Chapter 2: Filthy Lies: Chapter 2

Fanged heat tears through my abdomen and rips me from unconsciousness.

I gasp awake in total darkness. The pain is familiar now—contractions, stronger than before.

“Breathe,” I whisper shakily to myself. “Just breathe.”

As my eyes adjust, I make out dim shapes around me. Concrete walls. A metal door. Some kind of storage room, maybe. A single bulb hangs overhead, but it’s not on. As devoid of light as my life currently is.

Grim fucking metaphor, if we’re being honest.

Another contraction hits. I curl onto my side on what feels like a thin, mangy mattress on the floor. Sweat trickles down my neck despite the cold air.

Where am I? How long was I unconscious?

The last thing I remember is collapsing outside Vince’s panic room. So close. One digit left.

My hands fly to my stomach, feeling the tight, drum-like surface. My baby—our baby—is still inside me, but trying desperately to get out.

“It’s okay,” I whisper, rubbing circles on my belly. “We’re going to be okay.”

I don’t know if I believe it, but I need to say it. For both of us.

The contractions are coming fast now. Too fast. Maybe seven minutes apart? I try to sit up, gritting my teeth against the pain.

I’m still wearing my dress from earlier, though it’s now stained with blood and sweat. My thighs feel damp. Has my water broken? It’s too dark to tell.

All I have are questions. No answers. Not a single fucking one.

“Help!” I call out. My words echo and die miserably in the small space. “Is anyone there? I need help! I’m in labor!”

Silence is all I get in return.

I scoot backward until I find a wall. It’s cold, unyielding rock against my back, but I’ll take that over the empty horror of the dark unknown. My fingers seek out my wedding ring. I twist it anxiously again and again.

Vince will come. He’ll find us. He always does.

But will he come in time?

Another contraction tears through me, stronger than the last. I bite my lip to keep from screaming, tasting blood.

“Focus, Rowan,” I mutter through the pain. “You have one job now: keep this baby safe.”

I try to distract myself by taking inventory again now that I’m slightly more with it. But this scan doesn’t turn up much more info. No windows, nothing but concrete dust on the floor, and nothing that even remotely resembles a bathroom. Just the thin mattress and a lukewarm plastic bottle of water someone left nearby.

I grab the bottle and unscrew it with shaking hands. The seal is unbroken, which is nice, not that germs are at the top of my list of concerns right now. I keep my sip small and conservative. Heaven only knows when I’ll get more.

Heaven is also the only one who knows what’s going to happen next.

The contractions are building. Six minutes. I’m no expert, but I know this baby is coming soon, with or without medical assistance.

That thought terrifies me more than anything else that’s happened.

A scraping sound makes me freeze. Someone’s unlocking the door.

I brace myself against the wall as I cast around for anything I could use as a weapon. There’s… nothing. Not unless damp mattresses suddenly qualify as a viable form of self-defense.

Light spills into the room as the door swings open, silhouetting a woman’s slender frame.

“Ah, you’re awake.” Her accent is thick, Russian, and utterly unfamiliar. “Good timing. The doctor will be here soon.”

My eyes struggle to adjust to the sudden brightness. Even when they do, though, it’s no use. This woman, whoever she is, is middle-aged, with sharp features and blonde hair pulled into a severe bun.

“Where am I?” I demand. “Who are you?”

She ignores my questions as she sets a small bag on the floor. “How far apart are the contractions?”

Another wave of pain answers for me, ripping through my body like fireworks in my ovaries. I cry out, unable to hold it in.

“Hmph.” She checks her watch. “Moving quickly.”

When the pain subsides, rage gives me strength. “Answer me! Where am I? Why am I here?”

She sighs like I’m an annoying child. “You Americans, always with the questions.” Her cold eyes assess me. “You are somewhere safe, for now. And you are here because you carry valuable collateral.”

“Collateral?” My hand instinctively shields my stomach. “This is my baby!”

“This is the Akopov heir,” she corrects. “And now, it is Solovyov leverage.”

Solovyov.

“Vince will kill every one of you.” I sound a hell of a lot more confident than I feel.

She smiles, unimpressed. “Perhaps. If he can find us.” She removes items from her bag—towels, scissors, gloves. “But first, you will deliver this baby. And then we will negotiate.”

“I need a hospital,” I insist. “I need doctors.”

“A doctor is coming.” She shrugs. “But you would be surprised what women can endure without hospitals. My own grandmother delivered twelve children in a Siberian shack. She survived. Well, until the twelfth.”

I double over and moan as more of that awful, hot, grinding, clamping sensation goes searing through me. I’m being squeezed into coal and split open down the middle at the same time.

The woman watches clinically and says nothing. Her bedside manner needs some fucking work, if you ask me.

When I can speak again, I try a different approach. “Look, I don’t know what your plan is, but this baby needs medical care. I need medical care. If anything happens to either of us⁠—”

“Then Akopov will rain hellfire upon us, yes?” She laughs. “You said that already.”

“How did you even get to me?” I mumble, drool dangling from my lips as the pain takes me to a place where I no longer care about such things as “dignity.” “The estate is guarded.”

“Not as well as your husband believes.” She checks her watch again and scribbles something down in her notepad. “We have been watching. Waiting for the perfect moment. When we saw Andrei’s men collect you, we simply… intercepted the transport.”

Andrei’s men. Of course. This was his plan all along—take me, control the baby.

But he never counted on someone taking me from him.

“Why?” I ask. “What do you want?”

“From you? Nothing.” She tilts her head. “From your husband? Much. The Solovyov family has scores to settle with the Akopovs. Your child provides perfect leverage.”

Terror and fury are warring within me and there’s no telling which will win. I want to grab all these people and shake them like rag dolls and make them understand.

I am a person. A human being. I have done nothing wrong. You cannot just do this, you sick fucks!

This innocent baby—my baby—caught in some ancient blood feud before even taking a first breath.

I’d scream if I could. I’d scream until the whole damn world took notice.

But I can’t.

So it doesn’t.

The darkness around me has never felt blacker.

“The baby will be here soon,” she continues. “Try not to fight. It makes things worse.”

As if on cue, another contraction crashes through me, longer and more intense than any of the ones that preceded it. Despite Dr. Bitch’s instructions, I scream. The sound bounces off concrete walls and returns to my ears broken and jagged.

“Breathe,” she instructs, unmoved by my pain. “The doctor will arrive shortly.”

Through the haze of pain, I focus on a single thought: Vince is coming. I know it like I know my own name. He will tear apart the city to find us.

I just need to stay alive until then. Keep our baby alive.

When the contraction eases, I uncurl slightly. “Water,” I gasp.

She passes me the bottle from where I dropped, and I take another tiny sip.

A distant sound of footsteps echoes down what must be a hallway. The woman turns toward the door.

“Doctor arrives,” she announces. “Now, the real work begins.”

As she steps aside to admit someone else, I close my eyes briefly, summoning every ounce of strength I have left.

Vince, I think desperately. Find us. I believe in you.

But until then, I have only myself to rely on. My body contracts again, my baby nosing its way into a world far more dangerous than either of us is ready for.

I steel myself. They may have taken me, but they won’t take my child.

Even if I have to die to prevent it.