My voice dropped lower.
“Every kick.”
A beat. “Every fear.”
Another step. “Every cramp.”
I gestured toward my chest.
“In a prison cell.”
His expression shifted.
Pain flickered — fast — before he could hide it.
“You were sitting in your mansion,” I continued, my words slicing through the silence, “pretending I didn’t exist.”
My hands trembled — not from weakness, but from memory.
“The baby died before you even knew he was there.”
The words tasted like poison.
“So don’t stand there and say ‘our child’ like you had any part in it.”
My eyes locked onto his.
“You didn’t.”
Silence followed.
Thick.
Ruslan didn’t defend himself.
He just stood there — absorbing it.
I turned away from him and grabbed my discarded top from the floor.
Black cotton.
Still warm from my body.
My fingers tightened around the fabric before I pulled it over my head.
It caught briefly against damp skin.
I yanked it down harder than necessary — irritation fueling every movement.
Ruslan watched me.
I could feel his gaze.
Heavy. Measuring.
When I finally looked back at him, he was still standing near the cot — breathing unevenly from what had just happened between us.
His chest rose and fell slower now.
