Page 62 of Secret Baby for the Bratva Boss

And that’s why I must leave, that’s why I have resolved to go.

***

I’m at the farmhouse when I get the call.

No. It can’t be.

It’s fall in earnest now, the leaves all rich and turning. I drive dangerously fast, my heart hammering in my ears. It was on this highway that I saw her again for the first time. It was here I remembered what a fighter she was, and how beautiful, and why I fell in love with her the first time, all those years ago. I let her go, then. To protect her.

Look where it’s gotten us.

I’m running through the hospital, heedless. I pound the button in the elevator. I rush down the hall of her floor, where I’ve walked and paced and beaten my head in a thousand times now; when I reach her door, I’m too late.

The machines are already unplugged. Her bed is already empty. My heart stops in my chest.

“Took you long enough.”

I grip the doorframe, looking to the window, where she stands. She’s smiling a wan little smile, still wearing her hospital gown but with thick socks and a sweater over top of it. Her hair is loose around her shoulders, freshly washed and brushed. There is color in her face. Light in her eyes.

“I just made the other two go get me things,” she says, with a surprisingly dismissive wave of her hand. “I didn’t even care what, I tried to think of things that would send them far away.” She grins. “I love them both, you know, but oh, my God—they were breathing down my neck from the minute I opened my eyes. I’m glad the doctor called you—I didn’t know if she would.”

I lean my head against the doorframe. Barely breathing. Drinking her in. The way the autumn light falls through the window and onto her, the way I can see Adam in her face now—I’ve spent so much time with my son since Kat was hospitalized. I see him in her smile, in her dark eyes. In the mischief that lights them.

“Come on,” she says softly, gaze dancing. “You didn’t really think I’d die that easy, did you? Not without putting up a fight, at least.”

“A hell of a fight,” I say, very softly.

“Aleks,” she says. And her expression hardens slightly, taking on more determination, and that stubbornness I’ve come to both hate and love. “Don’t make me wait any longer, OK? It’s been long enough. It’s been way, way too long.”

Somehow, I don’t think she’s just talking about me crossing the room and kissing her, which is what I do. She smells of the hospital, sterile and cold, but her body is warm and pliant and supple as ever, through the stiff cloth of her gown; and her hair smells like her own shampoo, and she tastes like herself, andwhen she folds into me, it’s with a familiarity I didn’t know we’d built yet.

And I know then that it’s over; it’s all over. I’m hers.

“They said you were going back to Russia,” she whispers, stroking my face, sliding her hand through my curls. “They said you were waiting to leave me until I woke up.”

“I did say that,” I admit. I draw back, holding her close, not letting her go, not even an inch. “I really did think that I meant it.”

She shakes her head. “You didn’t.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“You’re not going anywhere.”

“I’m not.” I smooth her hair back from her face. “I can’t promise a safe life. For you or for Adam.”

“You couldn’t anyway, whether you stayed or went,” she points out. I can tell that she’s thought about this. As much, if not more than I have. “I can’t change that. You can’t change that. But we can be smart. Adam has already been through so much hell, so much I wish to God that I could take back.” Her dark eyes brim with tears. “My own son had to see me kill a man, Aleks—I won’t let any of it happen again, I won’t let him see anything horrible, ever again.”

“Shh,” I say softly, kissing her. “We can’t promise that.”

“We can try.”

“Yes, we can.” I pull her against me, cradling her in my arms. I realize, holding her, that I really thought she was going to die—I really thought that I was going to lose her again. For good this time. “We stand a better chance together, don’t we?”

She laughs softly, resting her cheek against my chest. I get the sense she’s listening to my heart, her arms wrapped around me. “Maybe we always did.”

***

She has Adam’s hand in hers as I lead her past the farmhouse, around the back. I didn’t have much to occupy me while she was in the hospital; even after she’d been woken from her coma, there was a lot of recovery left to endure. In the end, nearly two months passed while she was in the hospital, and now Christmas is on the horizon, and the weather has turned sharp and cold, the smell of pine and spice on the air.

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