Page 36 of Captive Vows (The Dubinin Bratva #1)

LUKA

G abriella was sluggish in the shower, barely able to stand fully. Curling against me, she seemed too tired to care about cleaning up. Her peaceful smiles suggested she felt too damn good within my embrace to even think.

It didn’t matter. I held her up. I kept her close.

Sobering by the minute because I knew she was relying on me to clean us up and make sure she didn’t slip or fall, I concentrated.

It was a reward for me to feel her, to have this contact between our bodies again.

And it was a break for her, letting her have the chance to do absolutely nothing but be pampered.

Once I got us rinsed off, I steadied her to grab a couple of towels. She was sleepy and clumsy, so I gave up on wrapping her in the terry bath sheets. Instead, I picked her up naked and walked her to my room.

The second I laid her on the mattress where she’d belonged all this time, next to me, she was out. Literally, she was out . Sleeping with her head not even fully on the pillow, she smiled in her sleep.

“Sweet dreams,” I whispered, leaning over to kiss her before I climbed in around her.

Tucking her against me was the best feeling in the world. She stayed on her side, as she had to this late in her pregnancy, but it didn’t change how perfectly she slotted against me. Spooning her like this, I could finally admit that all was right in my world.

I had her back, or rather, she had me back. We’d moved past the fight that made me so stupid and prideful as to miss all this time of her being pregnant.

Don’t worry.

I closed my eyes, breathing in her scent.

I won’t miss a second of the next one.

Early in the morning, she woke up to go to the bathroom. Despite drinking last night and no matter how tired I was from staying up late to make love to her, I woke up too.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, tossing the blanket off to follow her to the bathroom. It couldn’t be morning sickness. The doctor reports never mentioned that she had it.

“Bladder pushed on by a baby,” she whined comically, hurrying toward the other room.

I smiled, sitting on the edge of the bed to wait for her to come back. Yawning, I checked the time and dreaded that I’d have a full day to expect to get through.

She waddled back into the room, also yawning, so I extended my arms to welcome her back under the covers.

“Now I won’t fall asleep again,” she mumbled.

I spooned her, resting my hand on her belly where I felt the proof for why she’d said that. “Active, huh?”

“As soon as I lie down,” she admitted.

“Not long to wait now. Then I can handle the active hours while you rest.”

“Oh?” She peered back at me. “You’re a hands-on kind of dad?”

I sighed, kissing her and encouraging her to snuggle and relax with me again. “No. I wasn’t before. When Emil was born, Maria insisted on handling his care because I was so busy.”

“Oh.”

We’d never talked about Maria, but as I kissed the top of Gabriella’s head, I planned to discuss her more so as not to lose the memory of her, but also to prove to my new love that I wasn’t pining for the ghost of my first wife.

“And I was busy. Too busy with being the boss and not yet reaching the degree of being able to delegate and trust those in the organization. Coming into power included a phase of weeding out dissenters.”

She yawned, and I reflexively did as well.

“Now, I know how to be the boss. You won’t be stuck raising him or her on your own. I will be there. So will Emil and my nephews.” I yawned again, tiring myself from speaking. “Allen’s sister was Emil’s nanny. She passed away already, but I can think of more staff to hire for us.”

She sighed. But the longer I waited for her to reply, I realized she was already asleep again.

“You let her rest,” I whispered to the baby in her belly as I kept my hand pressed on the swollen girth there.

Later, when we woke, I grumbled at all that would keep me from her today.

We showered and ate breakfast together, meeting everyone with smiles as the others came in and out of the house.

“Fucking finally,” Emil said dryly as he came to the dining room.

I held Gabriella’s hand and lifted it to kiss the back of it.

“What final—oh.” Ivan filed in, stirring a coffee cup. He smiled. “Just in time to make up, huh?” He shook his head as he sat next to Emil.

“That’s enough,” I said, mildly annoyed. I still wasn’t going to talk about emotions and sappy shit. With her, I would open up my heart as much as she wanted me to. It’d take me time. I’d approach it with baby steps, but I was ready to be whatever Gabriella needed me to be.

“Speaking of time,” she said, “will you be able to come to my appointment?”

I sighed heavily, wishing I could swear I’d be there. Most of her checkups had been done here. All but one were completed in the privacy and comfort of her room. At the last checkup, the monitoring equipment got damaged on the drive. For this reason, she was being taken to the medical facility.

It was the first time she’d be out of the house since the resort I’d taken her to. That fated day that kicked us into turmoil, when I discovered she was carrying my child.

“We’ve got a thorough security detail arranged,” Ivan said, glancing at me, then her.

“I figured that,” she said calmly. Still, she looked at me.

“I want to be there,” I replied honestly. “It just depends on how my meeting goes this morning.”

She nodded. “Okay. I just wanted to know. I bet they’ll do another ultrasound and you could hear the baby’s heartbeat.”

I leaned over to kiss her, fucking smitten with how happy she was now. Hell, I was pretty damned happy, too.

“But you’ll be there for the big day, right?” she asked, raising her brows.

“Nothing would keep me away,” I promised.

“Well, there are still a few more weeks for that.” She groaned, rubbing her stomach. “I don’t know how I can get any bigger. I’m already a beached whale.”

“Nonsense,” I replied.

“And you still don’t know the gender?” Ivan asked.

She shook her head. “No. I want to be surprised.”

I just shrugged, going with what she wanted.

Emil and Ivan spoke a little more about the meeting I had to attend. It was something to do with a wealthy philanthropist who’d needed a favor—the kind of favor Emil specialized in. Since it was a big deal and an important transaction, it was requested that I attend as well.

“I will try to come to the appointment,” I told Gabriella before I left, hating to be apart from her now that we’d found our way back together.

“Okay. Don’t stress about it. I’ll be safe.”

I arched a brow. “Without me?”

She smirked. “Oh, stop. You know I feel safest with you.” And she meant it. I knew she did. I’d killed to protect her.

“But I also know that your guards and everyone will do their jobs to protect me and this little one as well.”

That vote of confidence was something I never thought I’d hear from her lips.

She wasn’t bluffing or mocking anything.

In this year she’d been here, she really had grown into accepting how my family worked.

She didn’t flinch at the concept of having a small army go with her to an appointment.

Likewise, I trusted that she’d stick with them and not try to flee.

How could she when her future is with me?

Hours later, I grinned with the satisfaction that my meeting had wrapped up sooner than I expected. With this timing, I could surprise her at the medical facility, arriving right when she would.

Riding in the Rolls Royce, my car, I sighed and watched the scenery pass by.

Allen was on speaker, hurrying to assist with a project Gabriella hadn’t put any effort into handling.

The nursery.

In the back of my mind, I knew she’d put off talking about the nursery at first because she was adamant that she’d be better off on her own to raise our child, away from danger.

She’d at last come to realize she would be more secure with me than away from me, and I appreciated that she’d had that epiphany.

“Ask her,” I told him as he debated between furniture ideas. “After the appointment, ask her.” I didn’t care. Whatever she wanted, I’d make it happen.

He scoffed at my unhelpful nonanswer. After we disconnected the call, I mused on how anxious I was to surprise her.

It wasn’t just that I was eager to hear the heartbeat and be there to see our child on the ultrasound.

This wasn’t my first time with this. I still remembered when I was waiting for Emil to be born.

The daughter I was supposed to welcome into the world with Maria had been my second experience of doctor visits and obstetrician offices.

But this was Gabriella’s first time. I hated to have punked out and failed her by not being with her when she had her checkups all along, but I was here now. And I would be there for all other pregnancies she’d be blessed with.

Coming to meet her at her appointment was a sign of deeper commitment.

That mattered to me. Now that I’d gotten my head out of my ass and I could see my future complete only with her in it as my partner, not a thing I’d acquired from a rat, I wanted her to know how deeply I was in this thing called life with her.

On the ride, I rehearsed my ideas of how I could soften my dominance where she was concerned. I never wanted to witness her fire and spirit be so diminished again. She would submit to me. I knew that now. It was only a matter of explaining that I loved her so she’d feel powerful alongside me.

Not as something I’d taken.

But after our fight, something I’d earned back.

The car slowed to a stop, braking at the entrance of the parking garage. Before the driver continued on, a couple of vans sped by. They zoomed too fast so erratically that they clipped the bumpers of parked cars. Just like that, they were there.

“What the fuck?—”

I watched, panicking as the vans rocked to a stilted stop at the doors that led to the medical facility where Gabriella was in the waiting room for her appointment.

Men filed out. All armed.

“The fucking Vipers,” I growled, grabbing my gun and hurrying out of the car to chase after the men.

It was another ambush.

Another attack on Gabriella.

On our child’s life.

Sprinting to get there in time, I shouted into my phone, ordering more men to surround the facility and protect the love of my life at all costs.

I wouldn’t lose her.

I just couldn’t, not after all we’d been through to be at this tentative potential for peace and love.