Page 167 of Ivory Oath

I could still make it. The private school Mikhail and I chose is only five minutes from the house. It’s why we moved into this quiet neighborhood in the first place. We wanted to be close enough to walk him to school on nice days. Though my swollen ankles haven’t felt up to walking in four months, at least.

The car drop-off line is fast. I could swing through the line, drop him off at the front doors, and then?—

“But you peed!” Dante shrieks again, wrinkling his nose. “Do you need a diaper now?”

“I didn’t pee!” I grit out. “And no more potty talk.”

Usually, that rule is for all of the poop jokes that Dante and his band of six-year-old school friends think are the absolute height of comedy. If I wasn’t frantically trying to reorganize the day’s plans—driving Dante to school, one last waxing appointment before the baby comes in four days, a trip to the grocery store to stock up on freezer meals—I’d probably let it slide. I mean, it does look like I peed my pants.

“But you pottied!” He sticks out his tongue and closes his eyes. “It’s so yucky. This is the yuckiest thing I’ve ever seen.”

I snatch a roll of paper towels from the counter and throw the whole roll into the puddle. “Go get your dad. Now!”

“To tell him you peed?”

I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Yes. Tell him I peed.”

Dante slides down the wall and then darts down the hallway. I hear his frantic footsteps pounding up the stairs.

Maybe I did pee. Lord knows this little girl likes to headbutt my bladder. It’s her favorite place to hang out. If she isn’t curling her feet under my ribs until I’m crying in pain, she’s bashing her head against my bladder like it’s downright hilarious.

“What’s the verdict?” he asks as he sweeps into the room.

I stand up to see he has my hospital bag slung over his shoulder. I’ve been calling it my “go bag” and storing it under our bed for old time’s sake, but Mikhail never found the joke especially funny.

I nod my head, ignoring the sudden shakiness in other parts of my body. “It’s real.”

Mikhail walks towards me and Dante yelps behind him. “Watch out for the pee!”

But Mikhail doesn’t worry about it. He grabs my face and forces me to look at him. “You’re ready for this, Viviana.”

Instantly, the knot of panic in my chest eases. I take my first deep breath since I heard the splash. “We need to get Dante to school.”

Before Mikhail can say anything, the garage door flies open and Anatoly is standing there in head-to-toe leather, a child-sized motorcycle helmet tucked under his arm. “One just-barely-over-the-speed-limit motorcycle ride for a Dante Novikov. Is Dante Novikov here?”

“Uncle Nat!” Dante careens around the island and snatches the helmet out of Anatoly’s hands. He has it on his head and is tearing into the garage before he can even say goodbye.

Anatoly grins. “Good luck having a baby, Viv. While you’re gone, I’ll take care of this one.”

The garage door closes and I spin towards Mikhail. “How did Anatoly get here so fast? I thought he was on a motorcycle trip to Alaska.”

Anatoly has used his time away from the Bratva to take up every dangerous hobby he can imagine. Skydiving and backcountry skiing came and went quickly, but he has a motorcycle now and he spends most weekends racing on dirt tracks in the middle of nowhere. It’s a good thing he still keeps in touch with the Bratva doctor, because his medical bills would be astronomical by this point.

“He got back two nights ago. I asked him to sleep in the pool house just in case the baby came early.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I snap.

Mikhail arches a brow. “Because every time I tried to make plans for the delivery, you waved me off. You always said we had plenty of time to prepare.”

“We do!” I frown. “Well, we did. She wasn’t supposed to get here for four more days. She was supposed to arrive on her due date when I was fully prepared.”

I chew on my lower lip. I’m not sure what “fully prepared” feels like, but I kept expecting it to just snap into place. At some point, I’d be ready for this.

“We Novikovs aren’t big fans of doing what we’re supposed to do. You pointed that out to me once. I took some precautions. You’re welcome.” He curls a hand over my cheek. “Now, I’m going to drive you to the hospital so we can have our baby.”

“I can’t do this,” I whimper.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Viviana.” Mikhail loops an arm around my lower back and leads me towards the garage. “You can do anything.”

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