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VADKA

It’s almost two a.m. when she finds me at the kitchen table.

She’s barefoot, wearing one of my shirts again—she does it without asking now, and I fucking love that. It falls off one shoulder, her legs bare. Hair is a mess. Eyes sharp.

My god, she’s beautiful.

She’s beautiful in that way people whisper about. Hushed and reverent, a little awed. And I want her, I want her so fucking badly I’m instantly hard. But she didn’t feel well earlier, and I don’t want to push.

Zoya came home and dropped off supplies.

“Maps again?” she asks, leaning over the table.

“Trying to see what the next move will be,” I say. “They’re obviously not posturing anymore. ”

“No,” she murmurs. “They want blood.”

Her voice trembles. Just for a second.

I hate it.

“You think he’s planning a coordinated hit?”

“Or a message,” I say. “Something brutal. Public. The Undertaker is the Irish’s most wanted. He wants a panic. A culling.”

She sits down, legs pulled up on the chair, staring at the intel.

“Maybe we should… I dunno, scatter the assets. Move the kids out of state.”

I shake my head. “They’ll expect that. Roads’ll be watched. They want us running.”

She meets my eyes. “So what? We dig in and hope they miss?”

“We don’t hope. We bait. We lead them where we want them. We control the field.”

Her expression hardens. “You still want to fight this like it’s honor versus power. Vadka—we have a child in the other room. We have more to lose now.”

“I know what I have to lose.” My voice comes out rough, too close to raw. “You think I don’t consider all the possibilities?”

She sighs. “We’re both trying to protect him. Just differently. It’s two sides of the same coin.”

She’s not wrong.

I nod. Barely.

She shifts closer, and her knee touches mine under the table.

“I want you to win this war,” she says quietly. “But I need to know you won’t let pride bury us in the rubble. Maybe we leave, maybe we get new identities. Pack up and just… go. Somewhere safe. Somewhere they won’t find us.”

I shake my head and reach for her hand.

“Ruthie,” I murmur. “I don’t care about pride.

I care about you . And you need to know, just like your sister did.

” It feels like progress to be able to say your sister without guilt, without pain so sharp I can’t breathe.

“If you’re in with me, you’re in the Kopolov Bratva.

There’s no escaping. We don’t move, we don’t hide, we don’t make any choices in the future that don’t impact every goddamn one of them. ”

She stills.

Eyes wide. Barely breathing.

I lean in closer. “And in return, that means you’re one of them. One of us. It means every motherfucker in the Bratva protects you like their own. There isn’t a need you have we don’t meet. You’ll be protected. Cared for.” I swallow hard. “Family.”

Because isn’t that what this is all about, in the end? Love and family, friendship that crosses boundaries and knows no limits. Love and war, death and life.

She holds my gaze and rests her hand on mine. Then she reaches across the table and pulls the map toward her.

“Okay,” she says. “Then let’s plan it together. ”

It’s not surrender.

It’s something deeper.

Trust.

And it feels like she’s made the decision to do something she hasn’t spoken of, not yet, like she’s facing a fear she’s held onto that no longer holds her in its grip.

I want to ask her what it is, what she’s afraid of, what she needs. But Ruthie values her independence, and I know by now this is part of her process. If I need her to trust me, I need to give her space to do things in her way, in her time.

She gets up and walks away for a little while. Says she’s going to brush her teeth.

But she doesn’t come back.

Not right away.

After ten minutes, I check the bedroom.

She’s not there.

The bathroom light’s still on. Shit. Is she okay?

I knock once. “Ruthie?” My voice is sharper than I intended. “ Ruthie ?”

No answer. I hear a sniff that sets my racing heart to ease, but not fully.

I open the door slowly.

She’s standing in the middle of the room, barefoot on the tile.

Trembling .

She’s holding a plastic stick like it just detonated in her hands.

And my heart stops .

Wait. What ?

She looks up, and her lips part.

“It’s positive, Vadka.” And then she’s crying. She blinks, and hot, fat tears roll down her cheeks. She sniffs, and I can’t think straight.

I step forward, and she flinches—not back, but inward, like she’s bracing for me to say something. Something cruel. Or shocked. Or distant.

But I don’t.

I just stare at her.

At the firecracker of a woman I’ve burned for.

At the knife-sharp survivor who’s carried more than any one soul should.

At the girl who never thought she’d get to be anything soft.

And now—she’s carrying a future neither of us planned.

A child.

Ours.

She starts to say something. I can see it bubbling up—an apology, maybe, or a shield disguised as sarcasm, fear, or humor, but I cut her off.

Not with words.

With my arms.

I pull her into me. Tight. Fierce. Like she might disappear if I’m not careful. “A baby? My god, Ruthie. You’re pregnant, baby ?” I hold her so tight she gasps for breath, and I have to let her go a little.

She doesn’t resist, just melts.

Right there in the bathroom, under cold light and warm silence, Ruthie lets go.

Her arms come around me. Her face buries into my chest, and she sobs.

“I didn’t mean for it to happen,” she whispers, her voice broken.

“I know.” Of course this wasn’t planned.

“I don’t even know how it happened. I’m on birth control, but like… I don’t know what I’m supposed to feel?—”

“You don’t have to know,” I murmur. “We’ll figure it out.”

“We’re still being hunted.”

“I’ll end it.”

“You can’t promise that.”

I pull back just enough to look her in the eye.

“I can. And I will. Because now? This isn’t just about bloodlines. Or Bratva. Or war.”

I put her hand on my chest.

Let her feel what she’s done to me.

“This is about us .”

She breathes, deep and wrecked .

Then she leans up… and kisses me. I hold her face in my hands, my lips against hers, my heart so full I feel like I’m on cloud nine. A baby.

Then she pulls away and breaks into a fresh sob. She puts her head on my chest again and weeps deep, wracking sobs that shake her shoulders.

“Ruthie,” I say softly. “Shh. This is going to work out. Do you want the baby? Is that what you’re afraid of? Do you?—”

“It’s not that.” She sniffs. “I just— How do I— This isn’t right, Vadka.

” Her voice breaks, and she wails. “I took my sister’s life, and it’s not fair.

This shouldn’t be me having your baby. This should be her.

Mariah. I came in after she wasn’t here, and I…

I took her life, and I’ll never forgive myself for that. ”

“God, Ruthie. No, baby. No. C’mere.”

I bend, scoop her up in my arms, and walk to the small leather loveseat nestled in the corner of the living room.

I sit on the loveseat and tuck her against me. I let her cry it out. I hold her to my chest and rock her gently, and when I blink, my own damn tears follow hers. I shake my head and try to put into words what my heart already knows.

“You didn’t take anything that wasn’t yours, Ruthie. Nothing. Let me ask you a question. If Mariah knew you were loved, so deeply, so fully, unconditionally? What would she say, baby?”

She sniffs. I run my hands through her hair.

“She would want me to be happy. She would want someone who… loved me. ”

“And I do, Ruthie. I love you so damn much. And this baby? Unexpected, yeah. But unwanted? Never, baby. Never .” I kiss her fiercely. “This little baby brings new life. ”

She sighs. “It might take time for me to wrap my brain around this…”

I shrug. “Seems like you have, at least, what? Eight, eight and a half months?”

She smiles. “Yeah. We do.” She straightens her shoulders.

“You better?” I ask, now that the sobbing’s stopped and she looks lighter. Freer.

She nods. “I think so?”

“Good,” I whisper, leaning in to kiss her. I’ve never wanted her so much in my life. She’s carrying my baby. My woman, carrying my child. And I want her so fucking bad.

Then, as if we’ve been waiting for this moment for too long, I lean in and kiss her, slow at first, tasting the sweetness of her lips, the way she sighs into me, and it feels like everything falls away.

It’s not just the kiss—it’s the promise.

It’s our baby. Our future. And it hits me harder than I ever expected.

And in that moment, the threats beyond the security of this place slip away. It’s not just a kiss. It’s a vow, a promise, our future. And it crashes over me with a wave I never saw coming.

Maybe we would’ve taken our time. Maybe we would’ve been slow and deliberate.

Maybe we would’ve allowed our grief and fears to ebb away like sand on a shore until we found each other whole.

But now we have a baby knit between us, an irrevocable tie to one another that makes who we are and what we mean together immediate.

We’ll make this work. We have to.

She presses closer, her hands sliding to my chest, slow and certain, fingers splaying like she’s trying to memorize the steady beating of my heart.

I deepen the kiss, hungry for more, knowing that she’s carrying my child.

Her body melts into mine. Heat rises, and my cock aches to fill her, claim her, remind her who she is and who she belongs to.

I break away just enough to breathe, the words raw, my voice hoarse.

“God, I want you so fucking bad, Ruthie. So goddamn bad.”

Her lips hint at a tease, curving upward, but her eyes are dark, her pupils wide with need and want, her fingers near desperate when she reaches for me again. “Then take me, please. All of me. I want you too.”

She holds my hand, and I tug her toward the bedroom. There’s nothing frantic in the way we move, no rush or desperation, just a quiet, simmering need that pulses between us.