Page 45 of Immaculate Deception (Romanoff Bratva)

“Hello?”

“Babe, hi.”

She releases a heavy sigh. “Oh my God, Arya! Where the fuck are you? One minute, you’re telling me you had a baby on the side of the road, the next there are reports on the news that you were whisked into an escape car with gunfire behind you? Like, what the fuck?”

“I’m fine,” I murmur. Physically, it’s true. In every other respect, however… I’m not sure.

“Okay, I call bullshit, but we’ll circle back to that question.Whereare you?”

“A motel on the side of the road. I’m fine, seriously. I just got tangled up with the wrong crowd and—”

“Guns!” Brigitte screeches, interrupting me. “The news said there were guns fired in a hospital. I would say that is theworstcrowd. How did you manage to get involved in this from your hospital bed?”

In as few words as possible, I relay the entire story to her. She already knows about that night at the clinic and getting pregnant, so I fill her in on the fact that the mystery man who gave me Lukas is also the one who showed up to save me on the side of the road and deliver the baby.

“You’re shitting me,” she gasps when I’m done. “No way. That’s like a movie. It can’t be real.”

“I know. I still barely believe it, but it happened. Somehow.”

“Fate!”

I shake my head and then remember she can’t see me. “No. No, it’s something else. Is there a bad version of fate? Like, the opposite of fate?”

“Karma?”

I wince. “I don’t like that, either. It makes it seem like I deserve this. Well, shit, maybe I do.”

“Okay, I’m going to cut off this negative line of thinking before it can get started. You didn’t deserve any of this, Arya. Making a few mistakes in your past does not earn you this level of bad karma, okay? This is chaos. Pure chaos.”

“You’re right. But still, I have to figure this out. I have to get home. I have a baby.”

“Oh my God, I almost forgot about that! How is he?”

I glance over at my darling son in his bassinet. His face is wrinkled in a frown. My heart stops for a quick second when I realize that he looks just like his father when he broods like that.

I’m relieved when I touch his tiny hand and the frown eases away. As does the resemblance to Dima.

“Adorable and very calm, thankfully. The last thing this situation needs is an inconsolable baby. I’m already enough of one by myself.”

“I want to help. Where are you?”

I pick up the hotel brochure from the bedside table and read off the address.

“Hell yes, I was right! I’m like, ten minutes away, I think.”

I frown, not understanding. “What do you mean? How?”

“Okay, don’t be mad…”

“Brigitte…”

“I said don’t be mad!”

“No promises. Spit it out.”

“Ugh, fine.” She hesitates for a little longer before sighing and saying, “I may or may not have tracked your phone.”

Before I can even begin to process that, Brigitte launches into an explanation, talking so fast I can barely understand her.

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