Page 37 of Captive Vows (The Dubinin Bratva #1)

GAbrIELLA

I t was different to sit here in a real waiting room to be seen. All my other checkups were done in the privacy of my bedroom. Luka hadn’t hesitated to start medical care and supervision, going to the extreme of hiring private doctors as soon as he discovered I was pregnant.

Seated in an uncomfortable chair in this medical office that was an auxiliary building on the hospital’s campus, I almost felt like a normal person again. Not a lover of a Mafia boss who got special treatment, but an ordinary, standard citizen, expected to wait like anyone else.

No other patients were in here at the time. Luka had requested that I not be waiting for long. Still, he’d shown how much he wanted me to feel pampered like that.

Maybe I should get used to feeling like a queen.

I rubbed my hand over my stomach, wondering how much longer it would be until I could get this over with.

This large, I was just plain uncomfortable.

This far along, I was simply unable to find a good spot to breathe fully, not feel the urge to pee, avoid heartburn, and also spare myself from that sciatica pain.

“Impatient?” Alexsei guessed.

He sat next to me while another Dubinin guard stood near the door.

It seemed like overkill. No other people were in here since Luka ordered the doctors to clear their schedule for me.

But with how my last two times of leaving the Dubinin mansion had gone—my audition and that time Luka took me out to brunch at that resort—it wasn’t a bad idea to ramp up security.

If it stayed like this, where I’d be a target anytime I reentered society, I’d never want to think about “freedom” again.

So far, so good, right?

No one was bursting in here to shoot at me.

Yet.

I shook my head to dispel the thoughts.

Have faith.

Luka loved me. He wanted to marry me. It was sufficient to convince me he would protect me no matter what. His nephew was the security expert, and he was right next to me.

“You’re not impatient?” he asked, interpreting the shake of my head as a negative reply. He chuckled. “Because if I remember those last weeks before Misha was born, my wife had been miserable.”

I smiled slightly. Now that I knew he’d had a wife and fathered a son, I was excited to learn more about them. About all of them. My views of the Dubinins being a family, not the family, were changing my opinions so quickly.

I hated that I’d assumed too much for so long.

“Oh, I’m impatient.” I sighed, then winced as more tension kicked in.

“Are you okay?” He watched me closely, worried.

“Yeah. I mean, no. I’m huge.”

“Are you having contractions?” He glanced at how tightly I gripped the armrest as I rode through them.

Ever since I woke up this morning, I’d felt off. “No. Not real ones. Based on what I’ve read and what the doctors told me, this is when I’ll have Braxton Hicks.”

He furrowed his brow. “They look intense.”

Fuck, I can’t even breathe. I forced a smile. “Just practice.” I stifled a groan.

The universe couldn’t be that much of a jokester. This couldn’t be early labor because I’d come so hard last night. If that were the case, and Luka missed this delivery, I’d never let him hear the end of it. He’d also never let me hear the end of it that he’d basically fucked me into childbirth.

“You know, when my wife was pregnant and claimed to have those Braxton Hicks, it was the real thing.”

Please, don’t tell me that. I wasn’t ready. I needed Luka to be here when the time came. His comfort would ground me and make it more bearable.

“She was just dehydrated and they managed to hold off on her having Misha for a couple more weeks.”

I grabbed my water bottle and chugged it. He laughed, but when the heartburn came even from the plain water, I cringed. My stomach was pushed up too high and squished.

“Gabriella?” A tech entered the waiting room and escorted me back to a small room.

Alexsei stuck with me, and the guard trailed after us.

Even though the ultrasound technician raised her brows, not used to the security like this, she didn’t comment until I was on the bed and a nurse popped in to get my vitals.

“Feeling okay?” she asked.

I nodded, but that felt like a lie. If these were Braxton Hicks contractions, I wasn’t sure I’d be strong enough for the real thing.

“So… is Daddy staying for the scan?” The tech glanced at Alexsei, then the guard, as she readied the gel for the ultrasound while the nurse exited.

“No. They’re not the father,” I replied.

Alexsei nodded at the guard, excusing him. Perhaps he thought I needed more privacy, but the room did feel less cluttered when the Dubinin soldier left.

The technician began scanning, but the look of alarm on her face scared me. “What is it?”

“Are you sure you feel okay?” she checked.

“As okay as I think I can—ow.” Another sharp strike of pain hit me.

“That,” she said, moving the wand over my bump, “doesn’t fall under the realm of okay .”

“It’s just Braxton Hicks.”

“No, that’s just a really intense contraction.” She moved quickly, grabbing a heart monitor to strap to my belly to track the baby’s pulse. “And you are about to have this baby.”

“What?” I tried to sit up, shocked.

“This isn’t a rehearsal,” she said glibly, smiling as she hooked me up.

“I told you,” Alexsei said, chuckling as he got his phone out.

“No. It’s just?—”

“It’s just contractions,” the tech said. As she continued to secure the monitors to me, she picked up a radio-like piece hanging off the wall, calling for a nurse to come and to page the doctor.

I turned to stare at Alexsei. “But Luka?—”

He held his hand up then rested it on my shoulder. “He’s coming. He was already on his way, done with his meeting early. He should be here any minute.”

“Oh, thank God. Thank—” I cringed, buckling down to bear through another wave of agony. “Fuck!”

“Whoa. Easy, easy. Deep breath in.” Alexsei was a surprising source of comfort, having gone through the birth of his son. I was so damn glad I wasn’t alone, that he was here instead of the others. But it was Luka I wanted to see. I wanted him to be holding my hand.

“Don’t move,” the tech said as she retreated.

“Very funny!” I bit out through clenched teeth as the contraction claimed me.

The tech winked, stepping aside as a nurse opened the door.

While the panel was ajar, someone else showed up and entered too. It wasn’t the doctor.

But a man wearing a mask, toting a gun. He shot the nurse in the back of the head. She fell, blood and body matter spraying out. The guard attacked the next man trying to sneak in.

I screamed. Through the pain of the contraction. The fear of violence. The gruesome sight of that nurse shot dead right before my eyes.

This couldn’t be happening. Not now. Not here. I was so fucking determined to bring this baby into a world where he or she would meet love, not death and danger.

Alexsei moved like a blur. He had his gun out, firing at the men as they tried to enter. One after the other, he shot them dead. Past this door, now held open with the dead nurse’s body preventing it from closing, more gunfire erupted. The guard at the door was hit, but he added to Alexsei’s shots.

“Don’t move!” he yelled at me as he hurried to secure the door.

I was too traumatized to roll my eyes. Where else could I go?

My stomach was clenching in pain. Air couldn’t fill my lungs. My heart raced. And why was I so sweaty?

I was having a baby. I couldn’t hide and protect myself.

As the medical facility turned into a warzone, I fought through the contractions to sit up.

Alexsei and the other Dubinins were guarding me, not letting anyone enter the room.

But that wasn’t good enough. If this baby was coming now, I would not be defenseless.

Where is Luka?

Why is this happening?

When will it ever end?

Dropping to my hands and knees, I cried out at the pain of another contraction. It ripped at me, nearly making me fall and pass out, but I didn’t stop crawling. Ignoring the blood and fighting the urge to puke from the labor and the grisly scene of death, I kept going.

My fingers shook and trembled, but I didn’t stop until I pried a gun from a dead man’s hands near the open doorway.

I’d never used a gun. Never fired one. But for fuck’s sake, how hard could it be?

The energy of crawling, of moving at all, worsened the pain. Once I held the weapon in my hand, I slumped to the side. Lying on a clear spot on the floor, I gritted my teeth and breathed through the contractions that came so quickly, one after the other.

Screams filled the air, broken up only by the gunfire and shouts.

Even though I was the only patient in the waiting room, other expectant mothers were in other rooms. More medical personnel were out there.

So many innocent lives were taken, cruelly and horribly, in this place where new lives were supposed to come into the world.

I didn’t need to focus on what the gunmen were saying.

I knew they were here to get me.

Miguel had told them to get my child, all to pawn him or her off to the Italians.

That was what two men said in the hallway.

It sounded like it was Pyotr, the one guard who’d once scared me.

He was punching and fighting someone trying to get into my room, and that was how I caught word of the confession.

“No.” I shook my head, delirious with this shock.

“It can’t be like this.”

The Cartel wanted me dead to wound Luka.

The Riveras wanted to take my child to hurt him too.

I was a target. I’d become collateral damage because he dared to love me.

“Gabriella!”

I tensed, opening my eyes as someone neared my room. On instinct, I lifted the gun and aimed it shakily.

A guard’s arm reached out to stop a nurse, but she pushed at him. “No. Let me in. She’s in labor!”

The brave woman ducked, rushing into the room. “Fuck.” Her eyes opened wide, but she stayed clear-headed. “Fuck.”

I nodded, agreeing with her assessment as she dropped to her knees and tugged on gloves. “I’m scared.”

“You and me both.” She didn’t stop moving, removing my panties and pushing my skirt up as she helped me get into position. “You’re crowning.”

“What?” I cringed, shaking from more gunfire. “I’m what?”

“Crowning. This baby isn’t going to wait.”

“No. Not like this. I can’t—” I shook my head, nervous about how I could defend my baby when they were out of me. “It’s too soon and it’s too dangerous.”

“It’s happening. This baby’s coming now. Stay with me and push when I say.”

I cried, so terrified by this traumatic birth and the danger of so many strangers who wanted to get to me and my baby.

“One, two, three, and push.”

I ground my teeth and pushed, ending up screaming from the agony. I was being split in two.

“Gabriella!”

My eyes popped open.

That was Luka!

I swallowed hard, amazed he’d made it. He was here, joining his men out there. He was fighting to protect me, like always.

“Okay, again. And one, two, three, push.” The nurse shifted, helping to get this baby out of me.

I cried again, giving it my all and feeling like I had not a single ounce of energy left to move at all.

The urge to call out for Luka taunted me, but I feared that saying anything would only alert these intruders to my location and put me and my baby at more risk.

“Almost there,” the nurse coaxed. “Stay with me. Almost there. Your baby is almost here.”

“I’ll be taking that bastard,” a man snarled as he rushed into the room. He aimed his gun at my head, but he was the one who took a bullet.

Luka was there. He came up behind him and shot him dead with one clean shot to the back of his head.

The second the man dropped down, he staggered into the room. Blood covered his face. Injuries had to pain him all over his body. But nothing would stop him from positioning himself between me and the danger surrounding us.

He saved me.

“Push, Gabriella. Push!” The nurse furrowed her brow, coaching me sternly. “The baby is stuck and you need to listen. One, two, three, push .”

I fisted my hands as Luka turned. He tucked to the side, taking a hit, but he didn’t stop firing at the men trying to get to me.

If my baby was in danger, I had to do all I could not to lose him or her. If Luka was being shot at because I was here, I had to do all I could not to lose him, either. We needed to get somewhere safe, all of us, because I vowed with all I was not to lose my family.