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“Yes?”
“I can’t tell her. I just can’t do it, man.”
“You don’t have to,” I answer at once. “I’ll take care of it.”
I say my goodbyes and we hang up. There are some days when playing the pakhan weighs heavy. This is one of them.
But it’s what I was made to do.
As badly as I want to do anything but this, I have to go break the news to Akim’s woman. Bee stares at me balefully as I grab my things and leave without another word.
Just before I cross into the elevator, though, I feel a gnawing unease in my gut like there’s a fishhook tethering me to the guest bedroom. I don’t relish the thought of leaving without talking to Wren first. Of abandoning her to whatever hell I’m putting her through right now.
It’s my first clue that Bee is right. I was wrong.
But right now, I don’t have time to be anything other than what my men need me to be.
So I press the button and descend. “Doors closing,” chimes the voice.
So is a chapter in my life I never asked for.
Irina cradles her pregnancy belly as though she’s scared it might disappear on her.
I had no idea she was this far along. Even her belly button has popped. I can see its indent through the fabric of the soft cotton dress she’s wearing. It’s been forty minutes since I knocked on her door and broke the worst news of her life to her, and I’m still not sure she’s fully processed it. I can’t bring myself to leave her in this state.
She’s gazing off at the picture wall on the far side of the room. She and Akim smile out from frame after frame. Happy, young, radiant.
“I can’t believe it,” she repeats. “He can’t be gone. I can’t believe he’s gone.”
“I’m going to take care of you, Irina,” I intone softly for the thousandth time, not that it’s done a bit of good.” You and the baby.”
She doesn’t take her eyes off the photographs. “Akim always spoke highly of you, Dmitri.” Her voice shakes for a moment before she regains control of herself. Slowly, she turns to me. Her eyes are free from tears now. Scrubbed bright and clean like the sky after a storm. “But when he spoke about you, it was as pakhan, not as family. It’s not your job to look after us.”
“Akim died in service to me and the Egorov Bratva. The least I can do is take care of his wife and child.”
“We’re not married.” A rattling, weary exhale escapes through her lips. “He brought it up a couple of times after we found out about the baby, but… I’m the one who kept putting it off. It’s just a piece of paper, I told him. God. That sounds so stupid now.”
She drops her face into her hands as her whole body shakes, though she still refuses to let a single tear fall. I stand uncomfortably in place. It feels wrong to sit here, in another man’s home, comforting another man’s wife. I can’t even take care of my own household; who am I to take care of Akim’s?
And yet I must. There’s no one else to do what must be done.
“You and your baby will have a monthly stipend in perpetuity. And if you ever have need of anything else?—”
“Don’t condescend to me,” she snarls suddenly, ripping her hands away from her face. Her cheeks are blotchy but her eyes remain bright. “I’ll tell you what I need, Dmitri: I need someone to squeeze my hand in the delivery room and tell me everything’s going to be alright. I need someone to take my kid to kindergarten on days when I’m too sick to get out of bed. I need someone to hold me at night and quiet my fears. That’s what I need, Dmitri. Can you give me that? Can you give me any of it?”
Springing to her feet, she jabs one quivering finger in my direction. If it weren’t for the coffee table between us, I almost believe she’d go for my throat.
And fuck… maybe I’d let her. God knows I deserve it for the least of my sins, never mind the worst of them.
“Akim was my only family. And now that he’s gone—” She lets out a strangled, feral cry. “How do I do this without him? I’m alone… all alone…”
Why the fuck am I seeing Wren every time I blink? It’s Irina, then it’s Wren; Irina; Wren.
Both pregnant and vulnerable.
Both lashing out because there’s nowhere else to go with their pain.
“I know it feels that way now, but I assure you, you’re not alone. Aleksandr and I have your back, Irina. The Bratva has your back. Your child will want for nothing.”
