Page 72 of Her Silver Fox Mountain Men

“Igor won’t rest until I’m dead,” I tell them.

“Then we’ll make sure he dies first,” Roman bluntly replies, and I give him a startled look. “It’s either you or him.”

“Okay,” I nod slowly. “I’ll tell you everything I know. I’ll give you everything I have on him. What else do you need?”

The guys look at each other, their gazes softening as they shift back to me.

Outside, it’s getting colder, the sky above a dark grey, a thick mist oozing through the forest, stretching toward the house like an ominous blanket. An unpleasant feeling lingers in the back of my throat as my men go over every option available to us.

“We’ll need to find our missing guys first,” James says. “The crew we had working with Kara. We need to know they’re okay.”

“What if Igor got to them?” Oliver asks.

“Kara’s his sister,” I remind him.

He gives me a subtle yet amused glance. “Baby, you’re the grand prize. He’s gunning for you. And if Kara were to be gunning for you, too, they would’ve teamed up by now, don’t you think?”

“Then why is she here in the first place?” I ask.

“She’s the only one who can tell us that,” James says. “We have to find her.”

I listen quietly as the guys strategize and draw up a plan, going through every possible worst-case scenario and contingency measure. I’m fascinated watching how they employ their military experience in analyzing the situation, building a strategy that’s as safe and efficient as possible under the circumstances. The more I listen, the more I realize how deeply in love I am with these three men.

“I just got a text from Horowitz,” Oliver says as he checks his phone. “Kara is in the wind. She had a cell phone jammer on her. As soon as they got her out of the restaurant, she must’ve turned it on. They lost her at the gas station on their way back to Boulder.”

“Have them do an area search. She couldn’t have gotten far. By her own admittance she doesn’t know the area that well,” Jamestells him. “Chip can look through the CCTV system across the district. His police buddies will help him out.”

“She must’ve gotten spooked,” Oliver says. “It’s the only possibility that makes sense. If she wanted to harm us, she would’ve. She’s had plenty of opportunities from the moment we signed that contract all the way up to the meeting at Candy’s.”

I lower my gaze.

They’re getting ready to go to war with Igor Konstantinov and possibly his entire family—regardless of Kara’s level of involvement. I have mixed feelings; the Konstantinov’s did raise me after all, and I’m still bound by a debt of gratitude. I’m having trouble reconciling what I know now versus the image I had of these people growing up.

One thing is certain, though: James, Oliver, Roman, and the girls are my new family. The guys deserve to know the whole truth since they are putting so much on the line for me.

“I’m pregnant,” I blurt out.

“Say what now?” Oliver responds.

Everything stops. The silence that falls over the room is deafening, and for a hot second, I regret saying what I just said.

But I say it again. Might as well drive the nail all the way through the coffin. “I’m pregnant with twins and one of you is the father.”

James looks at me with heavy, quiet intention. “How long have you known?”

“Not long. But you need to know, you deserve the truth. The whole truth. And this is it. I’m pregnant, and I’m scared, and I didn’t plan for any of this—”

“We didn’t either,” Roman sighs and gets down on his knees in front of me. “Elise, it’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”

“Is it?” I ask with a shaky voice. “It doesn’t seem that way. Kara’s in the wind. Igor is surely coming for me. And if Lev comes to town, expect the whole of Rustic, Colorado, to burn to the fucking ground because that man will scorch the earth around anyone who threatens his family. And now, this baby…”

Roman tucks a lock of hair behind my ear, a soft smile dancing across his lips. “To be honest, I’ve always wanted a family.”

“The timing’s great, huh?” I scoff.

“Sometimes the best things in life are the unexpected ones,” James says.

“I don’t even know which of you is the father.”

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