Page 94

Back in the corridor, he hadn’t sounded surprised when Misha called him Papa. He sounded as though he were placing each missing date where it belonged.

“You weren’t asking because you doubted the test,” I say. “You were filling in what you missed.”

He turns his head.

“The dates, the scan, the heartbeat.” My fingers tighten around the doorknob. “You wanted to know all of it.”

He faces the cabinet again. “Tonight he called me Papa.”

Before I can answer, he drives his fist into the cabinet door. The metal dents with a sharp crack.

I flinch. “Alexei.”

He pulls his hand free. Blood spreads across his knuckles and runs over the black script on his forearm.

I reach for him. “Let me see.”

He steps away. “His first day.”

“What?”

“I missed it.” His face darkens. He looks at his bleeding hand. “I missed the scan, the heartbeat, the day he was born.”

I take gauze from the medical drawer near his desk. “Sit down.”

“No.”

“You’ll split your hand.”

“I missed his first fever.” His voice is low. “His first tooth, first word, even his first step.”

His face is flushed, his breath hot.

“Yet you decided for both of us.”

“We’ve been through this, Alexei. I decided for him.”

“No. You decided your fear was reason enough.”

He’s going to make me crazy. I throw the gauze onto the desk. “Men came through all three gates of your estate tonight. They wore medical badges, carried the right papers, and called my child property. Yet all you can think about is your own pain?”

I catch the front of his sweater in both hands. “Tell me I was wrong to be afraid.”

He goes still. His eyes clear, and he finally looks at me.

“You were right about the danger.” Alexei points toward the monitor showing the captured intruder. “You were wrong to believe that hiding him would keep him protected.”

“He was safe until your war reached my hospital.”

“My war was already inside your hospital. Belov built the claim before I landed on your table.”

“I was doing my job.” I’m so tired of going round and round this conversation.

“So was Marina.”

I flinch when he says her name. I want to tell him to shut up, that he has no business. But he’s wounded, and I’m his doctor. I remember holding his heart in my hands.

I look away, but Alexei keeps going.