Page 48 of Porcelain Vows

Tomorrow, I’ll be thePakhanagain. I’ll prepare for war with Novikov’s organization. I’ll protect what’s mine with ruthless efficiency.

But tonight, I’m just a man watching his world unravel, powerless to stop it.

The bottle empties. The night deepens. And somewhere in the Left Wing, Stella stares at the ceiling, a stranger in the body of the woman I’ve come to need.

But she’s slipping away from me.

Chapter Nineteen

Stella

I’m not crazy.

Despite what Aleksei must have thought as he watched me stare at the ceiling, despite the concerned looks and gentle touches, despite Dr. Malhotra’s clinical assessments of my “dissociative state”— my mind is painfully, perfectly clear.

The pieces have finally locked into place. The fragments of memory that haunted my dreams for weeks have formed into a truth so devastating I can barely breathe around it.

I shift uncomfortably against the pillows, my enormous belly making any position feel impossible. My due date looms just days away. Our daughter kicks against my ribs as if protesting my stillness.

“It’s okay, little one,” I whisper, my hand stroking my belly.

Ourdaughter.

The thought sends a fresh wave of nausea through me.

I am days away from having my first child with the man who stole my parents from me.

The irony is unbearable. For months, I’ve been drawn to him, unable to resist his gravity despite every warning, every red flag. Even now, knowing what I know, my body betrays me with memories of his touch. The tenderness in his hands as he bathed me. The concern in his eyes when he checks if I’ve eaten properly, or if I’m resting enough. The way he speaks to ourunborn child through my skin, his voice dropping to a softness no one else would believe possible.

How can one person be so caring and so ruthless at the same time?

I close my eyes, remembering the dream that started it all. Not a dream— a memory. The car wrecked beyond recognition. My father’s body trapped in it. The paramedics’ pitying expressions.

And then the newspaper headline that surfaced in my mind this morning.

Prominent Doctor Dies in Car Accident.

The funeral. My mother’s hollow eyes. Her body, weeks later, dead in her bed after a handful of poison released her from her grief.

Both gone. Both because of him.

The baby kicks again, harder this time. I press my hand against the spot, feeling the firm push of a foot or elbow. She’s strong, like her father. The thought brings fresh tears.

What will I tell her when she’s old enough to ask about her grandfather? How do I explain that her father ordered the death of mine?

And the question that burns most fiercely:Why?

What could my father— a doctor, a healer— have done to deserve Aleksei’s vengeance?

Hannah.

Perhaps she knows.

After weeks of silence, of existing in this luxurious prison with only Aleksei and occasionally Diana for company, I need to hear a friendly voice. I need answers before this baby comes. Before I become tied to him forever through our child.

Moving is a production now. I roll to my side first, using my arms to push my swollen body upright. My center of gravity has shifted so dramatically that even standing requires calculation. I waddle to the closet, where I’ve hidden my secret phone beneath a stack of maternity clothes Aleksei had delivered from the finest boutiques.

The phone feels forbidden in my hand. Aleksei and I haven’t discussed my “boundaries” in this world that’s clearly his— until now, I’ve been content to let him take care of me. But now, I know that I was a prisoner here. Outside contact wasn’t permitted.

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