Page 95 of Bratva Bride
The secret sat in my stomach like swallowed lightning. Three days I'd been carrying it, three days of practicing how to say the words that would change everything. I'd taken four tests, hidden them in the drawer with my anxiety medication, stared at those parallel lines until they burned themselves into my retinas.
"Ivan." My voice came out steadier than expected. "I need to tell you something."
His body went rigid behind me—that hypervigilance that never fully switched off, that constant assessment of threat levels. "What's wrong? Did something happen? Did Viktor—"
"No." I turned in his arms, needing to see his face for this. "Nothing bad. At least, I don't think it's bad. I hope it's not bad."
His eyes searched mine, gray in the morning light, still puffy from sleep but sharp with concern. His hand came up to cup my face, thumb stroking my cheekbone with automatic comfort.
"You can tell me anything," he said, and I believed him.
"I'm pregnant."
The words hung between us like suspended animation. I watched his face cycle through expressions too fast to catalog—shock, confusion, dawning understanding, something that might have been terror, then joy so pure it made my chest crack open.
"Pregnant," he repeated, like the word was in a language he'd just learned. His hand was still on my face but frozen now, trembling slightly. "You're pregnant. We're having a baby."
"Eight weeks." The words tumbled out, all my rehearsed explanations condensing into fragments. "From the Maldives. I did the math—it had to be then."
His other hand moved to my stomach, palm flat against the fabric of my sleep shirt, gentle like I might shatter. "A baby. Our baby."
"I know we didn't plan this," I started, but he was already pulling me against him, his face buried in my hair, and I felt wetness that might have been tears.
"Anya," he breathed against my temple. "We made something. In all that chaos, all that fear, we made something perfect."
But the anxiety was already spiraling, words spilling out faster than I could contain them. "I don't know how to be a mother. I'm still learning how to be little, still figuring out how to exist without counting prime numbers. What if I'm like him? What if I damage her the way Viktor damaged me? What if—"
"Stop." Ivan pulled back, both hands framing my face now, forcing me to meet his eyes. "You are nothing like your father. You hear me? Nothing."
"But I still need Marina to sleep. I still regress when things get overwhelming. How can I be someone's mother when I sometimes need to be someone's little girl?"
His thumb wiped away tears I hadn't realized were falling. "You can be both. You'll teach our daughter that she can be everything—brilliant and soft, strong and vulnerable. Just like her mama."
"Our daughter?" I managed through the tightness in my throat. "You think it's a girl?"
"I know it's a girl." He smiled, that rare, complete smile that transformed his whole face. "Stubborn and brilliant and anxious and perfect. Though if it's a boy, we'll love him just as fiercely."
The morning stretched around us, this bubble of time before the world intruded. We had the final Council meeting today—Viktor's exile would be formalized, the territory divisions finalized, the new order established. But that was later. Now was this: Ivan's hands on my stomach, wonder in his eyes, the terrifying beautiful reality of creating life in the middle of surviving death.
"Blini?" he asked eventually, because even world-shifting news couldn't overcome his need to feed me on schedule. "With the berry faces?"
I nodded, already imagining the routine—him cooking while I colored at the kitchen island, domestic peace we'd fought through blood to earn. "Can I bring my supplies out?"
"Always," he said, kissing my forehead with reverent gentleness. "Whatever makes you comfortable. Whatever you need."
As he headed for the kitchen, I reached for Marina II, pressed her starred belly against mine where cells were dividing into something miraculous. Two months since rescue, a lifetime since I'd believed I deserved anything soft. Now I carried softness inside me, literal hope taking shape in the dark.
Thechurchbasementfeltlike returning to the scene of a crime. Same vaulted ceiling, same Byzantine Christ staring down with gold-leaf indifference, same wooden chairs that creaked like breaking bones. But I wore gray because I chose it, sat beside Ivan because I wanted to, and when men looked at me, they saw Anya Volkova—not merchandise to be evaluated.
The room was packed beyond normal capacity. All five families, yes, but also lawyers in suits that cost more than cars, federal observers with recording devices they didn't bother to hide, witnesses who'd been promised protection in exchange for truth. The air was thick with the memory of cigarette smoke, although Ivan had insisted no-one smoke while I was here.
My father sat at a separate table, isolated like infection that might spread. The handcuffs were symbolic—everyone knew he could have afforded bail that would make judges weep—but thesymbolism mattered. The great Viktor Morozov, reduced to a defendant in his own world's court. His charcoal suit was still impeccable, his posture still rigid with aristocratic pride, but something in his eyes had gone dead. Not defeated—men like Viktor didn't accept defeat—but recalculating, already working angles from whatever hole they'd bury him in.
Mikhail Besharov rose first, the leather-bound Code in his hands looking heavier than two months ago. "We gather to formalize the findings of our investigation into the bombing that killed six of our own."
Our own. Not Morozov workers and Volkov workers. Our own. The unity in that phrasing wasn't accidental.
"The evidence," Besharov continued, "is overwhelming."
