Page 152 of Nine Months to Love

I close my eyes. “I know.”

The hours blur together. Nurses come and go. The machines keep beeping. Elena stays unconscious, her chest rising and falling.

Around midnight, Stefan finally dozes off in his chair, his head tilted back against the wall. I watch him sleep, his face softer in rest but still lined with worry.

I pull out my phone and stare at the blank screen. I could text Natalia. Tell her I’m not coming. Yell at her to stay away from my family.

Or I could go. Hear what she has to say. Try to understand why she ordered an attack that nearly killed Elena.

They were never meant to hurt anyone.

But intentions don’t matter when someone ends up shot, do they?

I think about Stefan’s face when he talks about his mother. The rage and pain and betrayal that’s still so raw after fifteen years.

I think about the journal Natalia gave me. The entries from Matvey that painted a starkly different picture of their marriage than the one Stefan described.

I think about Elena lying in this bed, her body fighting to heal from wounds that never should have happened.

And I think about the baby growing inside me. The child who deserves parents who trust each other. Who don’t keep secrets.

My thumb hovers over the keyboard. But I don’t type anything. Not yet.

Stefan stirs, his eyes blinking open. “What time is it?”

“Just after midnight.”

He sits up, rolling his shoulders. “You should go home. Get some rest.”

“I’m not leaving you.”

“Olivia—”

“No. I’m staying. Don’t even ask.”

He studies my face, then nods. “Okay.”

The note sits in my purse, waiting. A week from now, I’ll have to decide—meet Natalia and try to salvage something from this disaster, or tell Stefan the truth and face whatever comes next. For now, I just hold his hand and watch Elena breathe.

One crisis at a time.

That’s all I can handle.

44

STEFAN

I park in the hospital garage and take the elevator up to the ICU. My phone is humming constantly with updates from Taras—shipment schedules, security reports, questions about the new surveillance system at the manor. I answer them all mechanically. My mind is already in Elena’s room.

It’s been two days since we got back from Italy. Two endless, monotonous, agonizing days of machines and monitors and waiting. So much goddamn waiting.

But there have been silver linings. Moments of hope. She woke up last night. Just for a few minutes, yes, and groggy and confused from the medication. But she recognized me. Squeezed my hand. That was enough.

The guards outside her room nod as I approach. I push through the door.

Olivia sits in the chair beside the bed, her hand resting on Elena’s. She looks exhausted. Dark circles under her eyes, hair pulled back in a messy bun. She’s wearing the same clothes as yesterday.

“Hey,” I say quietly.