All Chapters of THE LAST SAFE WORD: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

The jet’s wheels touched sand at dawn.Not a runway. Actual sand.Czar had bought an entire private island off the coast of São Tomé and Príncipe: twenty square kilometres of jungle, black-sand beaches, and zero cell signal unless you were standing on the exact spot he allowed.He carried me down the steps barefoot, still wearing his white dress shirt from the wedding, sleeves rolled, top buttons undone, looking like sin on vacation.A lone jeep waited. No driver.He put me in the passenger seat, buckled me in himself, fingers lingering on the seatbelt across my stomach.“Still no nausea?” he asked, soft.“Only when I remember I married you twice in forty-eight hours.”He laughed: low, genuine, the sound I heard maybe once a year.Then he drove.The road was barely a path, cut through palm trees and vines. Birds screamed overhead. The air smelled of salt and something sweet and dangerous.We rounded a bend and the house appeared.Not a villa. A fortress disguised as paradise: glass wa

Lightning cracked the sky open the second Dimitri stepped inside.He looked exactly like Czar, if Czar had been carved from ice instead of fire. Same height, same cruel mouth, same eyes that stripped you bare.Only difference: the long scar running from Dimitri’s left temple to his jaw, the one Czar had given him the night he buried him alive.He smiled like the devil collecting a debt.“Put the gun down, krasotka. We both know you won’t shoot.”My hand shook so hard the barrel danced.He walked forward slowly, palms open, rain dripping from his black coat.“Easy. I just want to talk.”“Talk from there,” I said, voice cracking.He stopped three metres away, tilted his head.“Look at you. Pregnant. Glowing. Terrifyingly brave.” His gaze dropped to my stomach. “My nephew. Or niece. How poetic.”I cocked the pistol.He laughed softly. “Czar taught you that, didn’t he? Good. Means he’s finally learning to protect what’s his.”Another step.“Stop.”“Or what? You’ll kill me and explain to y

The letter arrived on a Tuesday.Plain white envelope. No stamp. Delivered by hand.I found it on the breakfast table while Czar was in the gym, punching a bag until his knuckles bled.My name was written in ink I recognised instantly.Nathaniel.My first love.The boy I’d planned to run away with before Czar burned that future to the ground.The boy who supposedly died in a car bomb five years ago.I opened it with shaking hands.Inside: one sheet of thick paper and a single photograph.The photo was me, asleep on the island, three weeks pregnant, sun on my face.Taken from inside the house.The letter was short.Eden,The baby is mine.Ask your husband about the night in London, two months before Santorini.He knows.I’m coming for what’s mine.—NMy stomach dropped through the floor.I was still staring at the words when Czar walked in, sweat-soaked, towel around his neck.He took one look at my face and went predator-still.“What is it?”I couldn’t speak. Just held out the letter.

We left the island at sunrise.Not in the usual way.No suitcases. No goodbyes.Just Czar carrying me down the dock barefoot, wearing his black shirt and nothing else, while the guards loaded one single duffel bag and a baby car seat still in plastic.The yacht was gone.In its place: a matte-black submarine tender disguised as a fishing boat.He’d planned this for months.He handed me up the ladder, climbed after me, and the captain cast off without a word.Czar stood at the rail, arm locked around my waist, watching the island shrink.“You okay?” I asked.He didn’t answer for a long time.Then: “I just ordered every server farm holding my records torched. Every offshore account emptied into new names. Every man who ever called me boss is either dead or paid enough to forget I exist.”He turned to me, eyes ancient.“I’m a ghost now, Eden. For real this time.”I pressed my hand to his cheek.“Good. Ghosts can’t be hunted.”He kissed my palm.We sailed north for three days: no flags, n

The first time Aleksandr understood that the world could end without warning, he was nine years old and the sun had not risen for thirty-seven days.Polar night pressed against the windows of Severnaya Polyarnaya like a living thing (black, patient, hungry). Inside, the station smelled of diesel, wet wool, and the sour panic of adults pretending everything was fine.His mother kissed his forehead every morning with lips that tasted like metal because she chewed antacids the way other people smoked.His father only came above deck when the satellites went blind. Then he would stand at the highest railing, staring north as if he could see Moscow burning from here.The station floated on a slab of ice that cracked like gunfire some nights. They all learned to sleep through it.Aleksandr learned other things.He learned that if he stood very still in Corridor 7B at 03:14, the motion sensors forgot he existed and he could watch the servers breathe (rows of black towers behind frosted glass