Page 216 of The Lazarov Bratva

“How is she?” Kristof asks tightly.

Being denied contact with Kristof is excruciating. He stands a few feet away near the door while I finish my check-up with August’s wife. His eyes are on me the entire time, and mine stay on him. August stands next to him, ready to step in in case he tries to interrupt the check-up as he’s done three times already.

“She’s okay,” August’s wife smiles warmly across at him. “Dehydrated, and I have some minimal concerns about nutrition, but all in all, she’s okay.”

“Told you,” I reply, still not taking my eyes off Kristof. “Mara was so obsessed with the baby that she made sure I stayed healthy.”

“Physically, perhaps,” August remarks as he steps over and helps his wife pack up a few of her things. “Everything else will take time.”

“Mmhmm.” I nod and toy with the end of the duvet, unable to look away from Kristof. The whirlwind of learning that he’s alive still hasn’t settled, and the trip to August’s safehouse had been excruciating since I’d been taken away immediately due to the baby, leaving Kristof behind. He’d followed in the next car, and now that we’re here and the baby is really okay, reality sets in.

I came so close to losing my baby, so close to losing my life. It’s hard to believe that I’m really here, that Kristof is really here.

Most of him, at least. It’s like a dream.

The shock of seeing his missing hand, of realizing it really had been his hand that Mara presented me with, still weighs on my shoulders, but that all melts away when August and his wife take their leave.

Kristof is on me in seconds, our mouths colliding in a desperate, messy kiss. Each touch is electric, and pain stabs through my heart. I never thought I’d have this again. Never thought I would see him again, feel him, or taste him. Now, he’s here in my arms.

“Kristof—”

“Alena.” His voice cracks brokenly. “I’m so sorry, I’m so fucking sorry. I’ll never leave you again, I swear it. On everything I have left, on everything that remains, I swear I will be here by your side. I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry. I’m not going anywhere. It’s just me and you and our baby. That’s all that matters. That’s all I care about.”

His words write against my lips as he hungrily kisses me each time he pauses to take a breath. He’s thinner. I felt that immediately when I woke up in his arms, and my heart breaks to hear him throw apology after apology at my feet as if we could have seen any of this coming. Mara’s craziness was out of the blue. Never did I imagine my selfish, conceited mother was the real leader behind everything.

“No,” I whisper as Kristof takes me in his arms and holds me as close as he can with the bump. “Please, you don’t need to apologize.”

“I do,” he whimpers. “Please, let me.”

When he puts it that way, how can I stop him? So I kiss him after each apology, caress his face, and trace the new pink scars that decorate his cheeks and brow. Then I slide one hand down to the well-wrapped stump of his left hand.

“Oh, baby…”

“I was never good with my left anyway,” Kristof murmurs, his voice thick with emotion. As he settles next to me, tucking around me like a protective blanket, I touch the edge of the bandages.

“She… she showed me it. Said she cut it from your corpse, and I refused to believe it because I thought there was no way you were dead and no way that she would do something so barbaric.”

“Pretty on par with her, if I’m honest,” he murmurs, nuzzling into the warmth of my neck.

“I’m so sorry.” Just seeing the stump is enough to break my heart further. I can’t fathom what it must be like for him, but I make a promise, right there and then, to myself and him. I will help him. I will care for him.

His right hand slides over my abdomen, stroking my belly, and a soft, painful sound escapes him.

“I was so scared,” he whispers, his lips teasing along my earlobe. “I never thought I could be terrified, but seeing all that blood in your room and hearing that Mara was going to cut out our baby, I was terrified I was too late.”

“That was Mikhail’s blood,” I say, cupping his face and stroking his cheek. I can’t stop looking at him, studying every new detail and mark from his torture. “Not mine.”

“Thank fuck.”

“I killed him,” I admit softly.

“I’m so sorry.” He nuzzles into my cheek. “I can’t imagine how terrifying that must have been for you.”

“Honestly?” My fingertips dance across his arm, then up to lightly touch his jaw. “What scared me the most was how easy it was, how natural it felt to do something like that to protect my family.”

“I’m proud of you.” Kristof kisses me again, hungrily claiming my mouth over and over, and for the first time in months, something other than fear shoots through my heart.

Desire.

---