Page 58 of Shattered Cradle (Makarova Bratva Duet)

She stares unseeingly out the window. Her hands are limp, pale spiders in her lap. Demyan twists in his seat and frowns.

“Is she alright?” he mouths at me.

“I’ll explain later,” I murmur to him in Russian. “For now, we’re going home.”

Olivia looks over at me for a moment. Her eyes spark with the faintest flash of light before it’s snuffed out again. A shooting star in an endless night sky.

The drive is silent, but by the time we reach the compound, Olivia is showing more signs of life. She gets out of the car on her own and walks into the house without needing to be led there.

She doesn’t even wait for me before she starts climbing the stairs, clearly heading for her bedroom. I watch her go and wait for Demyan to join me in the foyer.

“Is it true what the boys told me?” Demyan asks. “Her mother…?”

I nod grimly. “It looked like a heart attack. Brought on by… the situation.”

“Fuck.”

I glance towards the staircase. But Olivia has already disappeared.

“Do you think she’ll be okay?” Demyan asks.

“Fuck if I know,” I admit. “They were close.”

“What went down in that hospital room?”

“Her family fucked her over,” I growl, trying and failing to keep my anger in check. “At least the mother had the grace to realize her mistake before she passed.”

“She still chose to come with you, though. That’s gotta be a good sign, right?”

“They didn’t give her much of a choice,” I say. “Picking me was the same as picking her child.”

Demyan nods, but a tentative smile spreads across his face. “I never congratulated you properly. You’re going to be a dad. How are you feeling about it?”

“Neutral.”

That’s mostly a lie, but not entirely. With everything else going on, I haven’t been able to really think it all through. To play out what it really means to have a baby. An heir.

“Well, jeez, you don’t have to ramble on and on about it,” he jokes. “Save some emotion for the lady of the house.”

I slug him in the arm, and he stumbles away, cackling to himself. “For real, though, congrats again.”

I ignore him and head up the stairs. At the threshold of her room, though, I pause, knuckles hovering over the door.

I want to go to her. I want to see my wife, the mother of my child.

But I have no idea what to say.

Footsteps draw my attention. I glance down the hall and see Jennifer walking towards me. “What the hell are you doing here?” I ask.

“I heard something was brewing,” she explains. “I came to see what was going on.”

I frown. “What did you hear?”

“Well, I was casing one of Hargrove’s hangouts. He was in the middle of one of his meetings, but he ended it to take a call.”

“Do you know who called him?”

She gets very quiet for a moment. “Well…”

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