Page 73 of The Russian Retribution

“Show me, then,” I say coldly. “Show me how you know. Show me whatever the fuck it is that has you so convinced because I am telling you right now that she didn’t do it, and we have new suspects, and you are like a fucking dog with a three-day-old bone!”

“Did you know she was pregnant?” Viktor asks suddenly.

My heart skips a beat in my chest as his question completely derails my thought process. “I…”

“Is that why you left?” Viktor asks. “Were you jealous that someone fucked her?”

My lips part wordlessly for a few seconds, trying to work out how he even knows this. Then I sigh. “No, that wasn’t why she got rid of me. That baby is mine.”

“Was,” Viktor corrects.

My heart stalls in my chest. “What?”

“Was yours,” he says, sounding oddly gleeful. “She lost it. That night we all argued? She was bleeding because of a miscarriage.”

The world falls away from me. Suddenly, I’m floating. The bar and Viktor seem incredibly far away from me and a strange roaring sweeps through my ears while sharp pain cracks through my chest as if my ribs are just eggshells.

A miscarriage? She lost the baby?

My baby?

“How?” I gasp, and my voice sounds distant. “What happened?”

Viktor shrugs. “Doesn’t matter. You dodged a bullet for sure. We all did. If she spewed out an heir, it would make all of this a hundred times more complicated.”

“Was it stress?” I ask. “Is she okay?”

Is this my fault? Did my confession push her over the edge?

“It doesn’t matter,” Viktor insists. “Look, the important thing is, she isn’t going to complicate this with a baby. I’m sorry, Son. I was too hard on you. I put you in a terrible position and asked too much of you. No wonder she was able to get her claws into you.”

“No,” I say quietly. “That’s not…”

Nothing feels real in this moment. I learned about that baby only a few days ago and I wouldn’t have expected to have any kind of connection to it. Yet as I sit here processing the news, it’s devastating. Like something has been snatched right out of my soul.

“Don’t worry, I’m going to take care of everything,” Viktor says, his voice still distant. “I will take care of Anastasia, and then I will return this family to his former glory. We will be the top dogs and we will fucking act like it.”

“Wait, what?” I lift my gaze and blink quickly as unshed tears blur my vision. How can I cry for something that barely existed?

“Listen, Son. While Anastasia has been fucking around acting like our criminal empire can survive on the debts of the wealthy, I’ve been doing the real leg work.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone. “Sergey had already laid the groundwork to deal with the Cartel. He always knew they would come looking for their money. He just enjoyed making them beg. He liked having that kind of power over dangerous people, but Anastasia was clearly too preoccupied with making babies to look deeper into his finances.”

Viktor passes over his phone, and I take it numbly. Half of his words don’t even make sense.

I want to know how Anastasia is coping. Is she well? Is she sad? Does she feel the same aching loss in her chest that is blooming in my own?

I blink slowly and the tears fade. Viktor’s phone screen comes into view and I refocus on his words.

“So if she’d just paid attention, she never would have had to worry about money.”

“What is this?”

“It’s one of Sergey’s offshore accounts.”

“I…” Breathing deeply, I shake my head. “I thought they were all closed down because Anastasia couldn’t get access. She didn’t have the passwords and stuff.”

“She also didn’t know about them all.” Viktor smirks. “If she’d just asked me, I could have pointed her in the right direction. But regardless, all the money there will go to the Cartel once I’ve taken care of Anastasia. Two birds, one stone.”

I’m about to pass the phone back when something catches my eye. The name on the account is familiar.

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