Page 55 of The Mafia King's Baby

“Celia?” Yefrem’s voice comes from outside the bathroom door. “Are you all right?”

I flush the toilet and splash cold water on my face before opening the door. He’s standing in the hallway with a concerned expression that makes guilt twist in my chest alongside the lingering nausea.

“I’m fine. Just feeling a little sick.” I try to walk past him back to the main room, but he catches my arm gently.

“You’ve been sick every morning this week. Maybe we should have someone look at you.”

The suggestion makes panic flutter in my chest. A doctor would know immediately what’s wrong with me, and I’m not ready for that conversation yet. I’m not ready for any of the conversations that would follow.

“It’s just stress,” I say, pulling away from his grip. “With everything that’s happened, my body is probably just trying to process the trauma.”

Yefrem doesn’t look convinced, but he doesn’t push the issue. “If it continues, we’re getting you medical attention whether you want it or not.”

I nod and return to my seat at the laptop, hoping he can’t see how my hands are trembling slightly. Leonid glances up from his screen with a questioning look, but I shake my head and focus on the financial records in front of me. Sometime in the past weeks, he’s started to soften to me and is no longer overtly disapproving of me being here. Dare I think he might actually have started to like me? He seems to in the way he shows concern and takes care of me just as he does Yefrem.

The morning sickness, because that’s what I’m increasingly certain it is, has been accompanied by other symptoms I’ve been trying to ignore. My breasts are tender, my sense of smell has become hypersensitive, and I’m exhausted even after sleeping ten hours. All signs point to one terrifying possibility that I haven’t been able to bring myself to fully acknowledge.

I try to focus on the work, but my mind keeps drifting to calculations. Our night together was a little more than three weeks ago. I haven’t had a period since before then, but with all the stress and upheaval, I convinced myself it was just my body responding to trauma. Now, with the morning nausea getting worse instead of better, denial is becoming impossible.

“Leonid,” I say quietly when Yefrem steps outside to check the perimeter security. “Can I ask you something?”

He looks up from his laptop, eyebrows raised in question.

I glance toward the door to make sure Yefrem is really gone, then lean forward conspiratorially. “If someone needed to go to town for something personal, something private, would that be possible?”

His expression becomes guarded. “What kind of something?”

Heat rises in my cheeks, but I force myself to meet his eyes. “The kind of something that comes in a small box from a pharmacy and gives you answers you’re not sure you want.”

Understanding dawns on his face, followed by something that might be sympathy. He closes his laptop and leans back in his chair, studying me carefully. “How sure are you?” he asks.

“Sure enough that I need to know for certain.” My voice comes out steadier than I feel. “But I can’t ask Yefrem. Not yet. Not until I know what I’m dealing with.”

Leonid nods slowly. “There’s a town about forty minutes from here. Small enough that strangers don’t attract attention but big enough that they have what you need.” He stands and reaches for his jacket. “I’ll go now, before Yefrem gets back from his security check.”

Relief floods through me so intensely that I have to blink back tears. “Thank you. I know this isn’t exactly part of your job description.”

“My job is keeping both of you safe,” he says simply. “That includes keeping you healthy and sane.”

After he leaves, I try to return to the financial records, but concentration is impossible. My mind keeps spinning through scenarios, imagining conversations I might have to have, and futures for which I never planned. Motherhood was a fuzzy future concept, and I had never imagined the man who might father that possible child. Had I, it wouldn’t have been abratva pakhan. The possibility of being pregnant terrifies me, but underneath the fear is something else that feels dangerously close to hope.

I’ve always wanted children someday, just not under these circumstances. Not while living in hiding from corrupt federal agents and organized crime families. Not with a man whose world is filled with violence and danger, when our own future is so uncertain.

Still, as I sit alone in the quiet compound, surrounded by evidence of corruption that could destroy lives and topplegovernments, I realize that bringing new life into this chaos might be exactly what I need. It would give me a reason to fight harder, to demand a better outcome, and to refuse to accept that running and hiding is our only option.

The sound of Yefrem’s boots on the porch makes me quickly minimize the browser window I’d been staring at without reading. He enters with a slight frown, scanning the room.

“Where’s Leonid?”

“Supply run,” I say, which isn’t exactly a lie. “He said we were running low on a few things.”

Yefrem nods and settles back at his table of documents. “How are you feeling? Better?”

“A little.” I force myself to focus on the laptop screen, pretending to study agent assignment records while my mind races through possibilities and fears.

An hour later, Leonid returns with a discreet pharmacy bag that he sets on the table beside my laptop without comment. Yefrem doesn’t even look up from his papers, too absorbed in tracing financial connections between corrupt agents and their criminal partners.

I excuse myself to the bathroom, clutching the small box that will determine the course of the rest of my life. I can’t wait any longer to know now that it’s here. My hands shake as I read the instructions, which I read three times, though I suspect it’s simple enough I could wing it and still get it to work. The test is straightforward. I just pee on a stick and wait three minutes for results. Three minutes to find out if everything changes.

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