Page 52 of Knocked-up Bratva Bride
Except Katya wasn’t awake, and I wasn’t ready. God, I wasn’t ready.
The tears came, slow at first, and then all at once. A thousand questions screamed in my head, none with answers. Could I do this alone? Would he want to be a part of this? What would happen to the version of my future I had been stitching together?
I looked at the mirror across from me and saw the wreck of a girl who had been trying to hold everything together since a young age—her eyes red, her lips parted in shock. I didn’t recognize her.
But she was me now.
Chapter 17 – Damien
I gripped the steering wheel so tight my knuckles turned bone-white, the engine growling as I tore through the rain-slicked streets.
Red lights didn’t matter. Horns blared. Tires screeched. I didn’t care. All I could hear was the nurse’s voice over the phone, shaky and breathless.
“She’s in labor, Mr. Yezhov. It’s early. You should come now.”
When I got to the hospital, I barely parked. I didn’t feel the rain anymore. I sprinted inside, barking her name at the front desk. They knew me. We’d frequented the hospital for Irina’s checkups.
But the look on the nurse’s face stopped me cold. She didn’t need to say it. I saw it in her eyes.
“Mr. Yezhov.” A doctor stepped in, with young, tired eyes behind thin glasses. “We did everything we could, but she lost a lot of blood. Irina…she didn’t make it.”
It was like someone poured concrete into my chest. It wasn’t grief at first, but shock. Like the world stuttered and forgot how to spin.
What Irina and I had was…great rhythm, a good partnership, and she was a wonderful companion.
She was sharp, too smart for her own good, with a mouth that never backed down and a laugh that could disarm a goddamn firing squad. We’d called it a marriage, even if it leaned more toward mutual respect than love or fiery passion. Still, she was mine once. And more than that, she was to be the mother of our child.
“No,” I said simply. As if saying it would undo it.
He kept talking. Internal bleeding, other complications. I heard every word and none of it.
I wasn’t a man who cried. I had buried friends, enemies, and family. But this one hit home. For a second, just one, the sting cut deeper than I expected.
Irina’s laugh echoed somewhere in my skull, stubborn and full of fire. She’d haunt me with it, I knew. She’d never let me forget.
“She was a good woman,” I muttered to no one. My throat was tight. “Better than most.”
The doctor hesitated. “Would you like to see your daughter?”
That word hadn’t felt real until that moment.
I paused, reconsidering for just a second, before reminding myself that the Bratva honored the family code at all times. The circumstances ushering her into the world might not have been pretty, but it wasn’t her fault.
But I almost said no. What the hell did I know about raising a child? My life was blood, secrets, and deals made in the dark. What kind of father could I be?
Regardless, the days and nights Irina had spent preparing for her coming urged me forward.
I let the doctor lead me forward.
The room was quiet. Soft lights, beeping machines. And there she was.
So small. Swaddled in white, pink-faced, and angry at the world. Her tiny hands clenched like she already had something to fight for.
And I felt a silent collapse inside my chest.
She opened her eyes, and they were mine. Angry, feisty, and blue.
I stepped closer, breath shaky. My hand hovered, then touched the blanket. Moy Zakya. Our little bunny that popped out unexpectedly, at the oddest hour of the day, after Irinashocked me with a text message telling me she just found out she was pregnant.
