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“Why are you crying, Nikita?” she asks, her brows furrowed in consternation. “Kazimir, what have you done?”
“I’ve fired her,” I snap at her. “Mind your own business and go back to bed.”
“Kazimir,” she says reproachfully. “This is my business. Nikita is the one who cares for me.” Taking a deep breath, she juts her chin out and meets my eyes squarely. “And if I’m pregnant, I’ll need her help.”
I groan out loud. “How did you know?”
“How could I not?” she asks. “He’s right. I’ve missed my period. I didn’t think much of it because I thought the birth control pills would affect my cycle, but he made me give him a sample…” her voice trails off when the doctor comes into the room.
In Russian, he speaks to me so that only Nikita and I understand.
“The test is confirmed, sir. She is indeed, pregnant, and her hormone levels are strong. If you’d like to terminate, I must know immediately.”
I want to break something. I want to scream and tear things and gnash my teeth in fury. We can’t have a baby. No. A baby in this life would be a disaster of epic proportions.
I look into Sadie’s eyes. Though she doesn’t speak the language, she knows, and yet she doesn’t look away. Without a word, she glides her hand to her belly.
“Go,” I tell the doctor. “Nikita, you will wait for further instruction from me.” They leave quickly, Nikita whispering profusive thanks and leaving before I can change my mind.
Sadie suspects but still doesn’t know the truth. I dismiss the doctor before I turn back to Sadie, who watches all of us with quiet acceptance.
I sit on a chair in my living room and beckon her to me. “Come here, please,” I say. With quiet acceptance, she obeys, letting the sheet fall and sliding her naked body onto my lap.
“Yes?”
“Doctor Rothsky and Nikita confirmed my fears,” I tell her. “Nikita never gave you birth control as I suspected she had. And the doctor says your test is positive.”
“Was she supposed to?”
I sigh. Was she? It was part of our normal routine, but I never specified. It was an oversight with severe consequences.
“I should have specified,” I tell her, shaking my head. “I assumed she’d know.”
“Did you fire her?”
It should come as no surprise that the first words out of her mouth are about Nikita. She’s more concerned with losing her assistance than being pregnant?
“Sadie,” I chide. “You don’t care about being pregnant? We’ll have to terminate.”
Her eyes widen in shock as she pulls away from me. “You don’t want me to carry your baby?” I flinch at the pain in her question and inwardly groan. I don’t want to fight her in this. I can make her do many things, but this…
“Of course that isn’t it,” I tell her. “It isn’t you. But I can’t imagine bringing a child into this world with what I do. Who we are. There will be no pink nurseries and sweet lullabies. And Dimitri…” This goes against everything we stand against. It’s foolish and dangerous.
“You don’t want my baby,” she repeats, in a tone that breaks my heart. Shaking her head, she pushes herself off my lap. I reach for her but she steps out of my grasp, pushing my hand away. “You think I’m just a pawn in this? That my own thoughts and dreams don’t matter?”
“Sadie,” I begin, but when she opens her mouth to continue, she pales and grips her stomach, wincing.
I watch her sprint to the bathroom just in time. When she’s finished, spent and panting, I escort her to bed and give her strict orders not to get out until I tell her.
“Rest,” I tell her. “We’ll deal with this later. Right now, you rest.”
Thankfully, I’ve trained her well enough in obedience that she drifts off to sleep and doesn’t fight me anymore. I call Nikita on my cell phone.
“Find out whatever remedies you can for pregnancy illness,” I instruct. “Then come up here. And you keep everything confidential.”
“Yes, sir!” she says eagerly before I hang up the phone. I’ll keep her. It isn’t her fault Sadie’s pregnant.
Christ.
It’s mine.
If I force her to end the pregnancy, she will always believe I didn’t want her to carry my baby.
But how can I bring a child into this violent, cruel world I live in?
I bury my head in my hands and wrestle with the demons I’ve fought for years. There are no easy answers in any of this. I stand and pace the living room, memories of my miserable childhood assaulting my mind, when I have a sudden realization so obvious I could smack myself.
A baby that Sadie carries isn’t just mine. Its hers, too. And as I stand there, plagued by demons from my past, I envision what she’d look like. A child wrapped in a blanket, cuddled to Sadie’s breast while she sang sweet lullabies. Any child of mine Sadie had would be… hers, too. Do I want to rob her of that? Can I?
