Her lips part.
I squeeze her hand gently. "Blue. You're pregnant?"
She exhales, tension draining just enough. "I'm sorry. I lied. I'm not pregnant."
"What?" Maksim asks.
She swallows hard and meets his gaze. "I'm sorry. I needed to make sure Red came back to me alive. I-I didn't know how else to make you get him."
Maksim looks up, shaking his head. He says something in Russian.
"I'm sorry, Uncle Maksim. I didn't mean to make it worse," she claims.
Disappointment hits me. "So we're not having a baby?"
She slowly meets my gaze. "No. I'm sorry."
"That sucks," I say before I can stop myself.
Her face lights up. "You would have been happy?"
"Yes. Of course."
Her lips curve.
Maksim rises and paces.
The woman goes over to him. "Stop pacing. Let's have dinner and figure out how to best handle this."
Blue shakes her head. "I don't want food."
"You need it. Both of you. I'm Aspen, by the way."
"Nice to meet you. Red." I nod, wondering how we're going to make this second wrong right in Adrian's eyes.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Blue
Sometimes, when things are too quiet, my body panics before I understand why. Silence presses in, heavy and wrong, like it's waiting for me to notice it. So I lie still for a second, eyes shut, afraid to move, not wanting the moment to shatter and take whatever fragile peace exists with it.
When I finally allow my eyes to snap open, a new panic hits. The blackout curtains aren't mine. The ceiling is too high and smooth, washed in soft light that doesn't belong in any place I've ever slept.
Then there's the smell. It's too clean, expensive, and untouched by the mess of my life. For a terrifying second, I don't know where I am or how I got here, and my chest locks like it's preparing for impact.
I don't move, holding my breath, trying to listen for a hint that it's okay to disturb the foreign environment I'm in.
That's when I feel him. Red's warmth at my back. The solid weight of his arm around my waist. The steady rise and fall of his chest against me like a tether pulling me back into myself.
I let out a shaky breath and press my fingers into the sheets,grounding myself in the unfamiliar fabric, letting the sense of safety settle.
Red's alive.
Suddenly, the silence doesn't feel quite as dangerous anymore. For half a second, I believe this is some polished version of peace where nothing hurts anymore.
My father hurt him.
My hands tremble. I curl my fingers into the sheets, gripping hard enough to feel the fabric bite into my skin. The urge hits fast and sharp, like it always does in the quiet. My brain whispers all the old promises.
