24
VIKTOR
“What?”
Her mouth tightens for a moment as if trying to take it back. Then she stands a little taller, lifting her chin. She says it again, a little louder. “I’m pregnant.”
It’s like she’s hit me across the face when I wasn’t looking or expecting it. I have to take a step back from her if I have any hope of recovering. “Pregnant…?” I repeat.
She nods. Looking at her now in the oversized T-shirt, her rounded hips and defined thighs speaking to her youthfulness, is fooling my senses. Imagining her with a baby bump or further down the line when she’s got a round basketball-shaped belly…
It seems strange. I turn away from her completely, my mind bouncing from the idiocy ofhow could you let this happenandI’m actually going to be a father…
“You don’t have to do anything,” she says, snapping me out of it. I turn to her with a question in my eyes and she stands there, her hands balled up into fists at her side. “I think I’m aroundtwo or three months… which matches up to the first time we…” She clears her throat and looks down at her toes digging into the carpet.
“Anyway,” she says when she looks back up, “you don’t have to do or even say anything. I’ve decided that I’m keeping it. And… and all the trouble of having it, raising it… I’ll carry that burden.”
“Tati—”
“Please, don’t, okay?” She looks like she’s on the verge of tears, but she’s fighting it and winning. “Your reaction right now is all I need to know. Everything you said a minute ago… it was all great and beautiful and… and I think you believe it. But I know how that all can change once you’ve got a baby to think about, so I’m letting you off the hook. When we’re through all this with my father, you can go your way and I’ll go mine.”
A small flicker of anger rises in me. “You’re making a lot of assumptions about what I want to do and how I feel about this pregnancy.”
She blinks, her big brown eyes sparkling. “I know. I don’t want you to think that I’m trying to trap you into being with me.”
That makes me laugh, but it’s a hollow sound. I have to turn away from her, so I walk to the bed and sit down. “Trap me. Interesting choice of words.”
She just stands and stares without humor. She’s expecting something from me. An explosion. A rejection. I don’t know. But she’s braced herself for the worst.
“I was just talking to Teddy out there,” I tell her. “We have been discussing what we do now. Yanov’s attack is proof that myrelationship with the brotherhood has been severed, Tati. I’m on the outside.”
She clasps her hands in front of herself, pursing her lips to keep from speaking.
“You have to understand something,” I go on. “I don’t know any other life than the Bratva. This is my world and has been since I was eleven years old.” I pause before I speak the next part of it. The part that I’ve never said aloud, nor let myself believe before now. “And I have always been trapped. The world that I’ve lived in has never been my own. Never my rules and never any expectation of becoming something other than another extension of this brotherhood. For the first time in my life, I can see a bigger life within my reach.”
She swallows hard. “You don’t have to be trapped anymore,” she says in a small voice. “You can run?—”
“I’m not going anywhere without you, Tati. And when all this is said and done, I expect you to be by my side.”
I watch her shoulders relax slightly as I gaze at her. “So… what are you saying?”
I think back to the conversation with Teddy. His third option flashes through my mind as every bit of doubt that was left disappears. It’s always been the only option I’ve ever had if I truly wanted to be more than just Nikolai’s enforcer.
And now my Tati has given me the strength to do it.
She takes an involuntary step backward, tears hanging in her eyes. I close the gap between us and wrap my arms around her waist, lifting her up to me and kissing her deeply. Her lips stiffen against mine, but then they melt into softness against my mouth.She breathes me in with the softest sigh brushing against my lips.
“Viktor,” she whispers against my mouth. “This is so dangerous. You don’t have to?—”
I stop and press a finger to her lips. “Quiet, my love.” I drag my finger down over her chin and caress the line of her jaw. “I’ve got you.”
Everything in her face and body bends toward me. Her eyes lower and her mouth goes slack. “You got me?”
“I’m not letting you or this baby go,Tanechka.” I rest a hand on her belly, pressing against her warmth through her T-shirt. “Not now or ever.”
I lift her off her feet and cradle her in my arms as I carry her to the bed. She nuzzles her face in my neck, soft kisses against my skin as I lay her down on the comforter. She lies back, and her rosy pink curls splay out like a halo as she reaches for me, her hand running down the buttons of my shirt.
“I want to see you,” she says. “All of you.”
