Page 25 of Cruel Submission

He nods like he expected that answer. “Whenever you’re ready.”

We stand there quietly, both of us watching Aleks sleep. He makes small sounds—not quite cries, just little huffs and sighs that prove he’s breathing, he’s alive, he’s here when his mother isn’t.

“Do you want a DNA test?” Dr. Cullen’s voice is neutral, clinical. Just a doctor asking a medical question. “We can take a sample from inside the baby’s cheek. It’s non-invasive. Results take about two weeks.”

Two weeks to know for certain if this child is mine. Two weeks to have it confirmed in black and white, no more doubt.

Two weeks where this kid stays in limbo while I decide if he’s worth claiming.

I look at Aleks again. Trying to see Rosanna in his features, trying to see myself. But all I see is a baby who didn’t ask to be born into this mess. A baby whose grandfather I killed. Whose mother killed herself because I left her with nothing—no Sergei to care for her, no family to support her, just the weight of depression and a future she couldn’t face.

I did this. Not directly—I didn’t force her to put her foot on that accelerator—but I caused the fight with Sergei that started the dominoes falling. I’m the reason this child is here, alone, with a dead mother and a question mark where a father should be.

The guilt is a living thing inside me. Worse than the guilt over Mishka, because at least with my brother, I can tell myself it was an accident. This? This is consequence. This is what happens when you play god with other people’s lives.

The only way to stop the gnawing—the only way to live with myself—is to take responsibility. To pick up the pieces I broke and try to glue them into something that resembles a life.

“No.”

The word surprises us both. Dr. Cullen’s eyebrows rise slightly. “No to the test?”

“No to the test.” I turn to face him fully. “I’ll take him home. I don’t give a fuck about the DNA, I’ll take him.”

“Mr. Laurov—”

“How long before I can have him?”

Dr. Cullen studies me for a moment. Whatever he sees in my face must satisfy him because he nods slowly. “Give me a couple of days. I need to arrange the paperwork, make sure all the medical clearances are in order. He’s healthy—no complications aside from being slightly premature, and he’s past the danger point now. But there are procedures. Protocols.”

I nod. Don’t trust my voice right now.

“I’ll call you when everything is ready,” he adds.

One last look at Aleks through the glass. That tiny chest rising and falling. Those miniature fingers. A whole life ahead of him that I’m about to become responsible for.

What a beautiful thing.

And what a catastrophic start.

Chapter Nine

Mirabel

The mirror doesn’t lie.

I stand naked in the morning light streaming through my bedroom window, fingers hovering over the gentle swell of my stomach. Not much. Not yet. But enough that I can see it when I turn to the side, when the shadows catch just right.

My baby. His baby.

The thought sends a complicated rush through my chest; half terror, half something that scares me more than the kidnapping did.

Clothes still hide it. The loose dresses I’ve been wearing, the oversized sweaters. But I’m running out of time. Another few weeks, maybe a month at most, and there’ll be no hiding what’s growing inside me.

I have to tell Arkady.

The words have sat on my tongue every time I’ve seen him, every time he’s touched me. But something stops me. Fear, no doubt. And the weight of knowing that once I tell him, everything changes.

He’s never been the easiest man to be around. Our moments of intimacy are invariably interrupted by him withdrawing, or disappearing entirely. Yesterday, in the library—