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“Don’t act like you don’t know why a girl would pretend to be pregnant,” I reply, crossing my arms and tilting my head a bit.
Her jaw drops, and I’m uncertain as to whether she’s genuinely shocked that I would accuse her of such a thing or if she’s over-acting.
“You think I’m trying to trap you? I literally told you to fucking leave! I didn’t think I was ever going to see you again! Don’t you understand how much worse it is for me to actually be pregnant? Why would I want to fake something like that?”
I groan, running my hand through my hair out of frustration.
“Mika, if there’s one thing I know about you, it’s that you live in a fucking fantasy world, okay? You want someone to save you from your daddy, you want to be romanced and protected and all that shit. Of course, I believe you would try to trap me, but it doesn’t matter because I’m not going to run away with you.”
I see her expression change dramatically from scorn to something I can only describe as puppy eyes. The transition is so stark that it scares me a little, but if it means she’ll be more compliant, I won’t complain.
“I never said we were going to run awaytogether,Dominik.”
Fuck.
“Mika, you’re intentionally missing my point. You’re pretending to be pregnant so that you can leverage me to do shit for you, and it’s not going to work. That needs to be crystal fucking clear in your head.”
Her eyes remain wide and hopeful, and it would almost be sweet under different circumstances. In this current nightmare of a moment, her reaction is terrifying.
“Dominik, you want to run away with me,” she says in a demure, feminine voice.
I kneel at her level, looking straight into her eyes again. I need to find the person in there who can understand me, someone who won’t let their emotions take over them.
I can’t find that version of her.
“You might think you know a lot about how the Bratva works, but I promise you, you don’t. Do you think they wouldn’t come after us for abandoning them? Me for abandoning my post and you, your fiancé? You need to understand that this entire organization is sustained by secrecy. If we leave, that makes us a liability for them, and theywill kill us.”
Her eyes don’t change. She’s still caught in the moment that I used the wordtogether.
This is exactly why I can’t accept the fact that she could be pregnant. She’s so immature and idealistic that she’s forgotten just how dire our situation is if someone finds out what we’ve been up to. We’re one slip-up, one bad day aways from facing some of the most painful torture known to man, and all she wants to do is daydream about being in a relationship.
I know that it’s Remi’s fault for forcing her to stay locked in a tower for her whole life, and I can’t blame her for her lack of understanding. Somehow, after being raised in one of the most brutal crime organizations in the country, she still believes in the power of love conquering all.
In a way, I envy her.
Idowant to be with her more than anything, but I can’t tell her something like that, especially not now. I know she acts impulsively when she feels powerful emotions, which has already caused untold damage to her and the people around her. If she found out that I had strong feelings for her, she’d lose her mind completely. There’s no telling what she’d do.
“Dominik, please, you have to understand that I wouldn’t lie to you about something like this. Don’t you want to trust me?” she asks with big, watery eyes.
“It’s not that I don’t want to trust you, it’s that I don’t want to believe that it’s true, okay? If you’re pregnant and anybody finds out, which they will, the blame will immediately be on my head. It would be so much worse than if we just got caught having sex,” I explain, trying to keep myself from letting my nerves get the best of me.
She buries her face in her hands and starts to sob. It’s such a familiar sound to me, I’ve practically memorized the cadence of her cries. It rips me up inside the way I imagine a parent feels when their child gets their first shots.
I want to reach out, just like I wanted to do at the hospital, but the result would be the same. I need her to detach from me, and this will do her no favors.
I watch her for a moment, uncertain of how I should proceed. There’s nothing more that I want than to reach out and comfort her, promising her that I’ll find a way out for us. I want to take this pain away from her, but it’s not possible. I can’t give her any indication at all that we’re going to be together.
When she lifts her head, her makeup is smeared all over her eyes and cheeks. Her face is puffy and red, and she looks like she’s just been told that she’s going to lose everything.
In a way, she is.
“Please, I need you to come with me. We can have a normal life somewhere. We don’t have to worry about the Bratva or my father or Izet. It would be so simple. Why won’t you even consider it?” she begs.
At this rate, I’m afraid that I’ll never get my point across to her at all. She’s refusing any arguments where I try to paint the very real consequences of the life she wants. The fantasy life that she’s built in her head and lived in for two months can never happen. As much as I wish it could, the circumstances just won’t allow for it.
“Mika, if you’re actually pregnant and you aren’t fucking with me, then you have to understand that you and the baby would be far safer if I weren’t with you. You’ll already be a moving target on your own. If you’re with me, the likelihood of us both getting our heads blown off is extremely high.”
This time, I think I might really be getting through to her, but the impact of my words is crushing her.
