Page 45 of Crowned

Kirill does, but he lowers the phone a moment later. “No answer. Do you think it’s Lilia and the baby?”

“Do not even say that,” I growl, putting my foot on the gas and tearing along the road.

Before we even turn onto Lilia’s street, I see the flashing of emergency lights. My throat feels tight, and I can’t feel my fingers as I park haphazardly in a squeal of rubber and get out of the car.

Lilia is strapped to a gurney with an oxygen mask on her face. Her eyes are closed.

What is happening? Did we do this to her?What the fuck is happening?

The EMTs load her into the ambulance and get in behind her. One of them starts to close the doors, but I grab them and pull myself up and inside.

“I will ride with her,” I say in both Russian and English, hoping that they will understand me.

“Are you her husband?” the EMT replies in English, and glances over his shoulder at Konstantin. “I thought—”

“I am the father,” I say, pushing past him to crouch by Lilia’s head. I can barely force the terrible words out. “Is she losing this baby, too?”

“She’s had a miscarriage before?” the EMT asks, getting to work on her with a stethoscope and other things that I don’t recognize. The doors slam shut, and we drive off down the street.

Lilia’s face is pale, and the circles are dark beneath her eyes, just as they were last time. I remember every horrible detail of her first miscarriage, and it’s repeating before my fucking eyes. This time, the baby is right there for me to see, swelling her belly, and this one is mine. Oh God, it’s mine. I can’t fucking bear it. “Two, three years ago. She was only a few weeks along.”

I clasp her hand in mine and press it to my forehead, bowing over it and whispering a frantic prayer. We did this to her. We invaded her life and her home when she thought she was safe, and the shock was too much for her.

Those fucking diamonds.

That fucking pageant.

I have ruined my happiness and hers because I am proud, vicious, and stupid.

At the hospital, I follow helplessly behind Lilia and the EMTs as they wheel her into the ER. I’m made to stand in a corner while a doctor examines her and a nurse takes her vitals.

They manage to wake her up, but she’s confused and so ill-looking, I want to put my fist through the wall.

Konstantin and Kirill hurry into the room just as the doctor finishes examining her and walks over to me.

“This woman is your wife, girlfriend?”

I swallow, hard, terrified of what I’m about to hear. “My fiancée, Lilia.”

“Your fiancée has low blood pressure, but she is doing fine and so is the baby. The fetal heartbeat is strong.”

I let out a groan of gratitude and close my eyes. Either side of me, I feel Konstantin and Kirill sag with relief.

“Your fiancée should see her obstetrician first thing in the morning. Meanwhile, she needs rest, and she’s not to be placed under any stress.”

I could get down on my knees and thank this doctor all night. Instead, I round on Konstantin and growl in Russian, “What were you doing to her when she collapsed? Were you torturing a pregnant woman over some fucking diamonds?”

He shoves me away from him, his eyes glittering. “I would not harm the mother of my child. We were talking about our future.”

To my surprise, Kirill is seething with just as much anger as I am. He’s never angry with Konstantin, but he reaches out and grabs a fistful of his shirt. “What the fuck were you talking about to make her so sick?”

“I don’t know what happened. She was fine. We even had sex.”

I grit my teeth, hard. She was attacked tonight, and the first thing he did was fuck her?

“Then I told her we would be leaving for London, but she kept talking about the pageant.”

I shove his shoulder. “Why were you talking about the pageant at a time like this? What the fuck is wrong with you?”

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