Dagger's Edge: A Brute Force Novel Read online

  “Who else would give a fuck?” He shot her a hard look as he pushed his fingers through his hair, aware of Beau’s silent watchfulness. “If I die, do they really believe she’d marry that bastard then?” He gave a sharp nod in Beau’s direction.

  A mocking smile curled the other man’s lips. “I’d still marry her; I’ve made that plain.”

  Never let it be said Beauregard Grant had any respect for his own life, because as far as Ivan was concerned, the other man was pushing his luck. At the moment, he’d rather see him dead than living.

  But the Taites’ knowledge that Grant would still marry her was probably the only reason she wasn’t being targeted along with Ivan. That marriage was something Stephen and Craig seemed desperate to ensure.

  “And your father has made it plain he’ll not aid their return to France without that marriage,” Ilya pointed out.

  Beau nodded. “At my urging, yes. It’s Elite Command’s belief that Stephen and Craig will become desperate enough that they’ll slip in their normal care and reveal who they’re sending their orders to. We suspect their lawyers are forwarding those orders, but until we have proof, interrogating them isn’t an option.”

  It wasn’t an option for Elite Command, but Ivan wasn’t bound by the same ideals as Elite Command. Ilya had already placed someone in the law offices overseeing the Taites’ defense to gain the proof needed. If it wasn’t revealed soon, then Ivan had no problem interrogating them himself.

  “This engagement of yours wasn’t exactly the wisest course I would have suggested,” Beau stated then. “You should have kept her hidden, Ivan.”

  “She wasn’t exactly safe when I found her!” he snapped. “I was only moments ahead of a strike team that arrived to take her or kill her. I haven’t learned which yet.”

  “And that team is still nowhere to be found. I rather doubt the assassin was part of that crew though. They seemed a bit smarter than this,” Beau continued, the mockery in his voice shredding the control Ivan had on his temper.

  “I don’t believe it was so much intelligence as training,” Ilya injected. “They’re highly trained and well funded. And Journey Taite does have quite a price on her head where her capture is concerned.”

  Capture and assurance of marriage to Beau.

  Ivan clenched his teeth in fury. The thought of the other man touching her, taking her, was like acid in his brain. Would Beau force the marriage? Of course he would, Ivan assured himself. He’d force the marriage and, no doubt, the marriage bed as well.

  He could stop that from happening, Ivan told himself. He could marry her now. If she was his wife, then simply kidnapping her and forcing her in front of a priest wouldn’t be enough to seal a union between her and Beau. They’d have no choice but to confront Ivan.

  Killing him wouldn’t be enough either, because the Taites knew him and they knew he’d ensure her safety with their marriage. His entire organization would back her. Russian criminals, killers, some of the hardest bastards to ever live, would back her, just as they now backed him when he needed them.

  That was the answer. A quick wedding, he would ensure her safety, then give her the wedding women dreamed of later. There was no time for that now, no time to lead her gently into his giving her what she believed was an illusion. Reality instead.

  A knock at the office door had his attention shifting, his gaze swinging to the entrance as one of his bodyguards opened the door and stepped back to admit the doctor treating Journey. The wound hadn’t been severe, but her pallor had terrified him. She’d been stark white, weak, and nauseous.

  Turning to Ilya, he nodded at his friend to pour the doctor a drink. The older man looked harried, his gray hair mussed, deep brown eyes concerned.

  “Peter.” Ivan nodded. “Is she well?”

  A sigh slipped from the portly man though he nodded. “It was just a flesh wound, as I said,” the doctor answered, his accent heavy. “She is anemic, but vitamins will fix this fine.”

  The doctor accepted his glass, took a healthy drink, and met Ivan’s gaze once again.

  “There’s more?” Ivan asked, frowning at the doctor’s look and wondering what more a flesh wound could cause.

  “She is pregnant,” he stated, the look he gave Ivan censorious. “Perhaps had you allowed the tests I suggested several years ago, you could have prevented this.”

  Silence filled the room.

  The tests. The doctor had suspected that the vasectomy performed so hastily all those years ago may not have been done so effectively. He’d tried to convince Ivan to submit to tests that would prove it either way.

  He’d been busy. He hadn’t considered it important.

  And now Journey was pregnant.

  It was all he could do to keep his expression impassive, not to reveal his complete shock, or the satisfaction that made no sense to him.

  “No!” Beau snapped, the anger in his tone lashing through the room. “What the fuck have you done, Ivan?”

  There was a vein of disbelief, of shock, in Beau’s voice. Not that it concerned Ivan. Hell, at that moment nothing about the other man concerned him.

  “I suspect she’s perhaps four to five weeks along,” Peter continued. “She was unaware of her state. Were you?”

  The fact that the doctor spoke so easily in front of the others assured Ivan that he’d allowed his closest advisors to become far too familiar with these associates.

  He needed time to process this, Ivan thought, amazed, uncertain. Time to make sense of the timing and implications that fate was determined to destroy his carefully built defenses against more children. With the chance of giving birth to a son and a possible male heir to the Resnova holdings.

  It would strengthen his hold on the shadowy world he still maintained a grip within. It would strengthen the bonds of loyalty to the families who followed him. And it would be a son. He could feel it, sense the certainty that life, fate, God, whatever the force directing this change in his life was, would ensure it changed irrevocably.

  “You son of a bitch. You did this deliberately.” Beau pushed the doctor aside, glaring into Ivan’s face, pure rage lighting his gaze. “You bastard.”

  Ivan let a satisfied smile curl his lips. “My woman. I warned you of this, did I not?” he asked the other man softly. “What did you expect?”

  Even he hadn’t expected this, but he did expect what was coming next.

  He barely dodged the fist aimed at his face, sliding aside and giving the other man a hard push into the bar.

  Glasses clattered together, one crashed to the floor, and a hard smile curled Ivan’s lips as the other man pivoted and came at him again.

  Before Ivan could slam his fist into the aristocrat’s perfect chiseled jaw, Jordan and Ilya were between them, blocking any blow either of them could make and pulling Beau back.

  “You fucking bastard,” Beau snarled, glaring at him over Jordan’s shoulder as the other man pushed him back farther. “She’s not strong enough for this world and you know it. You’ll break her, Ivan, if your enemies don’t do the job for you.”

  “And what would you have done?” Ivan could feel the rage crawling through his system, adrenaline pouring through his veins. “Placed her on a shelf to wither and die? And don’t tell me she isn’t strong enough. That woman has a backbone of pure titanium and you’re too damned stupid to see it.”

  He couldn’t believe Beau would dare to call her weak. Physically, she might not be able to put up much of a fight, but that woman’s mind was like a steel trap and her stubbornness more than apparent.

  “God, Ivan, you’ve lost your fucking mind!” Beau charged furiously, his hands fisting at his sides. “They will kill her. They will not chance that child being born male. Goddammit…”

  Ivan’s head lifted, nostrils flaring as he fought to pull in enough oxygen to clear the haze of red from his gaze. That was his child, just as Amara was his child. Male or female, it wouldn’t matter. But should it be born male, then the Resnova legacy would
be assured for another generation as long as that child lived. It wouldn’t die with Ivan.

  And should a male child be born, then the Taites’ lives were forfeit. Ivan wouldn’t have to lift a hand to kill them. The support Ivan had lost when it was learned he’d had a vasectomy at the young age of eighteen would return, full force.

  He was the last of not just a legacy but also a tradition of force. Traditions did not die easily. Not in the world he still retained control of.

  “She will be more protected than even Amara’s mother is,” Ivan informed him with brutal assurance. “The moment the sex of our child is revealed, should it be a boy, then even her shadow will be protected.”

  “And until the sex is revealed?” Beau yelled back at him. “God, Ivan. At least with me, she wouldn’t have been in constant danger. Stephen and Craig will strike before you can stop them. Before you know they’re there. They will not allow that child to be born. So much for that bloody fucking vasectomy of yours, right?”

  He was going to kill that little bastard, Ivan thought savagely as the door to the office opened to reveal Journey.

  The fiery waves of her hair tumbled about her pale face, her green eyes like emerald fire in her face as her gaze swung to Beau.

  The vulnerability that filled her face when Ivan first caught sight of her evaporated, and pure feminine strength tightened her features. In that moment he glimpsed the royal blood that ran through her veins, and the influence of a queen who considered this woman her favorite of her young cousins was fully apparent.

  Her gaze moved from Beau as silence descended for the second time, all eyes turning to her, watching her carefully.

  She’d changed from the bloody jeans and sweater to a black, flowy skirt that ended just above her knees and a short-sleeved loose-weave heather green sweater. She looked so damned pretty she stole his breath. As arousing as sex itself, and as innocent as life.

  What the hell she did to him. He didn’t even question that fist that clenched around his heart, that tightened his stomach. It simply was. It was his reaction to her, all those emotions that threatened to burn out of control each time he saw her.

  “Well, I see Dr. Jenko didn’t waste any time in spreading the news,” she stated as she stepped into the room, Ivan’s aunt, Sophia, and cousin Elizaveta moving in behind her.

  Ivan was aware of the brutal look Beau shot him and ignored it, his gaze on Journey, no one else. He had no idea what she was thinking, how she felt about the child, and he admitted he’d hoped to discuss this with her privately.

  “Journey.” It was Jordan who spoke first. “This situation is bad now, honey.”

  A mocking tilt to her lips accompanied her look of amused indulgence. “Really, Jordan? Do you think?”

  Jordan grimaced as Tehya took her turn to shoot Ivan a furious look.

  Fuck them. Let them be angry. He hadn’t meant for this to happen, but he found he didn’t regret it either.

  His gaze dropped to her stomach, imagining her as she would grow with his child. She would become even more beautiful as the bloom of maternity filled her and shaped her curvy body.

  When his gaze returned to hers, he glimpsed a hint of uncertainty for just a moment, as though she wasn’t certain of him, wasn’t certain of his response.

  “Journey, let us hide you, just until the baby’s born,” Tehya seemed to plead. “I know you heard enough to know how dangerous this pregnancy is to you.”

  She linked her fingers, facing them all with Sophia and Elizaveta at her back. They would kill for her now, Ivan knew. They would die to protect her and that baby. Just as he would.

  “I’ve spent years hiding and it did me little good,” she stated calmly before inhaling with deliberate control. “I wouldn’t mind reserving the option, but for the moment, I believe this is a decision Ivan and I need to make. Alone.”

  * * *

  Journey stared back at the implacable, imposing features of the man whose child she now carried.

  It made sense now, she thought. The exhaustion, her inability to eat as she once had, that feeling of something not quite as it had once been with her body.

  Her body was no longer her own, she thought, softening somewhere deep inside her soul at the knowledge. She carried Ivan’s child now, and he didn’t exactly seem angry about it.

  “Journey, you can’t have this child.” Beau seemed to be forcing the words between those tight-assed jaws of his.

  She wasn’t surprised by his unspoken demand, but she was outraged by it.

  “Beau, I have thus far refrained from contacting my cousin the Queen in regards to your behavior toward me,” she told him politely. “But suggest that I do something so vile to my child again, I’ll be on the phone before you can come up with a lie that will save your hide. Are we understood?”

  The icy censure that filled his expression assured her that he understood completely.

  “There are things you are unaware of,” he tried again.

  “And I don’t need to hear of those things from you!” she snapped back at him.

  She hadn’t fully trusted Beau since she was a young teenager. There was always that sense that he hid far too many secrets, too many games. Not that Ivan was much better, but with Ivan there had also been that curling heat that filled her whenever she saw him and, somehow, a certainty that he wasn’t the villain he was made out to be.

  Whichever he was, she guessed she was about to find out though. But that was okay, because he might be getting more than he’d bargained for himself.

  chapter fourteen

  The illusion she’d bargained for was over, and Journey knew it the moment the doctor asked her if she’d known she was pregnant. Now, hearing the office door close behind her as the others left the room, she met Ivan’s implacable gaze and wondered what the hell she should do now.

  It was no longer about her. It would never be about her again. This was about the child they had created, and she had to think of that child first.

  With all his faults, supposed crimes, and machinations, the one thing she did know about Ivan was the fact that he was a good father. He was an excellent father. Amara had told her many times how her “poppa” had always sheltered her, loved her.

  Amara had suffered for the life she and her father had been born into and the choices he’d been forced to make, the other woman had once told Journey. They had both suffered. But she had never doubted his love for her.

  He would be a good father. He would love their child; he would do everything in his power to protect their baby. As well as her. Even now, Amara’s mother was protected by Ivan even though, according to Amara, they rarely spoke.

  Now, as she faced her pseudo-fiancé, trepidation tore at her. How he let others believe he felt, and how he really felt, were often two different things. Just because he’d faced Beau with male outrage and fury didn’t mean that was truly how he felt.

  Smoothing her hands down her hips, she stared at him as he poured himself a drink, whisky, she suspected, and sipped at it rather lazily. He didn’t seem the least angry or put out now that the room had emptied.

  “You’re watching me as I imagine Red Riding Hood watched the Big Bad Wolf.” The corners of his lips twitched in amusement. “Do you believe I blame you somehow?”

  “Some men would.” She shrugged, watching him carefully. He was far too calm, and yet that tension that radiated just below the surface seemed to be increasing.

  “I’m not some men.” The reminder did nothing to alleviate her nervousness. “I actually pride myself on that.”

  Yes, he seemed to.

  “This isn’t exactly something you expected,” she pointed out, off balance and really not certain what to say. “To be tied this way to your enemy’s daughter.”

  He grimaced at that. “Do you know, Journey, it’s harder every day to remember you’re even related to that family?”

  But she was related. She was the daughter and the granddaughter of the two men who had tried every way p
ossible to destroy him. He’d spent his life trying to protect himself against them, against their hatred and attempts to kill him as well as his daughter.

  And now there was another child to worry about, as well as the mother.

  “I want our child, Ivan,” she whispered, watching him carefully as he moved to his desk and leaned against it negligently. “I don’t want it taken from me.”

  Not by her father’s or grandfather’s schemes or by Ivan for whatever reason. She wanted to hold her baby, protect him or her. She wanted her child to have all the love, all the certainty, of a parent’s devotion that she herself had never had.

  It wasn’t the baby’s fault that he or she had been conceived. It was innocent of whatever the past held and deserved a chance to live.

  “I have no intention of taking our child from you,” he told her, his expression turning somber as he propped his hands on the desk behind him. “I’ll simply have to move my own plans forward a bit.”

  His own plans? What the hell was he talking about? He’d made plans without informing her of them?

  She stared back at him, fighting the temper she’d always cursed as he watched her as though she should know what the hell he was talking about.

  “And what plans would those be?” Something else she was unaware of? Another game someone was playing without informing her of it.

  “Marrying you of course.” His arms crossed over his chest and the sheer arrogance that filled his face had her ready to scream.

  Marrying her? Of course? As though he had any such plan to do anything so ridiculous. A pretend engagement and a real marriage were two different things. She took a cautious step back, retreating enough to try to make sense of what the hell he was up to this time.

  “I don’t need you to marry me.” She didn’t want marriage, not like this. “Our child will need a father. He’ll need your protection…”

  The low, dark chuckle that came from his chest was just amused enough to almost cover the warning mockery of it.

  “And he’ll have my protection. Or she, whichever the case may be. Just as you will. You’ll also carry my name and sleep in my bed. If that child is born a boy then the legacy he’ll be an heir to will demand nothing less.”