Page 86 of Bratva Bidder

The second she walks in, the air changes. She pauses just inside the door, her hair still slightly damp from the shower, dressed in something simple and soft. Her eyes take in the men surrounding the bed, the unfamiliar faces.

She blinks, confused. “I haven’t seen that doctor before,” she says quietly to Irina. “Where’s Dr. Halberd?”

Irina opens her mouth, but I step in first.

“He’s outside,” I say. “Waiting.”

Nadya turns to me, brows knitting. “Why?”

“Because this one”—I gesture to Rhodes without taking my eyes off her—“is better.”

She looks at me for a long moment. “Better as in richer? Or better as in more expensive?”

“Better as in my son deserves the best,” I say simply.

Her breath catches.

I should’ve known she’d react this way.

Nadya’s eyes cut to the unfamiliar doctor standing over our son’s chart, and I see the fire rise in her. Not confusion—fury. Controlled, quiet, but burning hot.

She rounds on me with that tight posture she wears like armor, voice low and laced with ice. “You had no right.”

“I had every right,” I say, arms crossed, jaw tightening. “He’s my son too.”

“You think that gives you permission to bulldoze through every decision I’ve had to make on my own for the last five years?”

“I didn’t bulldoze,” I snap. “I brought in someone better. Dr. Halberd is fine. But fine isn’t good enough when it’s my kid’s life on the line.”

Her eyes widen at that—my kid—and her jaw clenches so hard I can hear her teeth grind.

“He’s not just your kid,” she says, stepping closer. “He’s mine. He’s been mine since the day I found out I was pregnant. Through every fever. Every test. Every night I stayed awake praying to a God I don’t believe in that I wouldn’t lose him before I got the money to pay for another round of meds.”

Her words hit like glass to the chest, and still—still—I don’t flinch.

“Which is exactly why you should’ve told me sooner,” I say, quieter now. “So you wouldn’t have had to carry it all by yourself.”

She laughs once—cold, brittle. “Oh, you think it would’ve changed anything?”

I look at her. Really look at her. Tired eyes. Trembling hands. She’s held everything together with string and instinct, and here I am—walking in like a wrecking ball dressed in tailored suits.

“It would’ve changed everything, Nadya,” I say. “Because you wouldn’t have been alone.”

She falters. But only for a moment.

“You think a new doctor buys your way into their lives?” she asks, voice trembling now, not with rage, but with something deeper. Fear, maybe. Hurt. “You think Mila curling into your side one night erases five years of nothing? You can’t just show up and fix things with money and power, Konstantin. It doesn’t work like that.”

She doesn’t say anything for a beat—just looks at me like she’s trying to decide who I really am beneath the suit and the ruthlessness and the years of absence.

“I’m not trying to buy them,” I say, my voice harder than I mean it to be. “I’m trying to keep him alive.”

Before she can throw the next line, a throat clears behind us—pointed and unmistakably deliberate.

We both turn. Dr. Rhodes stands a few feet away, arms folded across his clipboard, his brow slightly raised in that too-polite, clinical way that says,I’ve heard every word and I’m pretending not to judge you.

“We’re still in a hospital,” he says calmly. “And your son’s vitals have climbed in the last five minutes.”

Nadya flushes, her mouth parting in a quiet, shocked exhale. I run a hand down my face, suddenly aware of just how loud we were—how deeply we slipped into our own chaos without thinking about who might be watching.