“No,” I refused. “You’ll bring whatever equipment you need here. She doesn’t leave the estate.”
Mila’s hand caught my wrist. “Alexei, I’m fine. I can go to a clinic—”
“No.” My voice was softer, but the steel underneath remained. “Not with Moretti making moves. Not until this is finished. You stay here, where I can protect you.”
Where I can keep you safe.
Where I can see you, touch you, reassure myself that you’re real and alive and mine.
She must have seen something in my expression because she didn’t argue. She just nodded, her fingers tightening on my wrist like she was afraid I’d disappear.
“I’ll arrange everything,” Dr. Volkov said, already gathering his equipment with the efficiency of a man who knew better than to argue with a Lobanov. “In the meantime, rest and fluids. The fainting was likely a combination of low blood sugar and the early effects of pregnancy. Nothing to worry about as long as we monitor her closely.”
Anya had been silent through all of this, but now she stood, her green eyes bright with unshed tears. “I’m going to be an aunt,” she said wonderingly. Then she turned to face Mila. “You’re going to be a mother.”
Mila’s free hand went to her stomach again, that unconscious gesture of protection and wonder. “I guess I am.”
After Dr. Volkov left with promises to return within the hour, and Anya kissed us both and slipped out with a knowingsmile, I climbed onto the bed and pulled Mila against me. She came willingly, tucking herself into my side with a sigh.
“I had no idea,” she murmured against my chest. “I really didn’t know how you’d feel about it.”
“How do you feel about it?” I asked. “Be honest with me.”
She was quiet for a long moment, and I could practically feel her thinking, analyzing, trying to find the right words. “Terrified,” she finally admitted. “I never thought about having children. Not really. My life was supposed to be quiet and safe and far away from all this. And now I’m married to you, living in this world, and I’m pregnant with a child who’ll inherit all of this violence and blood and—” Her breath hitched. “I’m so scared, Alexei.”
I tightened my arms around her and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. "I know."
“But I’m also…” She paused. “I’m also happy? Which seems insane, but I am. Because it’s yours. Ours. And despite everything—despite the fear, you know, the danger and how completely unprepared I am for this—I want it.”
Something in my chest cracked open at those words. Want. Such a simple thing, really. But coming from Mila—who’d never asked me for anything, who’d accepted this marriage with quiet dignity and made the best of an impossible situation—it felt like a gift.
“I will protect you,” I promised. “Both of you. Whatever it takes. Moretti, anyone else who threatens what’s mine—they’ll learn what it means to make an enemy of me.”
“I know.” Mila’s hand found mine, our fingers lacing together over her still-flat stomach. “I’ve always known. That’s what scares me most. Not that you won’t protect me, but what you’ll become in the process of protecting me. Well, us now.”
She saw too much—right from the very beginning. But instead of running from what she saw, she stayed. She chose this. Chose me.
“I’ll become whatever I need to be,” I told her. “For you. For our child. There are no lines I won’t cross, Mila. You need to understand that.”
“I do.” She tilted her head back to look at me, and her hazel eyes were clear despite the fear. “And I’m choosing to stay anyway.”
Later—after Dr. Volkov returned with equipment and confirmed what we already knew, after the sun had fully risen—I stood at the window of our bedroom and watched Mila sleep. She was curled on her side, one hand still resting protectively over her stomach, her face peaceful in a way it rarely was when she was awake. In sleep, she looked impossibly young. Impossibly vulnerable.
My wife. The mother of my child. My everything.
One of my warehouses was gone. The message from Moretti had been received. And somewhere out there, Enzo thought he was winning this war of attrition, thought he could make us weak. He had no idea what he’d just unleashed.
Chapter Eleven
Mila’s POV
The sun was too bright. It spilled across the silk duvet in long, unhurried ribbons of gold, mocking the complexity of my life with its simple, ordinary warmth. For a moment, as I drifted between the haze of sleep and the sharp edge of consciousness, I could almost pretend I was back in my cramped apartment near the university. I could almost hear the radiator clanking and the muffled sounds of city traffic outside my window.
But the radiator didn’t clank here. The air was climate-controlled to a perfect, silent degree, and the only sound was the distant, rhythmic shush of the wind through the pines that guarded the Lobanov estate.
I shifted beneath the heavy covers, my movement slow. My fingers drifted to my stomach, resting there in a gesture that had become an unconscious reflex. It was a light touch, barely a ghost of a sensation, yet it felt like I was holding a secret so heavy it might pull me through the floor.
I wasn’t just Mila Petrov anymore—the student, the daughter of a ghost, the reluctant bride. I wasn’t even just Mila Lobanov, the wife of a man made of marble and shadow. I was them. I was the vessel for a legacy I had never asked for, a bridge between a bloody past and an uncertain future.
