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The warmth drains from my face. “No.”
“Zoyechka,” he says in a soft tone as he kneels beside the chair.
“I can’t.”
His face pools with shadows. “You must.”
“Please don’t make me.” I grip my stomach. “This is all I have of him.”
“You said you know.” He stands up, retreating from me like I’m sick with an infectious disease. “So why don’t you tell me what you think will happen next?”
I shake my head. That’s a rhetorical question.
“Because here’s what I know,” he says. “Executing her ownbrotherat herbaby shower? That’s brutal, even by Bratva standards. What do you think she’ll do if she gets her hands on you?”
He pauses in the kitchenette. “Are you listening, Zoyechka?”
I nod.
I know what he’s saying.
But I don’twantto hear it spoken out loud. Because that will make it real.
“When she finds out,” he says in a fatherly tone. “She’ll order you killed along with it, just to keep her child safe. Is that what you want?”
“No, I—”
He cuts me off. “And ifLiyadoesn’t act, dear sweetPavelwill. He’ll carve the kid out of you and kill it while you watch. Womb to the tomb.” He shakes his head. “Because your child is a threat to his child’s claim.That’swhat we’re trying to avoid.Nowyou know, Zoyechka.”
My heart stutters in my chest as I try to grab hold of reality. But I’m slipping. And it’s all happening so fast.
I wish Jonas was here.
“And then there’s Felix,” my father doesn’t stop. “He’ll do the same. And then he’ll force me to marry you to him. Make heirs.”
“He wouldn’t.”
“Wouldn’t he?” My father laughs bitterly. “He won’t let anything get in the way, Zoyechka. I owe him a favor. And right now, nothing could be a better favor than what’s growing inside my whore of a daughter.”
“Daddy, you don’t mean that.”
“I wish I didn’t, Zoyechka. I wish I didn’t have to say any of it.” He frowns, the deep lines on his face making him look like an ugly beast. “But youchosethis.”
Icy defeat takes over my body. I’m stuck to the chair like I’ve melted to the cushions. My father walks toward me, wearing a sympathetic expression. But it’s not like he means it.
“But you can also un-choose this,” he states blandly. “Stay here. I’ll be back.”
I numbly nod.
The door thuds in its frame. The screen door claps shut. Silence rolls in like the morning fog.
I’m all alone.
And I don’t know what to do.
Panic grips me then and sends me running to the bathroom. I dry gag over the toilet, praying that I’ll just choke to death so I don’t have to deal with what’s to come next.
Stay here.
