The Discovery

Six weeks later.

The grand dining room of the Volkov estate was dead silent, save for the ticking of a grandfather clock.

Mikhail Volkov sat at the head of the table, calmly sipping his morning espresso. Across from him stood Nikolai. The 35-year-old Don looked immaculate, dressed in a sharp, three-piece charcoal suit, but the aura radiating off him was pure, unfiltered murder.

Nikolai slammed a stack of medical documents onto the table, right next to his grandfather’s coffee cup.

"Explain this," Nikolai said, his voice dropping to a lethal, quiet register. "Before I burn this house down with both of us in it."

Mikhail didn't blink. He picked up the papers, glancing at the positive pregnancy confirmation and the name printed at the top: Sasha.

"It seems I am going to be a great-grandfather," Mikhail replied smoothly. "You should be celebrating, Nikolai. The Volkov bloodline continues."

"Celebrating?!" Nikolai’s control snapped. He slammed his fist onto the table, making the china rattle. "He is twenty-one years old, grandfather! A college student! He came here for a scholarship foundation, and you used my early rut to trap him? You threw an innocent kid into my room like a lamb to a slaughter just to satisfy your greed for an heir?!"

Nikolai’s chest heaved with a mixture of fury and a profound, sickening guilt. He remembered flashes of that night. He remembered how small the boy felt beneath him, how gentle his touches were despite the violence of the rut. Nikolai believed, with every fiber of his being, that his grandfather had manipulated and forced a helpless, desperate student into his bed.

"I am a monster," Nikolai spat, his grey eyes burning with self-hatred. "A mafia boss with blood on my hands, and you dragged a pure, innocent kid into my filth. You ruined his entire life. His future, his education—gone."

"His scholarship is fully funded," Mikhail pointed out calmly. "And he is being taken care of."

"I don't give a damn about your money!" Nikolai growled, straightening his cuffs, his face hardening into a mask of absolute resolve. "The deed is done. The boy is carrying my child. From this moment on, you do not touch him. You do not speak to him. He is my responsibility now."

Nikolai turned on his heel, his coat billowing behind him as he stormed out of the dining room and marched toward the guest wing of the mansion. He was going to face the boy he believed he had broken.

The door to the guest suite was heavy, but Nikolai pushed it open with a gentleness that contradicted his massive, intimidating frame.

Sasha was sitting by the large bay window, his knees pulled up to his chest, looking incredibly small against the backdrop of the massive Volkov estate. When the door opened, his shoulders visibly tensed. He lowered his legs and turned to look at the man who had haunted his thoughts for the last six weeks.

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