Page 79 of Shattered Cradle (Makarova Bratva Duet)

He doesn’t even blink this time. Guess I’m not making much sense to him after all. I take a deep breath.

“But I’m terrified of what that will mean for me. For my future and for my child’s future. This life doesn't exactly allow a lot of space for women, does it? And you know what I realized through this whole thing?” I ask. “I realized that I’ve let other people’s opinions matter to me more than my own. I’ve been bullied my whole life and didn’t even recognize it. You know why? Because I loved the people who were bullying me. And I’m worried it will happen again… with Aleks.”

I let that sit for a moment. It’s a churning kind of silence, the sort that seems like there’s all kinds of things simmering just below the surface.

Then I snort with laughter. “You know, it’s funny… he’s never actually said he wants to be with me. I’m in his home again because I’m carrying his baby, but let’s face it—if I wasn’t, would he even want me here?”

A single tear breaks free and races down my cheek. It falls onto the back of Vlad’s hand with a quiet plop. He looks down at it, then back to me.

We sit there for a long time, but I’m all talked out. There’s nothing else left for me to say.

Then the door opens. I assume that Mike has come back in, but then a looming shadow falls over both of us. I bolt upright.

“Aleks.”

I catch sight of his cruelly sharp jaw and I feel that trickle of nervous energy fill me up inside, same as it always does. He’s so damn beautiful. It’s not fair.

It feels like my thoughts should be exclusively devoted to my mother. Instead, I’m ogling my husband and the way his stubble lightly dusts his jaw. The way his lips are so full, his hair so thick, his shoulders so broad.

“S’ toboy vse v’ poryadke?” he asks as he leans towards his father.

The old man says something in his son’s ear that I don’t quite catch. Aleks nods and pulls back. “He needs to rest,” he informs me.

“Oh, right. I probably tired him out with all the talking I just did.”

Aleks doesn’t comment on that. He just bends down and lifts his father into his arms. Then he carries him over to the large couch in the center of the room and sets him down on it.

“Will that be comfortable for him?” I ask.

“He likes this room,” Aleks says. “He likes taking his nap here.”

I watch how Aleks handles his father. I’m not sure the man is capable of true tenderness, but he is gentle with him, slow and careful and courteous.

Once Vlad is settled on the sofa, his head propped up on the pillows so that there’s no danger of choking, Aleks turns to me.

“Come with me.”

“Should we leave him here alone?”

“Mike will be here soon.”

We’re just leaving when Mike rounds the corner in fresh sneakers. He gives Aleks a respectful nod that goes ignored and then slips silently back into the room.

Aleks starts striding down the hall, but suddenly, he veers right into another room I’ve never been in.

“This house is huge,” I mutter as I follow Aleks.

“All the better to hide my secrets.”

I decide it’s best not to follow that up with a response.

We step through the door. I see French doors, a balcony, a lake in the distance. I walk over to the railing and gaze down at the lawn below. A team of people is tending to the garden, but the noise of their work barely reaches us up here.

Aleks comes to stand beside me. I wonder what he’s spent the last few hours doing. I wonder if he’d even tell me if I asked point blank.

“Is it hard?” I ask. “Seeing him that way?”

“I’ve gotten used to it. But in the beginning, yes, it was hard.”

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