"She's been here the whole time." Ivan stopped pacing, ran a hand through his hair. Then he looked at my stomach with a startled expression, like a man who'd walked into a room and found it full of furniture he hadn't expected. "She's been here just miles from us."
“Hundreds of miles.” Gregor had taken up his position by the door. “She wasn’t in the next street.”
“I know what,” Ivan replied. “I was just saying she’s been living here the whole time.”
Gregor smiled at me before he went back to scanning the street outside with the patient vigilance of a man professionally incapable of letting a room go unsecured. "She's been surviving," he said, eyes back on me. "That's not the same thing, is it, Milly?"
“Maeve.”
“What?”
I wanted to keep lying, but I was so tired I could barely hold it together. Tired of running. Tired of the fake accent I sometimes forgot to drop in my own flat. Tired of wishing for three bodies to hold me in the small hours that weren't there.
“My name is Maeve, not Milly.”
I didn’t know I needed them until I reached the UK.
Fergus, tucked inside my coat, must have felt something from me, and chose this moment to make his feelings known. He poked his head out of the neckline, assessed the three largest and most dangerous men he had ever encountered, and beganbarking with the fury and conviction of a creature who genuinely believed he could take all of them.
"Fergus!"
Fergus didn’t stop. Three pounds of righteous Yorkshire indignation, snarled at the Bratva from the safety of a pregnant woman. His one good ear was pinned back. He was shaking, which may have been from rage or terror, the distinction didn't matter because the energy was identical.
"Your dog," Artem said.
"My dog," I confirmed.
"He's threatening me."
"No, he did not. He's protecting me."
"He weighs less than one of your shoes," Ivan said.
"And yet he has more courage than several men I’ve met in expensive suits."
Gregor looked at Fergus with grave approval. “Accurate. I like him.”
“Don’t encourage him,” I said. “His ego already needs its own postcode.”
Ivan crouched down, his face softening, genuinely, in a way that had nothing tactical about it. He looked at Fergus like one professional recognizing another. And Artem looked at the tiny dog that had positioned itself between me and the world, and then I knew from Prague meant he was fighting something enormous.
"So what now?" I asked. I hated that after nine months of beinggrand, of building this life brick by careful brick out of stubbornness and decaf coffee and Fergus's three pounds of conviction, just seeing them was making me weak and I hated it.
Artem’s hand cupped my face, his thumb against my cheekbone. And he was so careful, like I was something that might not be real.
"Come home with us," he said when I expected a command.
Ivan came forward next. His palm settled over my stomach, warm and sure. A beat passed. Then the baby kicked. And not a flutter, not a nudge, this baby loved its full and emphatic digs. Ivan's breath caught like something in him had broken open.
"He's strong," he said.
“A boy?” Gregor asked.
I nodded. “Yeah, I was going to wait for the surprise but the technician was desperate to tell me.”
“You mean, you were desperate to know?”
I hesitated, then nodded. “And yes, he is very strong.”
