I walk to the study where Adrian is reviewing documents. He looks up when I appear in the doorway.
“I need to see a doctor.”
He’s on his feet before I finish the sentence. “What’s wrong?”
“I’ve been nauseated for two weeks, vomiting daily for three, exhausted constantly, and I’m late…nine weeks late, going by my last period. So,latelate.”
The word “late” makes him flinch, and his focus shifts to me, but he doesn’t panic. He doesn’t ask if I’m sure or suggest we wait oroffer any of the responses I half-expected. He just stands there and shifts into the next gear.
“I know a doctor with a private practice in a secure facility. We can be there in forty minutes.”
The doctor isan internist named Farrell, who operates out of a discreet medical office in Marathon. Viktor arranged the visit in under thirty minutes, which tells me either Adrian’s medical contacts are exceptionally responsive or Viktor anticipated this conversation before I had it. That idea is unsettling, so I don’t consider it for long.
Dr. Farrell checks my vitals, asks me questions about my symptoms, and hands me a cup for a urine sample. I go to the bathroom, come back, and sit on the exam table while she runs the test. The wait is under five minutes, and every second of it stretches.
She comes back into the room and delivers the information directly, without cushioning, which is how I prefer it.
“You’re pregnant. The urine test is strongly positive, which is consistent with your timeline of approximately nine weeks. Whomever you choose for your prenatal care will classify that as eleven weeks, since it goes from your last menstrual period.”
She sets the test result on the counter when I can see the two pink lines in a plastic case. One is much darker than the other. “I’m ordering blood work to confirm your hCG levels and check your overall health, but those results will take a day or two.Based on the positive test and your symptoms, I’m confident in the diagnosis.”
Pregnant. Nine weeks ago was the first time I slept with Adrian in the private room at Echelon. It was also the night Dominic died and my entire life detonated before rebuilding itself around a man I barely knew. I got pregnant that night, and I’ve spent nine weeks running from a murder investigation, a stalker, and a rival syndicate while two cells divided into something real inside me without asking permission.
I look at Adrian. He’s standing beside the exam table and hasn’t moved. His entire body is still. I’ve seen this stillness twice before, in the corridor at Echelon when I caught him over Dominic’s body, and when I told him this wasn’t temporary anymore. His world just rearranged without his permission, and he’s deciding how to respond.
He breaks his paralysis and turns to Dr. Farrell to ask questions. Not emotional questions. Practical ones. What does Aurora need immediately? What are the risk factors at nine weeks? What screenings should be scheduled? What dietary changes are required? What about the stress she’s been under? Does that affect the pregnancy?
The questions come fast, in sequence, and I’m still catching up to the word “pregnant” while he’s already three steps into a protection plan. The speed of it takes my breath away. He went from stillness to full operational mode in under five seconds, and somewhere in those five seconds, he decided this pregnancy is real and worth protecting. He made that decision before I even finished accepting the diagnosis.
Dr. Farrell answers each question patiently and hands me a prenatal vitamin prescription and a referral to an OB-GYN withan attached imaging center for a dating ultrasound. Adrian takes the referral, reads it, and puts it in his jacket pocket without comment. I’m still sitting on the exam table trying to make the word “pregnant” connect to the body I’ve been living in for nine weeks without knowing what was happening inside it.
In the car, I sit with my hands in my lap and stare at the prescription on the seat between us for prenatal vitamins. The words on the paper are clinical and make this real in a way the doctor’s voice didn’t. Fedor drives to the nearest pharmacy as I sit in stunned silence.
I try to organize what I’m feeling, and I can’t. The emotions are tangled together in a knot I can’t pick apart, containing fear and cautious hope. I’m twenty-seven years old, pregnant by a man I’ve known for two months, hiding from two different threats, and I don’t have a home, a job, or a plan for any of it. “I’m terrified.” Someone has to say something, and Adrian is giving me the space to speak first, like he always does for things that matter.
He takes my hand. “You don’t have to know how you feel yet. You just have to know you aren’t alone.”
The words are direct and carry no conditions. He’s not telling me what to do. He’s not making plans, at least not verbally yet, or building structures, or asking what I want from him. He’s sitting beside me in the back of a car holding my hand and telling me I’m not alone. A small sob escapes me.
I look down at our joined hands on the seat between us. His grip is firm and steady. Part of me wants to pull away, because every man who’s held my hand eventually used the grip to steer, and I swore I’d never let that happen again. I wait for the instinct toretreat, or the voice in the back of my mind that says trust is the first step toward losing yourself, to surface.
It doesn’t come. His grip doesn’t feel like a cage. It doesn’t feel like Eric’s hand, correcting and steering me toward a version of myself I didn’t choose. It feels like an anchor, holding me in place while the current tries to pull me under.
I hold on tighter.
16
ADRIAN
The imaging center and obstetrician Dr. Farrell recommended she use is a strip-mall clinic in Homestead with a shared waiting room and security cameras pointed at the parking lot. I discard that idea by the time we’re back at the current safehouse.
“I’ve arranged something different.” I set my phone on the kitchen counter. “Dr. Shawn Miller runs a private practice, no walk-in traffic, and the building has controlled access. Viktor will vet him personally. If he checks out, we’ll use him.”
Aurora looks at me over the referral sheet. “You chose and vetted my obstetrician?” There’s a dangerous edge to her voice.
“Miller trained at Johns Hopkins, practiced at Mount Sinai for twelve years, and left to open a private practice that caters to patients who need discretion. He handles diplomats’ wives, celebrity pregnancies, and at least two clients I’ve referred through the hospitality group.”
“You have an OB on retainer? How many other pregnant women have you taken to him, Adrian?”
