Page 92 of The Brutal Arrangement

I growled. “I wasn’t accusing you of lying. It’s just—” I blew out a hard breath. “I’m just saying that she doesn’t ever use the thing. She has no reason or desire to.”

The only connection she seemed to want to have with anything outside of the building was checking in on her mother, and she did that on the laptop or even on my phone if we were cuddling or sitting together.

“She has no one else to contact or hear from.”

Except… Katerina?Lucy explained that Katerina was supposed to give Lucy some kind of all-clear when things were supposedly safer.

“I understand, sir. Since that nursing home called her and she called them back, it does look like the phone has gone unused.”

I rubbed my forehead. “Wait.Whichphone are you talking about?”

“The one that belongs to Lucy,” he replied. He listed off the number.

“No. That’s not her number anymore. When I requested a new phone to be set up for her, it had a new number.” This soldierwas talking about the phone Lucy had when she came to the building, the junky old one that couldn’t be updated anymore and had a cracked screen.

“That’s what’s getting all these calls?” I asked.

“Yes, sir,” he replied.

“Who’s calling?” I asked.

“The number is untraceable, but one voicemail was registered.”

I tensed. “And what did that say?”

“I can play it for you.”

“Please.” I gripped my phone with dread. I didn’t want anyone bothering my wife. And I sure as fuck didn’t want anyone trying to manipulate her or hurt her.

A slight shuffle sounded, then a recording played.

“I want my maid back, dammit.”

Fuck!

That whiny voice belonged to Anton Kozlov.

“I only sent you there to spy on the fucking Ivanovs, you bitch.”

I fisted my hand as fury lanced through me at his snarled words.

That motherfucker… I narrowed my eyes as rage filled me.

“And your time is up. They can’t actually want to keep someone like you. Come back now, bitch.”

35

LUCY

Instead of turning one of the guest rooms in our apartment to be a nursery, I was hoping to convince Damon to renovate the layout a little bit so we would be closer to our baby. I wouldn’t want to walk all the way across the apartment to tend to him or her. It just made sense to have the nursery room closer to ours.

For the better part of the morning, a good one without too much nausea for a change, I walked in and out of the rooms near ours and tried to envision it all. Which walls could be moved where. What furniture could be replaced and better suited somewhere else. These plans were all in my head right now, but I didn’t question whether Damon would mind.

When he told me that I would want for nothing, I had to believe him. I’d had every need met since I’d come here.

And when he vowed that our child would also want for nothing, I trusted him to make it happen too.

I sighed, sitting on the couch after having a good look at the area. With the idea of late nights with a baby, I thought back tohow my mom and dad used to tell me that I was such a good baby, sleeping through the night at a younger age than they’d expected. Mom used to tell me about how she’d obsess over me anyway, walking through the house to check on me all night long even when I wasn’t waking up or crying for her.

---