"I want a child to carry my legacy," I say. "To continue the name. To build something that doesn't die when I do. The Ismailovs have sons who look at their father like he's immortal. I want someone who carries my blood, my strength, my—"
"Stop."
Her fingers press against my lips. Gentle. Absolute. I still.
"All of that," she whispers, "is just noise. Legacy. Dynasty. Names in stone." She shifts closer, her palm replacing her fingers, cupping my jaw. "You want a child for one reason, Mikhail."
She holds my gaze. Her thumb traces my cheekbone.
"You want someone to love," she says. "And who'll love you back."
The air leaves my lungs.
I stare at her. Into her. She has reached into my chest and pulled out the organ I swore I did not possess, and she is holding it up to the light, examining it with those brown eyes that have seen every kind of darkness and somehow never turned cold.
I cannot respond. My throat is a vault.
We lie suspended in the dark, her hand on my face and my hand on her belly, two people who traded in transactions now trading in truths neither of us can afford.
Finally, I ask in a gruff voice. "Are you happy?"
She doesn't answer. The silence extends. I count her blinks. A tear escapes the corner of her eye, tracking silently into her hairline.
"It's not mine," she says at last. Her voice is flat. "It's yours. For me, this is just a job, remember?"
The words are a blade. She stabs herself as much as me.
I don't respond. She lies; I know it now. She lies because admitting the truth is to break the contract, and the contract is all that keeps her safe from wanting me.
But she does not look away. She watches me watch her, and her breath hitches.
She swallows hard. Her eyes find mine again, wet but steady.
"I'm happy to give this to you," she whispers. "You're the first person who's ever seen me and seen something in me. Not just a foster kid. Not another state check. You saw… me. So yeah. I'm happy to give you this."
Our eyes stay locked. The city hums far below us. My hand curves on her belly, into an open fist. Protective.
I don't have words for what she just handed me. So I kiss her instead—slow, deep, grateful. When I pull back, I rest my forehead against hers.
"My Baby Girl," I murmur against her lips.
She smiles. Small. Real. The kind of smile that could thaw frozen ground.
And for the first time in my life, legacy doesn't feel like something I have to take.
It feels like something we're building together. I close my eyes and feel her heartbeat against mine, and for the first time in my life, I am not alone.
Chapter seven
Riley
Iwake up warm. Too warm. The kind of warmth that makes you want to burrow deeper and pretend the world outside the glass doesn’t exist. Mikhail’s arm is a steel band across my waist, his nose pressed to the back of my neck, breath even and slow against my skin. For a man who spent last night doing God-knows-what to God-knows-who, he sleeps like an innocent. Like he doesn’t have blood dried beneath his fingernails.
I know his rhythm now. How he inhales right before he shifts. The way he throws his arm over his forehead and shoves the sheet down when he's hot. The way his thigh slots between mine in the dark, heavy even in sleep.
It’s been three weeks since the test.
Three weeks of him touching my stomach every morning like he’s checking to make sure I’m still real. Three weeks of chamomile tea I don't want, and foot rubs that I do. Three weeks of playing house in a glass tower I can never call home, with a man who is technically my employer and emotionally something far more dangerous.
