Page 16 of The Pakhan’s Bride (Mafia Bosses #3)

I watch her face as I swallow. It is impassive, unbreakable. She has seen worse and survived.

I envy her.

We wait until she says it's safe. Then we move, one slow step at a time, into the frozen wild, leaving the past behind us.

There are taxis. So many taxis. And even more walking, three nights and a day of it.

On the fourth afternoon, the sky presses down, flat and gray, threatening more snow.

My foot is a fist of pain. Galina keeps me upright with hands that never shake, even as her own breath wheezes with every step.

We cross a field choked with weeds, skirt a line of birch trees, and at last, in a shallow dip hidden from the road, I see a cottage.

It's smaller than I remember. I was six the last time we visited, a punishment holiday for something Ekaterina did but I took the blame for.

I remember the smells of sap and cold wood, the way the stove hissed all night.

Now, the structure is half-sunk, roof patched with tar paper, windows no bigger than my palm. But to me it's a palace.

Galina unlocks the door, helps me inside. She sets me on the old velvet sofa and busies herself with the stove, cursing under her breath when the wood refuses to catch. I curl up, arms wrapped around my knees, and try not to sob.

When the fire finally takes, Galina strips my ruined tights, cleans the wound with boiled water, and bandages it with strips of linen torn from her own petticoat.

She doesn't speak until she's finished, then sets a chipped mug of tea in my hands and smooths my hair with the tenderness of someone who has lost a child and never found another.

"Rest now," she says and pulls the old wool blanket up to my chin.

I sleep for a day. Maybe two. Time in the cottage is soup, thick and flavorless.

Galina comes and goes, leaving food I can't eat, water I barely touch.

Sometimes, I wake to the sound of her on the phone, whispering in a language I don't know.

Other times, I wake to silence, the kind that sits heavily on your chest.

On the third morning, my nausea is worse than the pain in my foot. I lurch to the bathroom, retch until I'm empty, then lean my head against the cool enamel sink. My skin is gray in the mirror. My eyes are ringed with purple. I look like I've already died and the body just hasn't caught up.

Galina stands in the door, watching. She waits until I wipe my mouth, then nods.

"You are with child," she says. No preamble.

I want to laugh, but the sound won't come. I stare at my reflection, searching for proof. My stomach is flat, but the sickness is real. The timeline is impossible to ignore.

The memory hits like a car crash. Paris. The man in the bar, his hands on my hips, his mouth on mine. The hotel room, the heat of his body, the way I forgot the world for one perfect night. I never learned his name. And the protection we used didn't mean a thing.

I press a hand to my belly, as if I could feel something shifting inside. It's too soon, but the gesture comforts me.

Galina steps forward, puts a hand on my shoulder. "You are strong," she says. "You will keep it?"

I nod, because the alternative is unthinkable. She leaves me alone, but now I am two people, and neither of us knows what to do.

The next few days go by in an absolute haze.

I pace the cottage, watch the woods for movement.

Some nights, I hear the snap of twigs, see headlights far off through the trees, but no one comes.

Galina teaches me how to chop wood, how to set snares for rabbits, how to keep the stove burning even when the wood is damp.

I memorize her movements, the way she folds dough, the way she knots the ends of rope, the way she drinks her tea with three sugars and a splash of lemon.

At night, I lie awake and talk to the child growing inside me. Sometimes, I curse it. Sometimes, I beg it to forgive me for what I have done and what I will do. Sometimes, I promise it a life better than mine.

Galina never asks questions. She just sits beside me, knitting scarves we will never wear, humming the lullabies her mother sang during the war.

I realize, as the snow melts and the birches bud, that I am no longer afraid. I have become a container for something impossible, and that is enough to keep me breathing.

When the radio reports the massacre at the Baranov estate, I turn off the sound and stare at the blank screen for a long, long time.

I am dead , they say.

But I am more alive than I have ever been.

The days blur together, measured only by the changing angle of light through the warped cottage windows.

Sometimes, I watch the birds in the birch trees, the way they pick at last year's nests, stripping out what's rotten and building with what's left.

Galina watches me the same way, as if waiting to see if I will grow wings or just eat the eggs.

At night, I dream of the house. The sound of gunfire, the sharp tang of blood in the air.

Sometimes my father is there, intact, sipping tea and pointing out the dead as if they're chess pieces.

Sometimes it's Ekaterina, her face frozen in the split second before they tore us apart.

Always, I wake with the taste of copper in my mouth.

I live in the news now. The radio is my new heartbeat. I listen to every report, every rumor. The Baranov name is everywhere, but never in the present tense. There are stories of a massacre, a changing of the guard, a new order rising from the ashes. No mention of survivors.

I learn the names of the men who stormed the house. I count the bodies recovered, waiting for Ekaterina's to appear. It never does.

The cottage becomes both cell and sanctuary.

I tend the fire, cook the food, mend the linens.

Galina rarely leaves my side. She teaches me her secrets—how to sleep with one ear open, how to tell the difference between a fox and a man by the way the branches break.

I hoard these lessons, knowing I will need them.

I talk to the baby sometimes. I tell them stories of Paris, of the art in the Louvre, of the way the Seine glowed at night. I promise them I will never let anyone hurt us. The nausea never really leaves, but eventually, I learn to accept it.

One night, the storm knocks out the radio.

Galina finds an old television in the shed, wires it to the generator.

The picture is mostly static, but the news anchor's face is clear enough.

She talks about a power vacuum in the Moscow underworld.

She mentions my father's name, then calls him a casualty of progress.

The camera cuts to a city skyline, then to a conference room packed with men in suits.

At the center stands a tall man in a black coat, flanked by two musclebound lieutenants.

When he steps to the microphone, I see Markov. My heart stops, then resumes at double speed.

He wears a suit now, but the shape of his mouth is the same. The eyes are the same, clever, unblinking, always searching for the weakness in the line. The jaw, the brow, the scar above his left eye. I know him.

Konstantin Vetrov, the anchor says. Newly appointed Pakhan of Moscow.

I know him by another name—the man who watched me in Paris.

The man who kissed me like he alone held the secret power to transform me from girl to woman.

The man who, for one moment, let me believe I could have a life outside the shadow of my father.

The teacup in my hand shatters against the floor. Galina jumps, then sighs, as if this is the first thing all week to make sense to her.

I watch the screen as Konstantin speaks, confident, measured, almost bored. He answers every question with a smile just shy of real. He mentions restructuring, modernization, a new vision for the future. He never once acknowledges the blood on his hands. He never once says my name.

But I see it, written in the way he looks at the camera, daring someone to challenge him.

I sit on the floor and collect the shards of the teacup, one by one. My hands are steady now. My mind is not. Galina stands behind me, her shadow long in the lamplight. "Everything changes, little dove," she says. "But you do not have to."

I sweep the last of the pieces into a dustpan and throw them in the stove. I watch the fragments blacken, then glow, then disappear.