Page 38 of Pregnant By the Russian Pakhan

His gaze cut to her. “Vlad, take Mira and Sarah, and the other women to the panic room.”

Vlad nodded and motioned one of his men to carry out the instructions. As they were hustled upstairs, Mira caught a glimpse of Mikhail. He had changed into what could only be termed war gear—some slinky leather contraption she’d only ever seen assassins wear in movies. But his seemed to have holsters everywhere with various types of weapons in them.

As she watched, he was speaking rapid-fire Russian and throwing instructions at his men as he pressed some buttons on a tablet in his hands and strode toward the rear of the house.

Even now, in the face of danger, he seemed unhurried and unafraid.

How was he still alive, though? The poison she had given him packed enough punch that it should have killed him in three seconds. She frowned. Or had the drugs expired and maybe lost their potency?

She had often wondered about that—did expired poison become more poisonous or less poisonous? She wondered, with something approaching hysteria.

The men noticed her lagging behind and one of them came and picked her up with unceremonious haste, lugging her into a steel-fortified room that was reinforced to survive probably anything short of an earthquake.

“Let me go,” she ordered with indignation.

But it was too late. She was already in the room and he released her at once with a respectful bow.

“I want to watch what’s happening with Mikhail and the men,” she insisted.

The man who had carried her pointed to a large screen which showed practically all the action on the grounds of the villa. “You can watch it all right there, Comare,” he said with another respectful bow, using the Russian term for mistress.

“How long do we have to be cooped up here?” Mira wanted to know.

“You won’t notice the passage of time, Comare, if you get comfortable,” another of the men said.

“Come sit here, Mira,” Sarah beckoned urgently, drawing Mira to sit beside her. The room was filled with close to twenty women. In all her time here, Mira had seen neither hide nor hair of many of these women.

“They’re the wives of some of Mikhail’s men,” Sarah confided.

Mira nodded at the women, accepting their greetings and feeling lower than dirt. She had been here for over a month and in all that time, she’d been so wrapped up in her own thoughts and feelings that she hadn’t even noticed the existence of other women in the Villa. Sarah had been here less than a week and she was already on first-name basis with the entire crowd.

As though she’d read her thoughts, Sarah squeezed her hand. “It’s not your fault, you know? You’ve had to learn to stop caring for people because every time you let people in, they either turned out to be your father’s spies or your father’s enemies.”

Mira’s ears perked up. This part at least, was true. “Plus, your father has dictated your friends and family all your life. He even tried to dictate your marriage until you put your foot down.”

Mira gave Sarah a watery smile. “I never would have had the gumption if it weren’t for you.”

Sarah snorted in disagreement. “You would have had plenty of gumption. You had a one-night stand with a hot dude who you picked out all by yourself. That takes loads of gumption.”

Mira blushed at the mention of losing her virginity because, invariably, her thoughts turned to Mikhail’s hands and lips all over her, his huge penis stroking in and out of her while she wound her legs around—

Mira drew herself up short, cutting off those traitorous thoughts. She truly couldn’t afford to harbor thoughts of Mikhail. He’d killed her mother with his own hands and she had to make him pay, and that’s all there was to it.

“It’s a good thing Father’s attacking the villa,” she muttered to herself under her breath. “If he doesn’t get Mikhail, I will.”

She saw one of the women sitting across from her lift her head and stare at her in consternation, but she didn’t attach any importance to that look.

Chapter 24 - Mikhail

Mikhail could hear the hollow screams of wounded men as he ran to find shelter.

He’d used the digital security to barricade the main villa, which meant the men hadn’t been able to breach the home itself. Every time they fired a shot, it bounced off. Every time they tried to touch the walls of the building, they got a terrible zing that lifted them clear off their feet and flung them away.

The house was fortified in such a way that he and his men didn’t even have to come out to fight; they had only chosen to in order to teach Dostoevsky’s men a lesson.

Mikhail had been very disappointed to learn that Dostoevsky hadn’t led the march to his house but was probably lurking away somewhere like some damned coward. If it were him and his enemy had dared to look sideways at his daughter, he would storm that house himself and either kill or be killed, he thought to himself.

Mira was worth killing for. But then, maybe Dostoevsky didn’t think so.

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