Page 57 of The Russian's Innocent Prey
Maybe love was enough. Maybe love could build walls strong enough to keep the darkness out.
Or maybe I was just another woman in love with a dangerous man, making the same mistakes that had cost so many others everything.
The smell of cooking food drifted in from the kitchen, and my stomach responded with a hunger that surprised me. When was the last time I’d eaten? Really eaten, not just picked at meals, while worry gnawed at my insides?
“Erin?” I called out, my voice still rough from sleep.
“Almost ready,” came the reply. Sweet, helpful, efficient.
Too efficient.
I tried to shake off the feeling, tried to focus on the positive. I was pregnant. Against all odds, in the middle of all this chaos, life had found a way. And Lev was still breathing, still healing.
We were going to be a family.
If we survived long enough to see it happen.
The thought should have terrified me. Instead, it filled me with something I hadn’t felt in weeks—determination. This baby, this impossible gift, wasn’t going to grow up in a world where its parents lived in fear.
Whatever it took, whoever stood in our way, I was going to make sure my child inherited more than just the Antonov name.
They were going to inherit peace.
Even if I had to burn the whole world down to give it to them.
Chapter 19 – Lev
The crutches dug into my ribs with every step, metal biting through the hospital gown and into bruised flesh. But moving beat lying in that bed like an invalid, staring at the ceiling tiles and counting the minutes until I could get back to Anya. The physical therapy nurse had looked at me like I’d lost my mind when I demanded the crutches three days early, but I’d survived worse than a few broken bones and a punctured lung.
Drew sat in the corner, laptop balanced on his knees, fingers moving over keys with less than his usual precision. He’d been off for the past two days—quiet in a way that didn’t fit his personality. Drew ran his mouth about everything from Casandra’s coffee choices to Rafael’s expansion plans. Silence from him was like blood in the water.
“You’ve been quiet,” I said, pausing near the window. The view was shit—parking lot and the back end of a strip mall—but it was better than staring at him while he pretended everything was normal. “That’s not like you.”
“I’m fine.” He didn’t look up from his screen.
I shifted my weight on the crutches, letting the pause stretch until it got uncomfortable. “Don’t bullshit me. Something’s off.”
That got his attention. Drew’s fingers stopped moving, and he finally met my eyes. There was something there—doubt, maybe. Or guilt. Both of which made my blood run cold because Drew didn’t do guilt, and he sure as hell didn’t doubt his instincts.
He exhaled hard, running a hand through his hair. “It’s probably nothing.”
“Spit it out.”
“It’s about Trev.” The words came out in a rush, like he’d been holding them back for days. “The way he found you. In the middle of nowhere, exact coordinates. It felt too…precise.”
I set the crutches against the wall and lowered myself into the visitor’s chair, giving him my full attention. “Precise how?”
“Your car was forty miles outside the city, down a service road that doesn’t show up on most GPS systems. No cell towers in range, no traffic cameras. But Trev knew exactly where you were.” Drew leaned forward, his voice dropping. “I pulled the timeline. From the moment Anya called to say you were missing to when we found your car? Forty-seven minutes. That includes drive time.”
The math didn’t add up, and we both knew it. Finding someone in that kind of terrain should have taken hours, maybe days. Not forty-seven minutes.
“We already know about the tracker in the pendant,” I said slowly, watching his face. “Right after the attack. So what’s really bothering you?”
Drew’s jaw tightened. “The tracker explains how he found you so fast. But it doesn’t explain why your car ended up on that specific service road in the first place. Or why the attack happened exactly where and when it did—in a location where Trev could conveniently ‘rescue’ you.” He paused. “I think he knew where you were going before you did. I think he’s been doing more than just passively tracking you.”
The realization sat in my chest like a stone. Twenty-seven years of mourning a brother who was alive. Twenty-seven years of guilt and rage and grief, all of it manufactured. And now Drew was suggesting that same brother might have orchestrated my near-death experience.
“Get some sleep,” I told him. “Tomorrow morning, we’re having a conversation with everyone present.”
