Page 82 of Baby for the Bratva

She scoffs. “Jesus, Stella… I didn’t know some dumb guy’s baby meant that much to you. Take a morning-after pill and get over him. He’s probably going to cheat, anyway.”

I grit my teeth, a flood of anger and adrenaline pouring through every muscle in my body. She’s still out of breath, but I feel oddly capable of sprinting the rest of the way to the pharmacy, leaving her behind.

But not before I give her a piece of my mind.

“Well, you’re just a bitter old bitch now, aren’t you?” I ask, planting my hands on my hips.

She recoils, her face turning as red as her hair. “Bitter? Me? Weren’t you telling me about how you got cheated on? If anyone is bitter, it’s you.”

“I’m engaged and pregnant. You’re single and complaining about not being able to stuff your face with chip and salsa,” I reply. I could say a lot meaner things, but I’m not that type of person.

“Fucking ridiculous,” Molly mutters, shaking her head. “You get fucked by some rich creep, and you think you have it made. Mark my words, Stella, this won’t last for you.”

I lift my hand to slap her, but I resist the urge. Fighting isn’t going to solve anything. It never has.

So, I do what I wanted to do before, and turn away from her, taking off as quickly as I can. I know she won’t follow me, but I want to put as much distance as I can between us in as little time as possible.

“Screw you, Molly. I thought we were friends,” I say to myself once she’s out of earshot.

Everything she said to me still floats around in my brain as I run deeper into the city, like shit bobbing down a sewer pipe.

She has everything wrong about Yuri and me. I’m not doing this to spite Tyler or prove something about my value as a human being. All of this landed in my lap without me asking, like a blessing from the universe, and I’d be a fool to turn away from it.

The truth becomes more obvious every day.

I’m in love with Yuri, and I want to have his baby. I want to be his real wife, not get married for the money, and I want us to stay together.

I’ve kept all of this hidden from Yuri, despite his openness, but getting the pushback from Molly makes me want to scream it to the world. I’ve been holding back too much in life, hiding myself for fear of getting hurt, but now is when those walls start to crumble, and I have to decide whether fleeing is my best option…

Or if I should stand strong and show my true self to Yuri.

Vulnerable.

Scared.

But so insanely in love.

Sweat drips from my nose, falling onto the sunny sidewalk as I run uphill toward a glowing red and white sign. I can’t read Spanish all that well, but I believe it’s a pharmacy. Finally, after miles of restaurants and tourists traps, I get to the real part of the city.

It’s still a nice area, with plenty of regular-looking people and the occasional tourist taking pictures of mundane things, but it has everything a regular city would have. There’s a grocery store on the corner, a flower shop just a few buildings down, and the warm smell of bread in the air from a bakery somewhere out of view.

It would be nice to walk around here with Yuri, but he’s too concerned that he’d attract the wrong kind of attention. He’s probably right, but I do miss him dearly, anyway. He’s been by my side for almost the entire trip, and it doesn’t feel right to go anywhere without him.

It’s an empty feeling, like I skipped lunch on a busy day. I want nothing more than to get back to the cruise ship and throw myself into his protective arms, but I came here on a mission. I must finish what I started before going back.

The inside of the pharmacy is icy cold, such a stark contrast to the weather outside that it causes my nausea to return for a few moments. It subsides as I peruse through the aisles in search of a pregnancy test, then returns again when I see a picture of a pregnant woman above some blue and pink boxes.

There’s no mistaking what’s in those boxes, but the prices are a little confusing. They seem drastically different or the same thing until I realize one of them has a digital display, and the other is the type that shows red lines.

I grab the cheaper one with the line display. There’s no mistaking that kind of reading. The other might come up in Spanish and cause even more uncertainty.

I carry the test up to the register, grabbing a bottle of water on the way. With how hot it is today, I’m not going to get a single drop onto that test in the bathroom without chugging water beforehand. I didn’t realize how dehydrated I was until now. All that running really drained me.

I twist open the bottle immediately after paying, gulping it down as I squeeze the thin plastic to force the water out faster. It tastes like it flowed straight out of heaven.

The bottle crinkles as I finish it entirely, tossing it into the trash beside the register. The man gives me an amused look, probably because I’m outing myself as an under-prepared tourist, but I ignore him. I’m still on a mission.

With a receipt in my hand, I take the pregnancy test back down the aisles, pretending to look for something else I forgot. In reality, I’m waiting for myself to get the urge to use the toilet. There’s one in the back of the store with a sign on it that I can’t read.

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