Page 12

MIA

In the morning, Eli insists on going to school. “It’s Taco Tuesday!” he pouts. “I can’t miss Taco Tuesday!”

“Fine,” I concede. “But if you’re not feeling well?—”

“I’ll tell Ms. Lawrence. Now, can I please go get dressed?”

I roll my eyes and ruffle his hair. “Go on, Mr. Sassypants. Don’t forget to brush your teeth.”

Yulian watches him go from the counter, sipping his morning coffee. “First time I’ve seen a kid begging to go to school.”

“To be fair, it’s a really good school.”

“Or they just have really good tacos.”

It’s so strange—all of it. Being here, joking about Eli, having breakfast together. This morning, I stress-flipped enough pancakes to feed an army.

Most of all, Yulian is acting… decent. No, that’s not the right word. By welcoming us here, Yulian has been way more than decent. And yet, despite the tension that laces our every interaction, he’s doing his best to put on a front. A serene, drama-free front—for Eli’s sake.

He’s trying. He’s really trying.

Gratitude tugs at me, but guilt tugs harder. For the rest of the morning, I can’t quite bring myself to meet Yulian’s gaze. If he notices, he doesn’t comment on it. Not with Eli making a mess of maple syrup on his marble countertop.

“Even if Eli won’t, you should be staying home today,” Yulian says the second Eli’s out of earshot. “I can drive him to school on my own.”

I shake my head. “You’ve already done so much. Besides, I’d go crazy if I just stayed cooped up. And I need to pack up our stuff.”

“My men can take care of it.”

“But they’ll never be able to find all my coupons.”

My joke lands on deaf ears and a set jaw. “It’s dangerous,” Yulian says. “Desya’s still out there. He could come for you.”

“He was shot less than twenty-four hours ago. Trust me, no one’s moving around after that.”

“Mia—”

My hands twist the hems of my sleeves. Long sleeves—to hide the still-healing bruises. “I’ve spent months trapped in a cage,” I whisper. “I need to stretch my wings again. Need to know I can leave here, if I want to.”

Yulian’s face darkens. I can tell this conversation isn’t going the way he wanted. “You’re pregnant,” he rumbles. “You can’t take stupid risks just because?—”

“Because I’ve been locked up by my psycho ex and want to make sure you’re not going to do the same?” I retort acidly. “Yeah, you’re right. It’s way too much to ask.”

Yulian’s jaw flexes. “I’m not him.”

“Then prove it.”

His fists clench and unclench. I can see the storm in his eyes, raging just below the surface. If he had his way, he wouldn’t let me out of here until the baby was born—possibly not even then.

But we had a deal that I wouldn’t be going from one master to another. And Yulian, for all his faults, is still a man of his word.

“Fine,” he grits. “But I want four of my men with you at all times.”

“Two.”

“ Four . And one of them is either Maksim or Nikita.”

“Fine!” I throw my hands up. “Now, can we please go?”

Just then, Eli’s head pops out of his room again. “I’m ready!” he announces.

“Yeah?” I force cheer back into my voice. “Then let’s hit the road.”

Yulian schools his face, too. Seeing that eases the knot of my anger. Whatever happens between us, he won’t let it affect Eli—I know that in my bones.

And that will make him a great father.

What about the other father? my own conscience sneers. What about last night?

I don’t want to think about it. What I did. What I had to do.

But when we finally walk out the door, my guilt walks out the door with me.

“Holy shit,” Nikita whistles when we turn the key into my old Brownsville apartment. “I think you got squatters. Look at all those roaches they let in.”

“The roaches were here before.”

She winces. “Charming. I’m gonna go get the blowtorch.”

As Nikita disappears in the bowels of Roachland—a.k.a. the bathroom—I let myself look around a little. Nostalgia tugs at me. My living room, my kitchen… they’re almost exactly as I left them. Well, except for the increased number of creepy crawlies.

I pick up Eli’s toy truck, brush the dust off. So many memories live here. Five years of our lives, for better or worse.

Brad wanted me to give up the apartment, but I managed to sneak three months’ rent to the landlord. He never bothered to freeze my assets—didn’t think I’d have any. That was a blessing.

While I’m lost in my thoughts, someone else pushes the door open behind me.

Our eyes meet.

Then we throw ourselves into each other’s arms.

“OH EM GEE, YOU’RE ALIVE!” Kallie squeals, practically twirling me in the air.

“That should be my line!” I wrap my arms around her shoulders and inhale the sweet, safe scent of coconut oil. God, how I’ve missed it. “Last time I saw you, you were in a hospital bed!”

“What, like it’s hard to bounce back from a bullet?” She flashes me a cheeky grin. “I wasn’t gonna leave my girl hanging.”

More guilt fills me. Because I did leave her hanging—when she needed me most, no less.

As if reading my thoughts, Kallie slaps my shoulder. “Hey, don’t do that. I know you didn’t have a choice.”

“I could have fought harder,” I whisper. “I could have?—”

“You couldn’t have done shit,” she summarizes gracefully. “He had Eli. If anything, I’m the one who should have done more to save you.”

“No.” I shake my head firmly. “You did the right thing by staying away. If he’d done anything to you, I couldn’t have taken it.”

“How do you think I feel? Knowing that monster had you again, that I couldn’t help you?” She grabs my hands. Her big, brown eyes are shiny with unshed tears. “If you hadn’t called and told me your plan, I would have stormed the fucking place. Reese was already looking into weaponry.”

I shake my head. Laughter bubbles up to my lips despite it all, picturing my two best friends in the world getting armed to the teeth to rescue me. “I know. And I appreciate it more than you know. But I’m okay now.”

“Are you?” Her gaze peers into me, trying to separate truth from bullshit. She was always good at calling me out on my lies. “Okay?”

I force a smile. “Yeah,” I whisper. “But it’s a long story.”

“I’ve got time.”

“I’ve got it!” Nikita announces, coming back into the living room with a blowtorch I didn’t know I owned and a dark pair of sunglasses in lieu of headgear. “Time to caramelize some mudaki —oh, shit, did I interrupt?”

“Uhh, babe…?” Kallie whispers. “Who’s the Russian chick with the blowtorch?”

“That’s, um… a long story, too.”

Kallie blinks. “Oh, well. I’ve still got time.”

Turns out, while Kallie had never seen Nikita, Nikita knew all about her. “Friend’s duty,” she called it. “Had to run a background check on Maks’s new girl. No hard feelings, I hope.”

“Oh, not at all.”

“Love your hair, by the way.”

Since the way to Kallie’s heart is compliments, any chance of hard feelings dies then and there. I bite back a smile and watch as they strike up girl talk, trading haircare recs and gossiping about Maksim. It’s a nice reprieve from my own drama.

Most of all, it lets me avoid the elephant in the room.

Brad.

“Well,” Nikita announces after a while, jumping down from the kitchen counter, “I’m going to go roast some fuckers. Anybody want in?”

We shake our heads in unison.

“Suit yourselves.” She hoists the blowtorch on her shoulder. “More for me.”

As soon as the unmistakable noise of fire and mayhem reaches our ears, Kallie turns to me. “Okay, spit it out.”

“Spit what out?”

“Something’s wrong.” She crosses her arms and fixes me with a no-nonsense glare. “You did something.”

“What?” My voice comes out high-pitched, like a dial-up modem. “No, I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did. You’ve got the same face you had when you mixed up those two patients’ charts and gave an old lady weed tablets by mistake.”

“They were both called Mrs. Flannery!” I throw my hands up. “They were in palliative care! How was I supposed to know one didn’t have cancer?!”

“Well, you gave her the best last trip of her life, I can tell you that.”

Fuck. Kallie knows me too well. It’s useless to try and lie to her—she’ll just call me out and make me feel like shit about it.

“It’s…” I bite my lip.

“Prince Charming Corleone?”

“Okay, first off, he’s Bratva, not mafia. I’ve been assured that those are two very different things.”

“But it’s not him, isn’t it?” She sits back on the counter. “Not just him, at least?”

“It’s…” I sigh. “It’s complicated.”

“Okay,” she says. “Since you clearly don’t want to talk about your sins, let’s talk about his. What’d he do this time?”

“I wouldn’t know where to start.”

“Start at the beginning.”

So I do.

By the time I’m done catching her up, her eyes are just about ready to fall out. “Let me get this straight. You got kidnapped by your baby daddy’s dead enemy?”

“I mean, he looked fine to me.”

“And now, you’re living with him again. The baby daddy, not the dead enemy.”

In the bathroom, Nikita cackles like a mad scientist. I realize in that moment that I’m never getting my security deposit back.

“Like I said,” I exhale. “It’s complicated.”

“So have you fucked him yet?”

I choke. “Wha— no! ”

“Why not?”

“Because!”

“That’s not an answer.”

Because he doesn’t trust me anymore. Because I’m not so sure I trust him. “It’s?—”

“—complicated,” Kallie finishes for me. “Heard you the first time.”

It’s not just that. But I can’t tell Kallie. I can’t tell anyone.

Because what I’ve done is unforgivable.

“Alright, let’s try something simple then,” she says. “Do you still love him?”

Yes. Of course I do. How could I not?

“It doesn’t matter,” I murmur. “I have to focus on my kids now. They come first.”

Kallie’s smile turns sad. “That doesn’t mean you can’t be selfish once in a while.”

Actually, that’s exactly what it means.

But she lets me slide, for the time being at least. After that, the conversation moves to lighter topics. We pack up the place, make sure there are no uninvited guests in the boxes, and give Nikita’s crew of bodyguards the green light to haul it all into a truck.

I take one last look at my apartment. It’s empty now, with none of the organized chaos of my life or Eli’s.

I’ll never be back here. The realization sinks in slowly. Whatever happens with Yulian, I’ll need security after the baby is born. A place with good locks, electronic systems, safety measures.

And if I do end up staying at his penthouse…

No. Don’t think about it. You don’t have the right.

Not after what you did.

With a heavy heart, I touch my empty pocket. For months, I kept my flash drive there, never letting it out of my sight. Now, it’s gone.

Because I destroyed it.