Page 139 of Ivory Oath

I don’t want to go. At all.

But like almost everything else in my life at the moment, I don’t have a choice.

“You’re perfect! Nothing is wrong.”

I want to slap the emergency room doctor in the face. I know it’s not his fault. How would he know that nothing is perfect and absolutely everything is wrong? For some crazy reason, the world hasn’t stopped because my son is missing. To everyone else, this is any normal day.

I slide my hands under my thighs to control myself. “I’m not losing the pregnancy?”

“Bleeding can be normal for the first twelve weeks,” he explains with a smile. “But you did the right thing by coming to get checked over. You’re a very responsible mother.”

It’s like the man is reading from a list of all the worst things he could possibly say to me at this moment. If I was a responsible mother, my son would be at home in his bed instead of God only knows where.

Sensing how close to the edge I am, Anatoly lays a hand on my shoulder. “She’s free to go, then?”

The doctor probably thinks Anatoly is my husband. Or the father of my baby, at least. I don’t even care. If it means I don’t have to talk and try to pretend my world isn’t crumbling around me, then he can think whatever the hell he wants.

“Yes, but she needs to rest,” the doctor tells him. “Take it easy for the next couple days. Call her doctor if she has any more spotting.”

“Call her doctor or bring her here?” Anatoly asks, a tinge of panic in his voice. “Should I have called her doctor the first time?”

The emergency room doctor is saying something about how it’s good to stay in contact with my physician since Dr. Rossi will be more familiar with my case, but I stop listening when I hear a muffled vibration. Like a bloodhound on the scent, I leap at Anatoly’s pocket and wrench his phone out of his pants.

“Fucking hell, Viv.” He squirms and tries to pry me off of him, but I see Mikhail’s name on the screen and I don’t care about anything else.

I answer it. “Mikhail?”

There’s a beat of hesitation. “Where’s Anatoly?”

I push past the annoyance that Mikhail called Anatoly, not me. That he doesn't want to talk to me now.

“Have you found Dante?” I haven’t moved in the last half hour, but I’m breathless. “Where is he?”

“Is Anatoly with you?” Mikhail bites out.

Who cares about Nat? I want to know about Dante!

Anatoly reaches for the phone, but I twist away from him. “He’s here. Where is Dante?”

“There are no phones in the exam rooms,” the doctor says. “If you could turn that?—”

I round on him, top lip curled. “Fuck off!”

The doctor recoils and looks offended, but he should just be grateful I didn’t slap him. Anatoly ushers him towards the door. “You really should fuck off. She can get scary.”

As soon as the doctor is gone, I put the phone on speaker. “Where is Dante?”

At the same time, Mikhail repeats, “Is Anatoly there?”

Anatoly takes the phone, holding it between us. “I’m here.”

“Why the fuck are you at a hospital right now?” Mikhail snarls.

“How do you know about—” Anatoly’s voice fades into a groan. “Fucking Raoul and his trackers. Tell him to stop tailing me!”

“Then stop taking my wife out of the mansion without my consent.”

I’m torn between being offended Mikhail thinks I need his permission and the way he says, “my wife.” A lot has happened in the last few days, but those words still send a warm flutter through my chest.

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