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I kiss the soft skin just beneath her bump and smile. “Do what you want. There will always be this price to pay.”
52
YAKOV
“When are you and Luna leaving for the gender scan?” my mother asks over the rim of her coffee cup.
She’s been dressed and nursing her coffee at the table since I got out of bed before dawn. I’m still sleeping like shit. Luna has fewer nightmares now, but I still can’t relax at night. Not when the shadows are full of things I can’t yet kill.
I check the clock above the stove. “We need to be there in forty minutes.”
She hums and takes a bite of the cold toast on her plate. The disinterested performance is undercut by the fact that it’s the third time she’s asked about the appointment this morning.
“It was nice of Dr. Jenkins to get you in on such short notice,” she muses.
“There’s nothing nice about it. It’s his job. I’m paying the man enough that he should have brought the ultrasound machine here.”
She perks up. “Could he do that?”
“It’s not worth the risk. I’m not allowing any outside tech through the gates.”
That’s true, but with Dima’s men bolstering my forces beyond the mansion, I can now have even more guards stationed here at home. The extra guards plus the additional security cameras have made the mansion practically impenetrable. Even if someone did get a bug or a wire through the gates, they’d never be able to get onto the property to do anything about it.
The real reason Dr. Jenkins can’t come to the mansion is that Luna doesn’t want my mother—or anyone else—at the scan with us. But she made me swear I wouldn’t say anything to her.
“Should you even be going? If things are as bad as you make them out, perhaps Luna should stay here.”
“Luna wants to know the gender of the babies. I’m not going to deny her that.”
“That’s sweet, Yakov, but think about the big picture,” she argues. “What’s the point of knowing the gender of the babies if you all get killed?”
It’s a simple hypothetical, but my body tenses. I fist my hands at my side and turn on her. “I’m always thinking about the big picture. All I do is think about the big picture.”
“I know,” she backtracks. “I didn’t mean?—”
“Nothing is going to happen to Luna or the babies. I am going to protect them.”
My mother’s expression softens. “I know you will. But accidents happen.”
I know she’s thinking about my father now. Before he was shot in the chest, I didn’t really believe he could be killed. None of us did. He was larger than life. It didn’t seem possible that someone could snatch that away with something as small as a bullet.
Now, I know the truth. At the core, we’re all fragile humans. Animals. Flesh and blood animals.
“I’m taking security,” I tell her.
Isay is at the hospital with a team right now making sure the premises are secured and Kuzma and Savva are going to follow behind us in a second car. They’ll stand outside the ultrasound room while Dr. Jenkins performs the scan.
I covered all of the bases. Everything is going to be fine.
Luna walks into the room wearing a sunny yellow dress that hugs her chest and shows off her bump. Instantly, the shadows in my mind burn up and dissipate.
“I’m ready,” she beams.
My mother stands up and hurries over to steady Luna’s elbow like she thinks she’s going to fall. “Are you feeling okay, dear? Have you had enough to eat? You look unsteady on your feet.”
“I feel fine. Do I not look fine?” Luna looks at me, confused.
“You look perfect.”
