"You walked through fire to survive," he says. "You learned not to want. Not to need. And soon you'll carry the one child you can't keep." His voice drops, gravel over silk. "When the timecomes… will you really be able to give up your baby and walk away?"
My chest constricts. I think of the contract in his desk drawer, the one with my signature at the bottom. Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. A fresh start. A life that doesn't belong to him. I think of the way he looked at me this morning in his shirt, like I was already a memory he was trying to burn into his retinas. I think of the baby—not an abstract concept anymore.
I think about being six years old in a sweater that smelled like someone else's smoke, learning that love was just another word for leaving. I think about what it means to create a family and then voluntarily become the ghost in its margins. I think about my mother walking out the side door, not looking back, and how I swore I would never be the one left behind. But I never considered how much worse it might be to be the one who leaves.
I think about his hands on me in the penthouse, rough and reverent. I think about the colony of moths that moved into my ribcage, fluttering every time he calls meBaby Girlin that ruined voice.
I think about how easy it would be to sayno. To sayI can't. To crack open right here on this overpriced linen and beg him to let me stay—not as the surrogate, not as the transaction, but as someone who meansmore.
But wanting is a trap. So I lift my chin. I let my mouth curve the sharp and careless shield I forged in every disappointment.
"Remains to be seen."
Chapter six
Mikhail
The warehouse on the waterfront is a mix of rust, salt, and fear. I stand in the center of the concrete floor with my sleeves rolled to the elbows, blood already drying on my knuckles. Jayshaun Briggs’ crew has been harder to break than I expected. Three of them kneel before me now—zip-tied, mouths bleeding, eyes wide with the animal knowledge that tonight they will not see dawn.
Dmitri holds the fourth man by the hair. Viktor stands to my left with a length of pipe resting casually against his shoulder like it’s an umbrella. The fifth lies face down in a spreading pool of his own blood. He talked too late.
“You think hiding your boss makes you loyal?” I ask quietly. My voice carries farther in the empty space than any shout ever could. “It only makes you stupid.”
The one in the middle—Marcus, twenty-four, corner boy with a teardrop tattoo under his eye—spits blood onto the floor. “We don’t know where Big Jay is. Swear on my mama.”
I crouch in front of him. Close enough to smell the piss that ran down his leg when Viktor broke his wrist twenty minutes ago. I study his face the way a butcher studies a cut of meat.
“Your mama’s been dead six years, Marcus. Overdose in the projects.” I tap two fingers against his temple. “You know how I know that? Because I make it my business to know everything about the men who think they can put a price on my woman’s head.”
He starts to cry. Not loud. Just silent tears mixing with the blood on his cheeks.
I rise. “Burn the bodies. Weigh them down. Drop them past the harbor buoys where the current runs strong. Make sure nothing washes back to shore before spring.”
Dmitri nods once. No questions. No hesitation. This is the tax we pay for power. This is the monster the city whispers about when my name is spoken in the dark.
I wipe my hands on a rag that used to be someone’s shirt. The scrapes across my knuckles are raw but superficial. A reminder. Blood always has a price.
“Find the brother,” I tell them as I walk toward the black SUV idling near the loading dock. “Jayshaun Briggs does not get to breathe the same air as my child. Not for long.”
The door slams behind me. The city swallows the warehouse and its screams as we drive away.
By the time the elevator opens into the penthouse, I’m drained. I fall into bed, pull her into my arms, and crash. Everything else can wait.
***
The bathroom light is too bright at six in the morning. Or maybe everything is too bright. I stand at the counter, razor in onehand, the scent of sandalwood shaving cream under my nose, and I see it.
Propped against the marble. A narrow white stick. Two pink lines.
I know what it is before my brain gives it a name. I have ordered men to their deaths with less ceremony than this plastic wand demands. My reflection in the mirror looks shocked. The Pakhan does not show shock. But alone, in the glass, I let myself feel it.
A child. My child. Growing inside her.
I pick it up. The plastic is still faintly warm from her grip. She was here not long ago, pissing on this stick while I slept in the next room. And then she left it here. Not hidden in the trash. Not wrapped in tissue to spare me. Just… placed. Like a question she is too afraid to ask.
I set it down exactly where she left it.
I give her the day. More than a day. I give her silence, space, the room to circle whatever she is feeling without my shadow pressing against it. She doesn't mention it at breakfast. She stirs her tea—chamomile now, no more caffeine—and stares at the harbor until the steam dies. We eat a silent dinner. She pushes food around her plate. Her eyes are rimmed with dark circles, and every time I look at her, she finds a reason to look away.
