I didn’t know. I didn’t know anything anymore.
The baby kicked. Or maybe I imagined it. I pressed my hand to my stomach. “I know,” I whispered to the life growing inside me. “I know I’m being stupid. I know I should tell him.”
But I didn’t. Couldn’t. Not yet.
The clock on the mantel ticked away the minutes. I sat in the library until my back ached and my eyes burned with exhaustion, the unread book still open in my lap. Outside, Brooklyn glittered in the darkness, a city full of secrets and dangers I was only beginning to understand.
Finally, when I couldn’t put it off any longer, I forced myself upstairs to bed.
I went through my nighttime routine on autopilot. Brushed my teeth. Washed my face. Changed into the soft cotton nightgown that was one of the few things that still fit comfortably over my growing belly. Climbed into bed and stared at the ceiling, counting the minutes until Alexei would return.
I must have dozed off at some point, because I woke to the sound of the bedroom door opening. My body tensedautomatically before I forced myself to relax, to keep my breathing even and slow.
The mattress dipped as Alexei slid in behind me, his arm wrapping around my waist, his hand covering mine on my stomach. I stiffened involuntarily before catching myself.
“Sorry,” he murmured against my hair, his breath warm on my neck. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”
“It’s okay.” I kept my voice soft and sleepy and hoped he’d believe it. “Everything alright?”
“It will be.” He pulled me closer, his body a solid wall of heat against my back. “Just business. Nothing for you to worry about.”
The lie was so casual, so practiced, that I almost believed it. But I’d learned to read him too, learned the subtle tells that meant he was holding back. Whatever business he’d been handling, it wasn’t nothing. It was serious enough to pull him away at night, serious enough to put that edge in his voice.
Was it about the letter? About the phone call? About threats I didn’t even know existed yet?
I forced myself to relax against him, to let my breathing even out like I was drifting back to sleep. But my mind raced, turning over possibilities and scenarios until they blurred together into white noise. His hand was warm on my stomach, our child between his palm and mine. This was what mattered, I told myself. This moment, this connection. Everything else was just noise.
But I didn’t believe it.
“Mila,” he said quietly, and something in his voice made my pulse jump. “If something’s wrong, if you’re scared or worried about anything, you can tell me. You know that, right?”
The words hovered on my tongue.
Someone called. They warned me. I don’t know what to do.
But what came out was, “I know.”
Such a small lie. Such a massive betrayal.
I pressed back against him slightly, a gesture of affection that felt hollow even as I made it. His arms tightened around me, his face buried in my hair, giving me a feel of the tension in his body that matched my own.
We lay there in the darkness, holding each other while oceans of unspoken truth stretched between us. Two people who’d promised forever, who’d created life together, who couldn’t seem to bridge the gap that was growing wider every day.
I closed my eyes and tried not to think about tomorrow, about the next crisis, about the inevitable moment when all my carefully constructed lies would come crashing down around us.
For now, I just held onto my husband in the darkness and pretended that was enough.
Of course, it wasn’t.
But it was all I had.
Chapter Fourteen
Alexei’s POV
Chaos had always been my element; I thrived in it. While other men crumbled under pressure, I sharpened. The more complicated the situation and the more variables in play, the clearer my mind became. It was a skill honed through years of navigating the Bratva world, of learning that survival meant being three steps ahead of everyone else, always.
But this chaos was different.
