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Sofia
Nothing made sense.There was too much new information in my brain to know what was what. Question after question popped into my head, but none of them had the power to distract me from the gut-wrenching, bone-crushing pain of realizing the man I loved was only with me because it would give him political power in a country I’d never even visited.
I’d been born and given up for adoption in Russia. My parents had taken me from the orphanage in Saint Petersburg. Other than that, there was no record of who my biological family was. As I grew up, Mom and Dad had offered to find out who they were if I ever wanted, but I’d never even given it a second thought. Whoever had abandoned me wasn’t worth my time. I had my forever home and family with Adrian, Victoria, and my brother, Theo. Nothing else but knowingtheyloved me mattered.
The last few months with Zak had been magical, but somewhere in the back of my mind, I’d questioned if any of it was real. It had seemed too much like a fairy tale. A scripted movie that played on one of those cheesy happily-ever-after channels, where it was the same story with different character names repeated over and over again. In the past, those movies had been my secret guilty pleasure. The safety of knowing, no matter what, the girl got the life she’d always dreamed of in the end. That the guy she was supposed to be with would move heaven and earth just to be with her and make her happy—it took all the anxiety out of the equation so I could enjoy the rest of the movie.
But this wasn’t some stupid, cheesy-ass movie. This was real life—myfucking life, damn it.
And Zak had been playing with it from the moment we met.
How quickly he’d gotten me to fall in love with him and into his bed. Knocking me up. Asking me to marry him because he couldn’t imagine his life without our baby and me in it. That had only made me love him more, trust him with everything I had.
Then there was what Yulia had said, and trying to make sense of that only made my head throb. Zak’s and her home country bordered Russia, but the two countries were as different as night and day. They still had a royal line, and while that family—a family that Zak was one of the last remaining descendants of—didn’t rule, they had a hell of a lot of political power.
It couldn’t mean what I thought it meant. I refused to even give that a moment’s consideration… But her angry words thrown at Zak played on repeat, meshing with Zak’s confession until it all became a mashed-up, confusing remix of words that made me hurt not just emotionally, but physically.
Blindly, I ran, unsure of where I was going. Nothing looked familiar through my tears, but fear was the last thing I felt as I ran one block after another. I didn’t feel the exertion or the cramps in my muscles from what had to be miles of running like my life depended on it. And maybe it did. I’d left my shattered heart on the bottom step of what I’d called my home for months. How was I even able to breathe without it?
Suddenly, a black SUV drove up onto the curb, and I barely had enough sense to put my hands out to stop my body from colliding with it. I was still crying, but I would recognize the man who angrily stepped out of the back anywhere.
As I saw him, everything hit me all at once. Zak and Yulia’s argument. Nearly being hit by multiple cars as I’d crossed the street in my rush to run away. I was gasping for air, both from running for so long and hard, as well as the panic attack that was beginning to set in. Every muscle in my body ached now that I wasn’t moving, just standing there, looking up at my brother as he shouted something at me.
But even though I saw his lips moving, the anger crossing his handsome face, I couldn’t hear a single word he said. My body began to shiver, and it was only then that I realized I was soaked, yet it wasn’t sweat. It was pouring rain. My hair and clothes were plastered to me, water dripping from both. Each rapid breath that left my body looked like dense fog, and my eyes nearly crossed as I watched it in a weird out-of-body kind of fascination.
Then Theo grasped me by the shoulders, shaking me gently. “Sofia!” he yelled my name, his anger replaced by concern. “What happened to you? Are you hurt? Where is Morozov? Is that where you’ve been? This isn’t even close to his house.”
“E-e-everything h-h-h-hurts, Th-Th-Th-Theo.” My teeth were chattering so hard, I could barely get the words out, ignoring his question about where Zak was.
My brother placed a hand at the small of my back, his touch gentle as he urged me toward his SUV. “Come on, little one. Let’s get you home. Mom saw you weren’t in bed and sent me out to look for you. I never imagined I would find you like…this.”
We took two steps before my legs gave out. With a savage curse, Theo scooped me up before I could fall and carried me to where the back door of the SUV was still open. His men were outside of the vehicle, watching. Through the rain and the tears that continued to flow, I met their gazes and quickly looked away, ashamed for them to see me so weak.
Once I was in the back of the vehicle, Theo pulled off his jacket and then his T-shirt. Offering me the dry top, he lifted his jacket to give me some privacy while I changed my wet shirt. But getting rid of my soaked clothes did nothing to warm me. Not even when I kicked off my shoes and sweats. The shirt fell all the way to my knees, and with the heat cranked up to the highest temperature it would go, blasting down on me and trying to dry my hair while my brother used something to rub tenderly at the dripping strands, the warmth refused to penetrate.
The chill had gone bone-deep, because it had started from the inside and moved outward. The place where my heart had once been was nothing but a block of ice. By the time Theo carried me into our childhood home sometime later, I was shivering so hard it looked like my entire body was spasming. My jaws hurt from how much my teeth had been and still were chattering.
Tavia and Mom, dressed in pajamas, met us at the door. As soon as Dad came out of the family room and saw me, he ran over and took me from my brother. “Sofia, what happened?”
In his arms, I knew there was no place safer, and the tears that had slowed down on the drive home began to flow faster once again. “D-d-d-daddy,” I sobbed, burying my face in his chest.
“Sofia.” Mom’s voice was gentle yet oddly full of steel as her hands touched my back and then began to rub in soothing circles. “Please, sweetheart, tell us what happened. Where have you been? Does Zak know you’re out?”
I turned my face away, burying it against my dad’s chest, too ashamed of how gullible I’d been to face her. “I-I-I’m so c-c-c-cold,” I stuttered, closing my heart to the pain of hearing Zak’s name.
“We need to get her into a hot shower,” Tavia urged my parents. “As blue as her lips are, I think she’s got some hypothermia going on. We don’t want her to go into shock.”
Dad carried me up to my room and sat me on the toilet before leaving me with Mom and Tavia. My sister-in-law rushed to get the water as hot as possible without scalding me while Mom pulled Theo’s shirt off me and then started on my bra and panties. Thankfully, I’d started wearing them when I’d found out I was pregnant. Mostly to keep Zak from having a meltdown every time I left the house in a dress.
When Mom pulled down my white bikini briefs, it was hard to miss the thick, dark smears of blood there. “No!” I cried, my hands covering my lower abdomen protectively. “No, please, no.”
“It’s just your period, Sofia,” Mom tried to soothe. “Many women have theirs triggered from the stress of planning a wedding and end up having a cycle on their honeymoon. Don’t worry about it, sweetheart.”
“No!” I shouted at her, causing her to jump at how loud my voice was. I wasn’t ready to tell her there wasn’t going to be a wedding, let alone a honeymoon, but there were pressing matters I needed to explain. “Mom…I-I’m pregnant.”
Her face paled, and she looked back down at the blood on my underwear. “Pregnant?”
“I-I wanted t-t-t-o tell you.” The heat of the room started to ease my shivers, and I began to realize that some of the pain in my body wasn’t just from what had happened with Zak. I was cramping and not just a little. “S-s-s-surprise y-y-y-you.”
