Page 20 of Immaculate Deception (Romanoff Bratva)

And even when her face faded from my memory after that night, the feeling of her clenched around my cock stayed with me in the months that followed.

So tight. So wet.

There’s no way in hell they could be the same woman. Not a chance. Surely I would have recognized her. Unless…

The chances are astronomical. Two random run-ins with the same woman in a city this big is unlikely, to say the least. More like impossible.

But my chest is clenching tight and a bead of sweat trickles down my forehead. I snatch the picture off the wall and carry it with me as I surge back into the living room.

I’m searching for something, though I don’t know what. My mind is moving too fast for me to keep up.

Then I see her purse. I lunge for it, pluck out her wallet, and search through it.

“Arya George” is the name on her ID, but I’m not looking for that. I want something that could tie her back to the vet clinic I was at last winter. Or something that could tie her to another so I can put this ridiculous theory out of my mind.

I flip past coffee shop punch cards and department store credit cards without finding anything. Throwing her wallet aside, I dig through her purse.

Nothing useful. Not a damn thing.

And then—I notice a lanyard. The one that has been hanging out of her purse since I first spotted it back at the hospital parking lot.

It’s light blue and faded, but the white lettering is still readable.Lower Manhattan Animal Hospital and Veterinary Clinic.

Fuck.There’s a horrible realization dawning on me like a storm on the horizon.

I start flipping through the calendar in my head, rolling back the days and weeks and months. The night I got in a shootout with the Albanians was warm, I remember. Not hot, though. Not summertime hot. More like early spring. We’re in the dead of winter now. Which means…

I count on my fingers.Seven, eight… nine months.

That was nine months ago.

Nine.

Fucking.

Months.

I drop the lanyard and march back through the apartment. I’m shaking my head as if that can change what I already know is true.

What I refuse to accept is true—at least until it’s confirmed.

I need more proof.

In her room, her bed is mussed, white sheets and comforter spilling onto the floor and pillows tossed haphazardly around. But a small leather book is placed prominently on her nightstand.

It’s a journal. Open to anyone who wanted to look at it. This woman needs to learn how to better safeguard her secrets.

I start from the beginning. Most of the entries are dated years back. I keep flipping until I get closer and closer.

And then, in the exact middle of the book like some kind of sick fucking joke, the pages fall apart. I see two words stamped in bright blue letters and underscored over again and again.

“I’M PREGNANT.”

Underneath, she goes into more detail.

“I’m pregnant thanks to a man I don’t even know. I never even saw his face. He walked into the clinic with a gunshot wound and now I’m pregnant. HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?”

The montage of exactly how it happened plays through my mind.

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