Page 138 of His Tesoro

“Sorry for being concerned for you,” she said, rolling her eyes.

“Naughty girl.”

She made a little disgruntled sound but curled into my chest.

I ran my hand up and down her back. “My memories from after I was shot are hazy, but”—Anxiety choked me, but I forced myself to continue speaking—“I keep hearing these words repeat in my mind, like through a fog. Your words. But I’m not sure if they’re real or not.”

She stilled in my arms.

“You said something… something about a baby.”

Sofiya kept her head against my chest, and I was sure she could hear my frantic heartbeats. She unbuttoned the top few buttons of my shirt and traced her fingers along the words emblazoned on my chest. “I would have done something cute to tell you, but I was a little busy saving your life.”

My heart stuttered.

“You’re pregnant, tesoro?” I tried to pull back to look her in the eyes, but she pressed her face into my neck and refused to move.

“It’s super early, so I could still lose it.”

Panic gripped me. “Is something wrong with the baby?” What if everything she’d gone through had hurt the baby? It would be my fault. I’d never thought about what it meant to be a father. Children had always been just an abstract concept of “heirs,” but now it was real—a combination of Sofiya and me. And I wanted it, longed for it.

She shifted and I loosened my arms enough for her to pull something out of her pocket. “It’s a little crumpled, but there it is.”

She handed me a small printout of an ultrasound. I had no idea what I was looking at until she pointed at a tiny white oval. “That’s the embryo. The doctor said I’ll need another ultrasound in a few weeks. We might be able to hear the baby’s heartbeat then.”

I ran my fingers down the picture. We’d created that. It was part of us.

“It’s a cute blob, right?” she asked.

“The very cutest.”

We lay back on the bed, holding the ultrasound, staring at it in contented silence. I brushed my hand across her stomach, willing our little blob to grow strong.

Sofiya started fidgeting with the collar of my shirt.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Shouldn’t I feel something right now about Rustik? Like sad or guilty about killing my own father? But I don’t, and that makes me feel like something is wrong with me.”

I hated the uncertainty in her voice. I cupped the back of her head. “No, tesoro. You don’t have to feel anything about it. When I killed my uncle, all I felt was relief. I admired him when I was younger, even saw him as a second father figure. But in the end, he was nothing to me, and neither was your father.” I stroked her hair and kissed her temple. “I know all I feel is pride. Pride at how strong you are, how protective.”

“Thanks, miliy.”

Hearing the term of endearment on her tongue made my heart ache.

When it was time for our descent, we moved to the front of the plane. A smile twisted Sofiya’s lips when I buckled her seatbelt for her. She would just have to get used to me taking care of her.

I played with her hair as we approached the airport, pausing when I realized I still had an unanswered question. “Did you see who shot Domenico and the other men with him?” I asked. “They must have run away afterwards.” The explosion and everything that happened after had wiped it from my mind, but it didn’t sit right that I didn’t know who had saved me. “For that matter, how did you get away from Rustik?”

Sofiya snorted. “Are you serious?”

“What?”

She fixed me with an exasperated expression. “Maybe Domenico was right about your lack of brain cells.”

I furrowed my brow, and she just rolled her eyes.

“I killed three guards who came into my cell to—” She swallowed, and my hands flexed around hers. She had just told me they were dead, but the urge to return to the warehouse to kill them again overtook me.

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