Page 188 of Emerald Malice

“How… How do you know that?” he croaks at last.

“I found the positive pregnancy test in her purse hours after her funeral. Three of them, actually. They all said the same thing.”

Shura gingerly lowers himself into a chair at the dining table. “Fuck.”

“The thought of letting Natalia go is unbearable,” I whisper. “But what’s worse would be losing her altogether. At least this way, I’ll know she’s out there somewhere, alive and well.”

“With your child.”

The thought cuts deep, but I know how to carry on while wounded. I’ve been doing it all my life.

“Maybe the best thing I can do for my child is to stay away from her. From both of them.”

Shura looks indignant on my behalf. “You’d just let her go. Just like that?”

“Not ‘just like that.’ She’ll need to be watched over, protected.”

If I send my men and Natalia ever sees them, she’ll know I’m keeping tabs on her. It will have to be men she doesn’t recognize—men with no connection to me. Shadows to guide her from now until the end of our days.

“If any of our men offer to come with her, she’s going to know immediately that it’s because you ordered them to,” Shura says, his thoughts traveling the same path as mine. I see the moment he reaches the end of the sidewalk because he looks horrified.

But we’re long past having good options. All that’s left is bad and worse.

“You’re going to entrust Natalia and the baby to mercenaries? To strangers?”

I shrug. “They can watch her from afar. Send me pictures and updates when I ask for them. Keep me notified of any developments that occur along the way.”

Shura’s mouth opens and shuts soundlessly. “You’re going to watch your daughter grow up through… through fucking pictures?”

I feel that exact same disgust in every cell of my body. The wrongness of it all.

“Show me the better way,” I beg him. “Show me what else I should do.”

He doesn’t answer.

We both know he can’t.

68

ANDREY

I find her sitting under the shade of the trees by the pool house. I steal a few minutes to watch her unnoticed—the way her hair ripples softly in the wind. The way she plays with her pendant absentmindedly, watching every tree and blade of grass and bird as though she’s trying to commit it all to memory.

I’m not surprised, then, when she finds me watching her.

Nor when the sad lines of her face rearrange into a weak smile that she can’t hold. By the time I make it over to her and sit down, she’s frowning in thought again.

I want to reach out and smooth the line between her brows, but I’m careful to leave plenty of space between us. It doesn’t do a damn thing to dim the urge to touch her.

I shove that urge down and lock it up tightly, though.

Because if I touch her… I might never let go.

“All bandaged up?” Her voice is light, casual. If I didn’t know what she was planning, I might overlook the way her breath hitches.

I raise my shirt to display my bandages. “Like I said, just a little scrape.”

“We have very different opinions about what constitutes a ‘little scrape.’”

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