Page 14 of Immaculate Deception (Romanoff Bratva)

There’s also that little voice in my chest. The saint buried inside the sinner.You can’t leave her here.

Well, technically, I could. But I swore years ago that I would live by a code. That I’d never be the kind of beast who left needless chaos in his wake. I only cause harm when there’s a purpose and the people being harmed deserve it.

So I walk around, slide into the front seat, and we take off.

4

Dima

I pull up in front of the emergency department. After flagging down an employee at the doors, a wheelchair is rushed out to the car. Nurses gawk at the sight of the half-naked woman and her newborn baby. They lay a blanket over her lap and then pester me for details.

“How long has it been since he was born?”

“Did you deliver the placenta?”

“Was there tearing?”

I hold up my hands. “A baby came out, I wrapped it in a jacket, and handed it to her. That’s all I know.”

The head nurse, an older woman with a thin ponytail and even thinner lips, narrows her eyes at me. “Are you related to the patient? If not, you’ll need to leave.”

More to the point, Ishouldleave. I should hop back in the car and take off on the highway before anything else unbelievable happens to me today.

But I hate the idea of not knowing what will happen to this woman and her son.

Right now, the story is only half-complete. I want to know they’ll both be okay. Then I can set my mind at ease.

What a bad fucking time for a crisis of conscience.

“I’m her, uh, boyfriend,” I lie. “That’s my baby.”

After a thorough scrubbing, I’m ushered into the recovery room where the woman and her son are resting.

The nurse points to a stiff seat under the window. I drop into it.

“They gave her some pain medication,” she says, “and I think the day is catching up with her. Just let her rest as much as you can.”

I glance at the paperwork she hands me and then toss it aside. I won’t be here long enough to fill anything out, even if I did know such details as her first name or address. By the time the nurses come looking for it, I’ll be long gone, and this woman—whoever she is—will be able to inform them I’d lied and was just a kind stranger who helped her.

Notthatkind, though—seeing as how I plan on leaving here with her car.

I walk over to the plastic bassinet pushed against the bed. The baby looks nothing like the mottled creature I delivered not so long ago. His face is clean, his cheeks are flushed, and his pink lips are relaxed.

Mom isn’t quite as angelic. The nurses cleaned her up a bit and gave her some medication, but her long, dark hair is plastered to her sweaty neck and face, and tears have sliced visible dark tracks through her makeup.

Still, there’s something about her that draws me closer. Something about her that tickles the back of my brain. The memory of a memory.

That’s ridiculous, though. The women I know are Bratva wives and groupies. Dripping in jewels given to them by whichever brigadier they last fucked, driving rented luxury cars to drunken brunches, and pumped full of so much booze and drugs that no human life could ever grow inside of them.

This woman isn’t a part of my world. And when she wakes up and finds her car is gone, she’ll be livid. She’ll hate me without ever knowing my name.

Good thing I don’t give a fuck.

“Everything okay in here?”

I step away from the bed. The nurse who spoke is lingering in the doorway impatiently.

“Yeah,” I tell her. “All good.”

---