Joy and fear clashed in a dizzying thrill. Or horror.
I was excited. I was so happy to be able to have a family of my own. My very own child! A precious girl or boy to love and protect from this world.
Before I could let myself celebrate, I sat on the closed toilet lid and stared at the test.
Howwillwe proceed now?
That was what he wanted to know, and I was certain it would be his decision to make.
Having his child would force everyone to confront my permanent connection to the Volkov Bratva. That could turn out in different ways.
All I wished to know was if my having his baby would be something that Adrik could… tolerate.
He has to.
I’ll never give this baby up.
I pressed a hand over my stomach and promised him or her right now.
I will never, ever give you up.
I wouldn’t budge. That would bemydecision to make. Yet, I wondered if that meant he’d cast me away. If he disliked the idea of having a child so badly that when we didn’t see eye to eye, I’d have to leave.
If it comes to that…
I’d have nowhere to go and no one to trust, and for the first time in my life, it didn’t depress me. It terrified me and angered me.
33
ADRIK
Iwasn’t going to hover over her in the bathroom, for fuck’s sake. The way she looked at me suggested she was dreading my doing just that.
After I left, though, she stayed at the forefront of my mind. I had a couple of meetings to get through, one with Rico Johnson, again, that ass-kissing annoyance of a wannabe politician who was still trying to get on my good side. He’d been on our radar even before my father had his stroke and we learned of his prognosis. And my father didn’t have much patience for him either. At the time, he suggested having Alexei deal with the up-and-coming potential politician. Which was a cruel joke all around. My older cousin had the charisma and patience for speaking with a schmoozing politician as much as he had for putting up with fools. Which was a sum of zero.
I had taken over that angle of networking, so to speak, to spare Alexei wanting to kill the man or something. My father ruled above the law of society. He always trained us to view the politicians of the world as salesmen who were after whatever they could get their hands on to lobby for their own profit.
Taking my father’s place meantIwould need to walk that fine line of balancing favors and annoyance with the smarmy idiots. Yet, not even twenty seconds into the video call, I was losing interest faster than ever in what Rico rambled about. If he could stop inserting those stupid chuckles that grated on my nerves, I bet I’d lower my blood pressure.
Fuck, was he annoying.
Since I didn’t see any critical value to fully listening to him, I reverted to who was on my mind.
Elena.
I could so perfectly envision her with her belly round, carrying my son or daughter. She’d glow, looking like a radiant queen.Myqueen.
Before I could allow myself to fantasize about how gorgeous she would be as an expectant mother of my child, I had to erase the more current images of her.
Scared.
Nervous.
Timid.
Worried.
She had hedged all through that conversation when she’d come out of the bathroom and I’d put her on the spot. But the rest of our talk hadn’t gone as well as I wished it could.
