Page 94 of Pregnant Virgin of the Bratva

He blinks, but he doesn’t look afraid. Just serious.

“I understand,” he replies. “I won’t let that happen.”

I stare at him another second, then release him. He straightens his coat with composure, then nods once and turns away.

They begin to unhook the monitors and move the bed. Esme’s hand slips from mine and it feels like something inside me tears. She grips the side rail, trying to sit up despite the pain, and her eyes lock with mine.

“Kion.”

“I’m right here,” I say.

Her voice breaks. “You’ll be there, won’t you?”

“I’m not going anywhere, sweetheart.”

I walk beside the bed as far as they let me. At the doors to the operating theatre, they stop me. I know it’s protocol. I know what’s coming, but still, I don’t move. I have to see her.

She turns her face to me, pale and trembling, and offers a weak smile that nearly undoes me.

“I’m not ready,” she whispers.

“You don’t have to be,” I tell her, voice steady. “Just keep breathing. Just keep looking at me.”

Her hand reaches out. I catch it one last time, press it to my lips. I can’t say goodbye. I won’t.

Then the doors swing shut between us.

I’m left standing alone in a corridor that smells like bleach and fear and faint traces of blood. The sound of voices fades behind the walls, muffled by too much glass and too much distance. My chest feels too tight. My fists clench uselessly at my sides. I can’t follow her. I can’t protect her. I can’t do anything.

Yuri appears beside me, silent, as always. He doesn’t ask questions. He doesn’t offer comfort.

He just stands there.

It’s enough.

I sit down heavily in one of the plastic chairs outside the OR, elbows braced on my knees, fingers laced tightly together. I stare at the floor like it might give me answers, but all I see is her face. Her eyes. Her pain. Her fear. And that goddamn helpless smile before they took her away from me.

I’ve faced down gunfire. Stood in front of armed men and laughed in their faces. This—this silence, this stillness—is the most dangerous thing I’ve ever known. I don’t pace. I don’t breathe too loud. I sit in a stillness that burns beneath my skin, my soul already halfway buried, waiting to know whether my world ends behind those doors.

The hallway stays cold no matter how long we sit in it. The plastic chair beneath me might as well be concrete. Every breath I take is shallow, and every second drags like it’s caught in barbed wire.

My hands are still clasped together, elbows braced against my knees. I haven’t moved in minutes. Maybe more. I’m too focused on the double doors ahead, the ones they wheeled her through, the ones that haven’t opened since.

Yuri stands against the wall across from me, arms crossed over his chest. He hasn’t spoken. Hasn’t paced. Hasn’t checked his phone or pulled out a cigarette like he usually does. He just waits. Like I do. Still. Tense.

Eventually, he exhales. “You’re doing that thing.”

I don’t turn my head. “What thing?”

“Your jaw,” he says. “You keep grinding it like you’re chewing stone.”

I force a smile. “What’s a few fillings matter?”

Yuri snorts, takes a drink of his flask and then offers it to me. “After tonight, you’ll owe me a new liver.”

I take a swig, enjoying the burn.

He pushes off the wall and crosses the hallway, dropping into the seat beside me with a quiet thud. His knees fall open, elbows resting lazily on the armrests like this is any other night. But I know better. I see the lines at the corners of his mouth. The way his fingers flex against the upholstery.