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My stomach clenches, and I double over, sagging, and the doctor steadies my shoulder with one hand.
The pain in my chest turns into something hotter that pours through my veins. I hate Yelena for what she did, a woman so callous she would sink a stranger. I hate Lev more. I could burn someone alive with it.
He doesn’t know, I remind myself, and it does nothing to shrink the fury. He never truly saw me anyway. Only a name that sounds like hers, and a healthy body, like a piece of meat laid out on his bed, to fill the void she left behind.
The instant I picture him knowing, the fear leaves me breathless, and my palm presses flat and protectively over my stomach.
He can never find out. There’s nothing more important than this. If he knew, he would control every hour of my life, or imprison me in some stronghold with round-the-clock guards, a surrogate slave to be used as he sees fit and take the baby as its rightful father the moment it was born. As Pakhan, with his loyalists at his back, it would cost him nothing at all to do it, and no court in this city would stop him. A man who left me in the sea doesn’t get my child.
That is the one thing I’m certain of tonight.
And a colder fear runs through me at the thought of Yelena knowing. She pushed me off a boat over a man, so steadfast and conniving, so jealous and ambitious. She would want the mother and the child gone for good.
The doctor misreads my silence and sits heavily in the chair beside my bed. “We do offer counseling,” he says gently. “And if you wish to end the pregnancy, that remains an option for you.”
“No,” I say, banishing the idea before I can even think, and the speed of it startles me. I cannot look at this as something cancellable.
I know exactly what kind of hole a person leaves behind when they vanish. Milo and I both lost our parents. To me, the child already exists.
“I’m keeping it,” I say.
The doctor nods, leans back in his chair, and makes a note. “Then you will need emotional stability, for your sake and the baby’s,” he hums, and the phrase tugs my mouth sideways.
The father of this baby is across the hall feeding another woman by hand, the same man who once laid a kiss just below my ear. My life has never once been less stable. It is almost too ironic to survive.
After the doctor leaves, I check the missed messages on my phone. Most of them are from Milo.
His last one asks whether he can still eat the pasta that has gone green at the edges.
Throw that out and eat cereal.
Milo
When are you coming home?
I cannot tell him a single word of the truth.
So I lie.
I got sent on a last-minute work trip. Just a few days, no big deal. I’m asking Margo to stay with you while I’m gone.
Milo
You did it again. You didn’t tell me first.
I close my eyes at that.
I’m sorry, buddy. I promise I will bring you a present.
He sends back a furious little emoji, and then one more line.
Milo
Remember to actually eat something.
Near tears, rubbing my thigh under the blanket, I take a deep breath and message Margo, asking her to watch Milo because something came up and I cannot get back for a few days.
She agrees at once.
