Page 62 of The Enemy's Defector
“What?” I snapped.
I could blame it on emotions. But I was able to hold it all in. The tension of coming here. The anxiety of wanting to belong and be welcomed. Then the fear of having to go through all my prenatal care and birth at home instead of at a stocked hospital with qualified care freaked me the hell out. My patience was shot, and I hated that every second that I acted sassy and stubborn and combative would be more strikes against anyone wanting me here.
The blonde slowly smiled as she nodded. “Yeah, I like her.”
Lucy rolled her eyes. “Not now, Sloane.”
I shook my head, feeling like a freak show put on stage. Now that I’d argued so heatedly with Nik, I felt the opposite. I was crashing from that rush and all I wanted to do was go back to bed and nap.
To hide.
No one stopped me on the way back to the apartment.
Nik didn’t join me either, likely off talking with his brothers again. He had a lot to catch up with. But idle like this, without anything to investigate, nothing to hack, my mind was too open and free. As I lay in bed, I was flogged with worries about Nikexpecting me to literally be locked up here when I’d be most vulnerable.
Until now, I hadn’t really stressed about the delivery. The reminders that I’d grown up without a mother seemed small and non-threatening because I was only in the beginning of my pregnancy. That fear of having the same fate as my mother felt so far away. But meeting the doctor and nurse and going through the preliminary tests and exams put it all into perspective.
If I hadn’t married Nik and come here, if I’d chosen to be a single mother and on my own in the world, I wouldn’t have been subjected to this trapped feeling. This concept of having no control.
And it’s not like I’d be missing out on anything else.
Tears streaked over my cheeks as I lay in bed, crying silently.
Because he only married me for the baby. He only brought me here to keephischild safe and cared for.
I wiped the moisture on my cheeks away.
It’s not like he married me out of love.
26
NIKOLAI
Katerina wasn’t fooling me.
I knew she was awake.
When I came into the room to bring her to dinner, she lay still on the bed and pretended to be resting and not awake to see me.
Instead of pushing the issue and insisting that she get up and join me for dinner, I let her be and backed up.
I went down to the main floor, leaving the dinner the cooks prepared for us in our apartment for her to check out on her own. Letting her put distance between us wasn’t easy. All day long, while I met with my brothers and sat in on meetings with the supervisors, she was on my mind. I hated how we’d fought, and I really loathed the possibility that I might have fucked up.
I hadn’t wanted to act like an overbearing hard ass for the hell of it. The only reason I wanted to bring medical care to her instead of taking her to an office was so I’d avoid that trigger of returning to the place where I’d been taken.
When I was captured, it was just me. I only had to worry about myself. About enduring the experience in the name of getting intel and protecting my family.
But now, I was her husband.
I would be a father soon.
Those two new labels put so much more immediate meaning into my life that the idea of being taken again was a nightmare I wanted to avoid. I didn’t want to subject my wife, or later, my child, to the horror of losing me.
But I’d gone about it all wrong.
Taking a seat at the table where Maxim and Sloane sat with Saul, I sighed and avoided making too much eye contact.
“Ah. Relegated to the proverbial dog house?” Sloane joked.
