Page 209 of Marrying the Savage

The word baby breaks something in me, but I keep my hand steady over my abdomen.

“You and I are going to be okay.”

32

DAMIR

Pregnant.

I walk out of the music room because if I stay, I will say the wrong thing or nothing useful at all, and I can see from Sofia’s face that silence has already done enough damage.

Pregnant.

The word follows me down the corridor, through the turn toward the east wing, past two guards who straighten when they see me and wisely say nothing. I keep walking until I reach the smaller sitting room near the terrace, then stop because I don’t remember choosing to come here.

Sofia is pregnant. My wife is carrying my child.

I stand by the window and look out at the grounds without seeing any of it. My hand is still on the back of a chair. I don’t know when I put it there.

I have had men tell me they betrayed me. I have had doctors tell me my family was dead. I have had Mikhail stand in front of me after the fire and say there was no one left to recover from the east wing. I have seen Elena carried from the stones below the terrace, her body covered because there was nothing else to do for her.

I know shock. This is different.

It arrives as possibility, and somehow that is worse because I have forgotten what to do with anything that has not already been damaged beyond repair.

A child.

Mine.

Sofia’s.

Ours.

I think of Grigori’s son asleep against his shoulder, Maksim’s fist twisted in his father’s shirt, his wooden horse always in one hand. I think of Kirill at the table, Irina in the garden, the men who carry my name and call themselves family because blood and survival have left us tangled together.

They are family. I would kill for them. I have killed for them. But this is not the same.

A child would be mine in a way I have not allowed myself to imagine since Elena died, maybe even before that. A child would tie Sofia to me in a way no ring, name, priest, or threat ever could.

Sofia’s face comes back immediately. She told me she was pregnant, and I walked out. I turn toward the door at once, already knowing I have made a mistake, but before I take the first step, Grigori appears in the doorway.

His expression stops me.

“I’m afraid I have some bad news,” he says.

My hand drops from the chair. “What?”

“Come to the study.”

“Say it here.”

“No.” His eyes flick once down the hall, toward the direction of the music room. “Not here.”

That is enough. I follow him.

The study doors are closed when we arrive. Nikolai stands outside with two guards. He opens the doors without waiting for my order.

Mikhail is inside. So are Kirill, Lev Orlov, and Anton Sokol, still stiff from the wound he took at the church. There are papers on my desk, a laptop open, two phones beside it, and a sealed evidence bag with a folded envelope inside.