My eyes narrow.
They back off, gracefully.
“Enjoy the property,” they murmur, already heading for the private elevator. “It’s a fortress, but even fortresses fall. Ask Troy.”
The doors close behind them with a whisper.
Silence reclaims the space.
I walk the penthouse alone. It’s beautiful, in that soulless way—which feels like fate. A soulless man in a soulless place. Dark wood panels glow under downlights, everything sleek and masculine. The furniture is all angles and sharp lines, untouched. The kitchen is chef-grade.
I shake off memories of Audrey in an apron, flour powdered against her jaw. Her wide eyes the night she told me.I’m pregnant.
The bedroom is cavernous. I practically run there, away from the apparition, but it doesn’t do me any good. We found so many places to fuck, so many to make love, not all of them beds—but I doubt I’ll ever be able to sleep again.
The townhouse wasn’thomebefore Audrey stepped inside. It was a place I went back to every night, a place I liked the look of. The rooms wrapped around me, and it felt safe, largely in part due to the security system and the years I spent there.
This place… this place doesn’t know me yet.
I pause at the kitchen island, laying the keys down flat.
My hand lingers over them, fingers tracing the steel edge.
Audrey’s face flickers into my mind. The way she looked in that hospital bed. Pale. Shaken. Defiant.
The way she whispered that she didn’t think she could do this anymore. That being with me—being near me—was going to get her and the baby killed.
She’s right.
I am not a safe man, never have been, and never will be. I’ve come too far, to the very edge of the world—possibly over it and into hell.
At least that’s what it feels like now.
To have a taste of what could be and lose it. This must be how Adam and Eve felt, pushed out of Eden, tart apple still on their tongues. Knowing too much: what they could have had.
What they lost.
No matter how much I want to protect her, no matter what I feel when I watch her laugh, or cry, or press her palm to her stomach like she’s already cradling the child—our child.
A boy, maybe. Or a girl. I don’t care, but my chest aches with the fact that I’ll never know.
Could I hunt them down? Follow Audrey to the ends of the earth, pay someone to watch her, to divulge her medical records? Yes, but will I?
What matters is that they’ll grow up with a target on their back. Because they’re mine.
The only way I can give them a good life is to never look for them again.
I sink into the nearest chair.
I should give her up. Let her go. Let her take the baby. Send them as far from New York as they can go. Disappear them in the Arctic Circle if I have to. It would feel good to walk across an endless, cold landscape and let the frost steal my breath. In Russia it was talked of often; people who, drunk, wandered out into the winter wasteland. Fell asleep. Slipped away.
I look at her and I don’t just see beauty or lust—I see salvation. I see the version of myself I could’ve been, if the world hadn’t taught me to sharpen my soul into a blade. Maybe I would have done things differently all those decades ago if I had knownshewould be waiting for me here in New York.
But Audrey is right--loving her is a weakness. Wanting this child is a weakness.
Olena said as much, has been forceful of it, sure that I’ll lose Martynov Global Holdings. That just one loose tooth in this system I’ve created could take me out if they sense weakness.
That’s not even taking into consideration men like Giuseppe, or my other enemies. I’ve made plenty of them over the years.
