“This isn’t right,” I mutter.
He leans a hip on the edge of my desk, picking up the papers and flipping through them like he’s reading a grocery list.
“You know,” he says casually, “you could always renegotiate. Extend the contract. Make it two children. A boy and a girl. Daughters are good, but sons—” He shrugs. “You could say it’s tradition to keep going until you get a boy. Win-win”
I stare at him.
No. Not win-win. Not for her.
Yury sees the look in my eyes and sighs. “I’m just saying, if you want her to stay longer, this is the cleanest way, contractually.”
Stay longer.
As though there will ever be a version of my life where she is not in it.
“No,” I say.
Yury blinks. “No?”
“The contract was wrong,” I continue, each word sharpening. “From the very beginning.”
“You don’t make mistakes with this stuff, Vitali. You’re my most solid man. You’re just rattled. Watching a birth can be terrifying. It’s normal to feel a little disjointed,” he says gently. “It’s the adrenaline. It will settle—”
“It won’t,” I snap.
He studies me then. He lowers himself into the chair opposite mine and steeples his fingers thoughtfully.
“You want her,” he says finally. “Not as a surrogate. Not as a placeholder. As your wife. As your family.”
I don’t respond. I don’t need to. It wasn’t that long ago he was bringing Sophia back to his mountain fortress…
He nods slowly. “Then destroy it.”
My pulse slams into overdrive. “It’s not that simple. She agreed to this because she had nothing. I can’t take away her future because I’m selfish enough to want her in mine.”
Yury tilts his head. “You love her.”
I exhale. Slow. Shaking. “Yes.”
He smiles and it surprises me to see it’s warm. Proud even.
“When are you going to tell her?”
“That’s the problem,” I admit, sinking back into my chair. “She talks about studying. Traveling. Becoming something. I won’t trap her here.”
“And if she doesn’t want to leave? What if she became something today when she held her baby for the first time?” Yury asks.
I look down at the signature on the contract. The signature of the woman who changed everything I believed about control and emotion and the future.
“I don’t know what she wants,” I breathe. “Not anymore.”
“Then ask her,” he says simply.
He stands and pats my shoulder. “She loves you, son. That woman would go toe to toe with a bear if it meant you and the baby were safe.”
I close my eyes and breathe through the tightness in my chest. I want to believe him. But wanting isn’t knowing.
When I open them again, I’m alone. The contract sits between my hands, powerful and wrong.
