Page 110 of The Wrong Brother

Stepan is quiet for a moment. The silence alone tells me I’m not going to like the answer, and he tries maneuvering around it.

“How what?”

“How did you find out?”

He sighs. “A tabloid. Local.”

Fuck. It’s only been two days, and somehow, a tabloid in California picked this up?

“What exactly did they publish?”

Stepan makes a noise that sounds suspiciously like amusement. I make a mental note to fire him later. Not permanently; just enough to make a point.

“There’s a photograph. Taken outside a pharmacy.”

I pinch the bridge of my nose, a headache starting to pulse in my temples. “And?”

“And the woman accompanying Colorado’s most infamous returning son appears to be purchasing several pregnancy tests.”

My gaze drifts toward the Denver skyline beyond the hotel windows. And then the realization hits like ice water: if this story is being sold in California, Andrei is undoubtedly reading the same article, only neighborhoods away.

Hehas the upper hand now;hehas leverage.

“Send it.”

My phone vibrates less than five seconds later. I open the photograph.

Emma is standing outside the pharmacy carrying the exact bag I ripped from her hands two days ago. Her head is slightly down, curls falling around her face as she walks toward the street.

The image itself is harmless. The headline beneath it is not.

Questions Surround Smirnov's Companion After Pharmacy Visit.

I swear fluently in Russian.

“Should I start preparing for whatever this is?” Stepan asks, straight to the point.

Somewhere in the last few days, my carefully planned revenge operation has apparently become front-page gossip. And the answer to his question is far more complicated than either of us would like.

For a moment, the absurd image of Stepan buying a crib or stroller crosses my mind.

“No.”

“No?”

“No.”

“I have to go, Stepan.”

“Boss—”

I hang up. Then I stand there alone, coffee cooling in my hand, wondering what the hell happened to my priorities.

When I turn, Emma is no longer on the couch. The plate is on the coffee table; the rest of breakfast, scrambled eggs and orange juice, is untouched. I scan the room, the hairs on the back of my neck standing up.

If Andrei saw that headline, or anything like it, he knows that might be a child. And “might” is enough. A child is a weakness.

I need eyes on her now, and for every single second after.