Page 180 of Porcelain Lies

But the images twist, smearing into something grotesque the moment Aleksei’s face intrudes. Wide hands gripping my hips. His lips, soft yet firm, and familiar, brushing against mine. His voice, low, laughing, sweet against my ear. The child growing in my womb — our child.

His child.

The child of my father’s killer.

Bile bubbles up in my throat, hot and acidic. I stumble to the bathroom, the world spinning and spiraling in tilting planes, and I fall to my knees in front of the toilet. My stomach convulses violently as my body betrays me, purging everything at once — my shock, my confusion, my horror.

Beside me, the shower continues, but I barely hear it anymore.

“Stella? Babe, are you there?” Hannah’s voice crackles faintly from the fallen phone, muffled but insistent. I can’tanswer her. Can’t think. Can’t string together a single coherent thought through the oppressive, choking fog.

Wiping off my mouth, I sink to the floor. My arms wrap around my middle, my stomach firm under my palms. The baby shifts, a faint flutter against my hands, a tiny pulse of life reaching out to me.

The movement breaks me. Splinters me. My sobs come fast and breathless, shaking my entire frame. Tears blur my vision, spill down my cheeks.

I can’t do this.

I can’t face this.

This can’t be real.

Except it is. It is as real as me sitting here on the cold tiles, crushed by the weight of everything Hannah told me.

Somewhere in the suffocating silence of my mind, I whisper a name, a desperate plea, clinging to the hope of her voice to ground me.

“What do I do now, Boyana?”

Silence answers me. A crushing, suffocating silence. For the first time since I was a little child, she’s gone.

And I’m completely alone.

Chapter Fifty-Three

Stella

My lungs burn as I try to catch my breath between sobs.

The bathroom tiles press cold against my skin, grounding me in a reality I don’t want to face. The shower still runs, steam filling the room and making it hard to breathe. Or maybe that’s just the panic crushing my chest.

Hannah’s voice is gone. The phone — I dropped it in the other room. I should get up, should retrieve it, but my legs won’t cooperate. Every muscle feels leaden, weighed down by the horrific truth.

Aleksei had my father killed.

He’s responsible.

The thought sends another wave of nausea rolling through me. I press my forehead against the cool porcelain of the toilet, willing my stomach to settle. The baby moves again, a gentle swirling sensation that now feels like an accusation.

Another sound joins the din in my head. The sleek iPhone Aleksei gave me buzzes on the bathroom counter. His name lights up the screen, filling my veins with ice water. I stare at it, paralyzed, as his face appears — a photo I took weeks ago when he was playing with Bobik. He looked so human then. Sonormal.

What does he want now?

Shit. The biomarker. I took it off when I made the call to Hannah. Clambering up, I find it and strap it on.

The phone keeps vibrating. I can’t answer. Can’t hear his voice. Can’t pretend everything is fine when he’s the reason my parents are dead.

Finally, it stops. A message appears instead:

“Your stress levels are too high. Are you alright?”

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