“I can’t tell quite yet. The IP’s masked, bouncing through like twelve different—”
The lights flicker. Just once, but enough to make everyone freeze.
Then the alarms start. Not the subtle electronic chirp of the security system, but the full-throated wail of every one of my mansion’s emergency protocols activating at once.
“What the fuck—?” Taras is in motion, hand going to his gun.
But I don’t bother. Because, through the windows, I see them. Black SUVs streaming through the gates. A lot of them.
“Feds,” I say, surprisingly calm. “Everyone stay calm. Kevin, wipe everything.”
“Hold up,” the tech complains, “what the hell? I need more time—”
“You have thirty seconds.”
I’m already moving toward the door, straightening my tie, preparing for the performance of a lifetime. Taras falls into step beside me.
“This is Mikayla,” he mutters. “She gave them everything.”
“Probably.”
“You’re awfully calm for someone about to get arrested.”
I shoot my cuffs. “They need evidence to make anything stick. We’ve been careful.”
“Not careful enough if they’re here.”
The front door explodes inward before we reach it. FBI agents flood the foyer, weapons drawn, shouting commands. I stop at the top of the stairs, hands visible but not raised.
Never show fear. Never show submission.
“Gentlemen,” I call down, “is all this really necessary? You could’ve simply knocked.”
The agent in charge steps forward—older, gray at the temples, eyes like a cop who’s seen too much and believes even less. His badge reads Medina .
“Stefan Safonov?” he barks.
“You know who I am.”
“We have a warrant.”
“Of course you do.” I start down the stairs, slow and controlled. “My lawyer will want to see that. But by all means, until he arrives, please, search away.”
Medina’s hand hovers near his weapon. “Search? No, that’s not why we’re here.”
“No?”
He pulls out the warrant and shakes it at me. “We’re here for Dr. Olivia Aster.”
I stop mid-step as that pain launches itself up my throat again. I can taste it now: blood and fear. “On what charges?”
“Conspiracy to commit money laundering. Operating an unlicensed medical facility. Fraud.” His smile is thin and mean. “Should I continue?”
“She has nothing to do with—”
“Stefan.”
Olivia’s voice cuts through everything. She’s at the top of the stairs now, still in the same clothes from earlier. Her face is pale but her chin is up. Babushka hovers behind her, looking ready to beat federal agents with her cane if push comes to shove.
“Dr. Aster,” Agent Medina calls up, “we need you to come with us.”
“No.” I move to block the stairs. “She’s not going anywhere.”
“Stefan, stop.” Olivia’s voice is quiet. Tired. “Just stop.”
She starts down the stairs. I reach for her arm as she passes, but she pulls away and keeps descending without looking at me.
“Olivia, don’t do this. Let me call my lawyer. This is Mikayla’s fault. She fed them lies—”
“Did she?” Olivia finally looks at me, and what I see there guts me. Not fear. Not panic. Just resignation. Like she expected this. Like she knew this was coming the moment she found my journal. “Or did she just tell them the truth?”
“You know that’s not—”
“I don’t know anything.” She keeps going. Elegant, graceful, proud. “Apparently, I never did.”
Agent Medina watches our exchange with interest. “Dr. Aster, we’ll need to restrain you. Protocol, you know?”
“I understand.”
She reaches the bottom of the stairs. An agent approaches with handcuffs. The sight of them makes something primal roar to life in my chest.
“Don’t fucking touch her!”
The agent hesitates and looks for guidance. Medina nods and he proceeds anyway, reaching for Olivia’s wrists.
“I said don’t—”
I’m moving before I can think. One second, I’m on the stairs; the next, I’m lunging for the agent. I’m so close to breaking his smug fucking face, to spilling blood that needs so badly to be spilled—
Then Taras is there, his arms around me, dragging me backward before I can hit anyone or anything.
“Stefan, no,” he warns in my ear. “Not like this.”
“Get off me!”
“You assault a federal agent, you’re done,” he hisses. “Think, man! Use your fucking head!”
Every agent has their weapon drawn and leveled at me. Medina watches the whole thing with cold calculation.
“Mr. Safonov, I suggest you control yourself. Unless you’d like to join Dr. Aster in cuffs?”
Taras’s grip tightens. “He’s good. He’s calm. Right, Stefan?”
I’m not calm. I’m the opposite of calm. But Olivia… she’s just standing there, wrists out, letting them pat her down and cuff her like she’s already given up.
“Olivia,” I beg, “look at me.”
She doesn’t.
“Olivia, please.”
The agent finishes with the cuffs. They look obscene on her wrists. Too big, too heavy for someone who saves lives instead of taking them.
They belong on me, not her.
“This is my fault,” I tell her. “All of it. Let me fix it.”
She still won’t look at me. “You can’t fix this, Stefan. You can’t fix something that was broken from the start.”
“The baby—”
“The baby will be fine,” she murmurs. “I’m sure your lawyers will work out visitation. Isn’t that what contracts are for?”
I hate the voice that’s coming out of her. It’s empty and cold. Like we’re already done, already divided, already strangers again.
“This isn’t over,” I tell her.
“Yes, it is.” She finally meets my eyes, and I see it all there—the resentment for what I did, the disappointment in what we could have been, and worst of all, the resolve to walk away without ever looking back. “If we’re being honest, there was never anything there to begin with.”
Medina nods to his agents. “Let’s go.”
They start shepherding her toward the door. Her head is high, shoulders straight. Even in handcuffs, even being arrested, she looks dignified. Untouchable.
“Olivia!”
She doesn’t turn around.
“I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.”
She pauses at the door but doesn’t look back. “If only that meant anything anymore.”
Then she’s gone, ducking into the back of a black SUV.
No backward glance. No hesitation. Just… gone.
I stand in my own doorway, Taras still holding me back, watching the convoy of federal vehicles stream out of my gates.
“How?” I ask no one in particular. “How did it all go wrong so fast?”
Taras releases me slowly, like he’s afraid I might chase after the cars. “Mikayla played us. She played us perfectly.”
But that’s not what I’m asking. I’m asking how I went from having Olivia in my bed this morning, soft and warm and mine, to watching her leave in handcuffs with hatred in her eyes.
I went from planning a future to losing everything.
I became exactly what I swore I’d never be: a man ruined by love.