Page 45 of Cruel Submission

The text messages flash in my mind again.

Her condition is improving.

The presence of the baby.

I press my palm flat against my stomach. Against the secret growing there. The one I’m too afraid to speak aloud.

My baby? Someone else’s baby?

I don’t know which answer terrifies me more.

The water keeps running. I watch it circle the drain, disappearing into darkness, and wonder how much longer I can keep pretending I’m not drowning too.

Chapter Fifteen

Arkady

The contracts sit stacked on my desk, ink still drying on the final signature.

I lean back in my chair and allow myself a moment—just one—to savor the victory.

The building next to Empire Royale is mine again.

Bought it back for twice what it’s worth, but I don’t give a shit about the price. What matters is that the competitor bleeding my profits is gone. No more vultures circling my casino. No more Sergei Tulikov’s ghost fucking with my business from beyond the grave.

My operation can finally return to normal.

I stand and move to the window, restless energy driving me to my feet. The garden sprawls below, roses and lavender in neat rows that Mirabel tends with the same fierce attention she brings to everything. And there she is—kneeling in the flower beds, dirt on her hands, hair falling loose from whatever she tried to pin it back with this morning.

Beautiful.

The word surfaces before I can stop it, and I don’t bother pushing it away. She is beautiful. Has been since the moment she walked into my office for that interview, nervous and desperate and trying so hard not to show either.

Last night comes rushing back. Her body beneath mine in my bed, sheets tangled around us, her nails scoring down my back as I drove into her. The sounds she made. The way she whispered my name—not Mr. Laurov, not sir, just Arkady—like it was the only word that mattered.

My cock stirs at the memory. I adjust myself and turn away from the window before I do something stupid like go down there and drag her back to my bedroom in broad daylight.

But the movement doesn’t clear my head. Instead, something else surfaces. Something I’ve been trying not to think about since I brought Debra into this house five days ago.

Mirabel dreams about her sister.

I’ve seen it. The way she jerks awake sometimes, reaching for something that isn’t there. The shadow that crosses her face when she thinks no one’s watching. That look of loss so deep it carves lines into her features even when she’s sleeping.

Twins have this connection, people say. Some invisible thread binding them even across years of separation. I never understood it before—never had to. But watching Mirabel sleep, I’m beginning to grasp what that really means.

She feels Debra’s absence. Carries it in her.

And I’m the bastard keeping them apart.

Guilt hits me sideways, sharp enough to steal breath. My hand flattens against the window glass, the cold seeping into my palm doing nothing to settle the acid building in my gut.

How long can I keep doing this?

Debra is upstairs right now. Twenty feet above my head, hidden in one of the east wing guest suites, while Dr. Harrison works on stabilizing her enough for the reunion I know is coming. Five days I’ve been juggling this—keeping Mirabel away from that corridor, inventing reasons she needs to focus on other parts of the house, watching her grieve for someone who’s sleeping two floors up.

It’s becoming too much.

And then, there’s Aleks. Too many secrets. Too many lies stacked on top of each other like a house of cards waiting for the wind.