Page 94 of Immaculate Corruption (Romanoff Bratva)

“Do you think they’re working for Ilyasov?” Arya asks.

I usher Arya inside. “Let’s find out.”

The house is clean and tidy. There’s a baby blue rug in the entryway, pale yellow walls, and purple pillows on the floral-printed couch.

“It looks like my grandmother’s house. Do you think they really live here?”

“Do you think any rental company would be out of touch enough to decorate their house like this?” I ask, lifting up the edge of a white lace doily.

Every room is more of the same. Kitschy signs in the dining room with the words“Live, Laugh, Eat!”and“Home is where the cat is”hang on the walls.

Also on the walls? Family photographs. All of them are conveniently baby-less. There aren’t even any photos of the woman pregnant.

It’s all the proof I need. If I wasn’t entirely sure that I recognized Lukas out front, I’m positive now. Whoever these motherfuckers are, they stole my son.

Arya heads upstairs to poke around while I stay on the first floor and look for an office.

I find a craft room spilling with baskets of yarn and a media space with a television and a leather loveseat with a “Man Cave” sign above the door. But no office.

The most I can find is a metal document box in a hallway closet, but it doesn’t even have a lock on it. I slide the latch over and instantly, I’m met with the couple’s financial records, medical history, and Social Security numbers.

How could Ilyasov work with someone this incompetent? These people don’t know the first thing about security.

Still, even after rifling through their private papers, I can’t find anything that connects them to Ilyasov. No strange payments from shell companies or contracts. Nothing at all beyond the ordinary.

They seem… normal.

I run my hands along the closet floor searching for a false bottom, but it’s just an ordinary closet. It doesn’t make sense. None of this does.

“Did you find anything?” I call up the stairs.

Arya comes out of a door with a stuffed animal held to her chest. Her face is red and angry, her green eyes fierce.

“I found a nursery. They have the name ‘Matt’ stitched on a teddy bear in the crib. Matt? FuckingMatt?” She hurls the bear down the stairs. “These fucking people are monsters. They took someone else’s child without a second thought, and now they rename him and act like he’s theirs. I could kill them. I could—”

I take the stairs two at a time and grab Arya by the shoulders gently, pulling her against my chest. “We have to be smart about this. Any slip-up could be an advantage to my brother. We have to be careful.”

“Fuck being careful,” she sobs, shaking her head. “This guy is as bad as Ilyasov—maybe even worse. Ilyasov kidnapped our son, but Nick Watkins decided to take him in and lie to him his entire life about where he came from. It’s sick.”

“I haven’t found anything yet that shows they are working with Ilyasov. I’m looking, but—”

“Look around!” Arya says, throwing her arms wide, gesturing to the house. “Here’s the proof. They have our son, Dima.”

“We can’t confront them without all of the facts. I should go check and see if they are on their way back. We don’t want to be caught in here if—”

Just then, the handle on the front door rattles.

A second later, the door opens. Nick and Jody Watkins walk into their home, holding our son.

I clamp a hand over Arya’s mouth and press her against the shadows along the hallway wall.

It looks like that confrontation is going to happen sooner than I planned.

33

Arya

Shit.They’re home.

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