Page 60 of Immaculate Deception (Romanoff Bratva)

When I can’t possibly eat another bite, I glance up at the clock and realize how late it is. My internal clock is all kinds of screwed up.

Brigitte and Erik soon pad off to their rooms to crash. I grab Lukas and go to get things set up in our room.

The bassinet Dima bought is the same height as Erik’s guest bed, so I can lay down and still see Lukas sleeping. Unfortunately, fifteen minutes after I get us settled in for the night, Lukas decides sleep is unnecessary. And just like that, another round of red-faced crying begins.

I do everything I can to help him. Nurse. Sing. Rock. Sway. I pull out every parenting trick I read about in blog posts and books before he was born. Not a damn thing works.

Questions race through my head. Is he sick? Is there something wrong with my milk? Am I not burping him enough?

“Come on,malyshka,” I whisper in delirious exhaustion. I’m sure I’m butchering the pronunciation of the Russian pet name Dima used for him. But something about it feels right anyway. “Go to sleep. For Mama.”

It’s not magic and it’s not immediate. But I could swear it takes the edge of his tantrum. Just a tiny little bit.

We coast gradually downhill from there. Full-throated crying turns to intermittent cries. Cries turn to whimpers. Whimpers turn to murmurs.

And then—sweet, blissful silence.

I’m scared to jostle him too much, but I carefully crane my neck back and take a look. Yep, he’s fast asleep at my breast.

Praise the heavens.

Moving slowly, I settle him in the bassinet. I stand there for a full five minutes like a nervous bomb technician, waiting to make sure he doesn’t go off again.

No sign of movement.

But my God, he looks beautiful there. Like the little stinker wasn’t just bawling his eyes out.

I want to collapse back in bed and go immediately unconscious. But my throat is aching with thirst and my stomach is grumbling despite the dumpling carnage from dinner.

I remember seeing some cereal in Erik’s pantry earlier. The mere thought makes my stomach growl again. Cereal it is.

Opening the door as carefully as possible, I leave Lukas where he is and tiptoe down the stairs.

Erik’s house is dark, but surprisingly tidy for a man in his late twenties. Most guys at his age still have sports posters taped to the wall and at least one beanbag chair in the living room for gaming.

But Erik’s furniture is… refined. Stylish. Sort of impersonal, too. It almost looks like a prop house that would be used to sell other similar-looking homes.

Probably a designer’s influence, I guess. Or something he copied from a home decor magazine.

By the time I get to the kitchen, I’m too focused on the cereal I’m about to shove into my face to care about his milquetoast decorating skills.

The pantry is weirdly empty. As in, completely empty except for a box of cereal and an unopened container of hydrogen peroxide. Strange. But my hunger overrides my curiosity. I grab the cereal and pour myself a bowl.

I can’t hear Lukas fussing upstairs—especially not over the sound of fizzing and crunching in my ears—but I still scarf it down quickly so I can hurry back up.

I imagine there are a lot of things I’ll be doing quickly over the next few years. Without anyone else to help out, there won’t be much time to take care of myself.

Dima’s face pops into my mind again, but I push it away.

Running from attackers and leading a Bratva don’t leave much time for taking care of a family, I imagine. Even if he could have stuck around, it wouldn’t have changed anything.

Wecouldn’t work.

Thiscouldn’t work.

The man who barged into my clinic with a gun can never be a father, a partner, a family man.

I say it to myself again: “It’s for the best that he’s gone.”

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