Page 133 of Beautiful Secrets

“You should not walk so fast.”

“You call this walking?” I turn around, waddling backward. “Have you ever seen a duck?”

He narrows his eyes at me, but doesn’t speak up again.

Four months pregnant.

I should have left the Vasiliev Estate over a week ago, but there were so many travel preparations.

It is laughable to think that I was on a plane to Russia with no more than Cole’s suit on my back a few months ago.

Just that single thought makes my chest tighten.

Damn hormones.

I start crying at the strangest things these days. Last night I began sobbing when the chef brought out akholodetsin the shape of a heart.

I try to tell myself it was because of the awful taste I knew was coming, but that was a lie.

Everything reminds me of Cole.

And I am sick of it.

This has gone on long enough. If I do not do something drastic, I will go insane.

Lev holds open the door to the Rolls Royce, and almost manages to close it behind me when my father’s hand catches the edge and pulls it open again.

I groan. “Papa.”

“Mika, please. Just hear me out.”

“Papa, I’m going to be late.”

“Mika. Please.” My father drops his head, staring into the car. Then he gestures for me to scoot over the seat.

I obey, but with another labored groan that has only half to do with my father, and the other with the fact that moving my big ass around is starting to become a feat in itself.

Should have known Yuri’s baby would be a giant. I am terrified it is going to tear me in half coming out.

But thankfully that day is still months away.

“You are not changing my mind,” I tell my father as he settles into the seat beside mine. I drape my hands over my belly and roll my eyes at him when he twists to face me in his seat.

“You don’t have to leave. We can—”

I lift a finger, and he cuts off. “This was the deal.”

He grimaces at me. “But, you’re not—”

“You got everything you wanted,” I tell him. “I got nothing.” I choke on the last word, and there’s suddenly a tenderness I’ve never seen on my father’s face before. “This is happening, whether you approve or not.”

“But why leave?” he says, swiping his hands over his balding scalp.

I swallow at the lump in my throat. “I am a grown woman,” I tell him calmly. “If I want to leave, then I have every right.”

Ever since Yuri’s death, things have been…difficult. For months, my father struggled to keep the Bratva together. He succeeded, of course—my father has a stubborn streak a mile wide—but not without cost. He’s aged years, and the chaos forced one of my brothers to go back to Russia.

Which is where I should have been already.