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YULIAN

The little Lozhkin in her belly.

Desya’s words ring endlessly in my ears. Nevertheless, I force myself to go through the motions. Do what’s expected of a leader.

Because we’re at war, and wars aren’t won by losing your head.

“Maks, take Nikita to the hospital,” I order calmly. “Make sure she’s checked out by the best.”

“I don’t need?—”

“Yes, you do. Say one more word, and you’re out of my Bratva.”

Nikita’s lips press into a tight line. Her eyes keep glancing at the door, a flash of poison green. She wants to make Desya pay. She won’t rest until it’s done.

Good. Because neither will I.

Maksim puts one of Nikita’s arms around his shoulder. “C’mon, girl. Let’s get you back into fighting shape so you can punch that mudak ’s lights out, hmm?”

Nikita grunts. It’s as much of an agreement as he’ll get.

“I’ll go with her,” Mia says. “I can keep an eye on her on the way?—”

“No. You’re staying here.”

“But—”

“I said no .” My voice twists into a snarl. “You and I are going to talk.”

Mia blinks. There’s worry in her eyes, red-rimmed and black-circled. But right now, I can’t muster any pity.

She doesn’t argue back. Her fingers are trembling, picking at the dirty hems of her wrist cuffs. Purple peeks out from underneath them, surrounded by the dark yellow halo of older, fading bruises.

I want to kill Brad for this. Want to watch the light go out of his eyes like a dying candle.

But first, I want the truth.

Maksim leaves. Nikita goes with him. My men are bustling outside, following orders from their immediate superiors, scouring the estate grounds.

Mia opens her mouth to speak. “It’s not what it looks like. I?—”

“Then tell me he lied.” I round her up, fists balled at my side. “Tell me you didn’t.”

She doesn’t speak. Heartbreak fills her eyes.

Just like that, I know.

She lied to me. She told me she’d cheated—that she was pregnant by Brad.

But the child was never Brad’s.

It was always mine.

Fury rises through me. The thought of Mia pulling the same shit with me that she pulled with Brad is enough to make me lose my goddamn mind.

“You kept it from me.” I’ve never heard my own voice sound like this. Like it could kill with words alone. “You would have kept it from me forever.”

“Look,” she says, “I can explain?—”

“Damn right you’re going to explain,” I answer. “Because that’s my child in there, and you didn’t fucking tell me!”

Her lips quiver. I get ready for the slew of excuses she must have prepared, each one cheaper than the last.

But that’s not what comes out.

I watch it happen in slow motion. First, her mouth loses shape, trembling, failing. Her cheeks color with shame, brighter than I’ve ever seen them, pink like raw skin. Her eyes fill with tears. A single sob breaks out of her throat.

Then she throws herself into my arms.

For a second, I’m paralyzed. Is this a trick? Another manipulation? Does she think she’ll get out of this so easily?

But then I feel it. Her body shaking, her chest heaving. This is real. Her pain, her regret—it’s all real.

“I’m sorry,” she sobs, words smothered into my shirt. Her nails are clawing at the fabric, holding on, like she’s terrified of what will happen if she doesn’t. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know what to—you weren’t there, and he had a gun to his head, and I just couldn’t?—”

“What the hell are you talking about?” I ask. “Who? What gun?”

“Brad,” she says with a sob. “He—he threatened Eli. With a gun. I didn’t have a choice, I?—”

A gun.

Clarity returns to me.

Then, close at its heels, shame.

Brad held a gun to Eli’s head. Is that what Mia’s been trying to tell me? Is that what I’ve been missing?

Is that what was happening that night?

Suddenly, I’m back in that house. I’m standing in front of Mia, first begging, then furious. Buying every lie she’s feeding me.

And her eyes keep darting past me.

Was Brad there the whole time? Holding his own son at gunpoint, forcing Mia to come up with lies to save his life?

The shame multiplies. My self-righteousness melts away like cheap wax. All I can think about is that night, the way I left things.

The way I left them.

I should have stayed. I should have fucking stayed.

“I’m so sorry, Yulian,” she keeps sobbing, over and over again.

Her body’s shaking, her lungs gasping for breath between one word and the next.

She’s fucking drowning. “He told me you were working together— He, he said— I didn’t want to believe him, but you’d lied to me, and I couldn’t— I didn’t know who to trust?—”

Every incoherent word digs into my chest. Because she’s right, isn’t she? I’d lied to her. I’d put her in danger. Whatever lie that motherfucker told her, it must have sounded plausible. She couldn’t rule it out.

Because I’d already given her reason not to trust me.

“Mia, it’s okay,” I whisper, even though it isn’t, not by a longshot. “You don’t need to keep explaining yourself.”

But she shakes her head, frantic, smearing me with black streaks of tears and makeup. “I thought if I found dirt on him, we’d be free—but then I couldn’t find anything—couldn’t make sense of all those documents, all those names?—”

Her breath grows more erratic.

A panic attack. She’s having a panic attack.

Because of me.

I push away the shame and focus on her. “Mia, look at me.”

“I’m s-so sorry, I didn’t mean it, I?—”

“ Mia .”

Finally, she lifts her gaze. I grab her face with both hands, push our foreheads together.

“Breathe,” I command. “That’s an order.”

And she does.

At first, it’s hard. Like oxygen wants nothing to do with her anymore. But I guide her through the motions, like I did at StarTech, like I did at the hospital.

Slowly, her breathing steadies.

We stay like that for a few minutes, her body tucked against mine. Even after months of separation, it’s like our bodies have never forgotten how to fit together. Like they’re made for it.

“Sorry,” she says again, calmer this time. “I… I don’t know what came over me.”

But I do. She’s been under the pressure of a soldier in the fucking trenches—the pressure of war. For months, she’s been walking on eggshells in a minefield. All while growing a life inside her.

My child’s life.

Shame mixes with possessiveness. Cold, thin ice spreads over the ruins of my heart, fractals reaching to cover every inch of me. My old programming: never feel, never show it if you do. Never let yourself be weak .

And right now, that’s what forgiving Mia would be for me.

Weakness.

My heart hardens back into an iceberg.

I’m not ready to let go yet—to let bygones be bygones. I may have made shitty choices, but so did Mia. She could have come clean. Could have asked me for help that night, or any time after that.

But she didn’t trust me.

So she ran. Hid herself from me—hid my child from me.

And I’ll be damned if I ever let that happen again.

“You’re coming back with me.”

Mia’s gaze darts to mine. “What?”

“Starting today, you’re going to live with me. At my place.”

Her brow knits. “I can’t just disappear, Yulian. I need to find dirt on Brad, I?—”

“No, you don’t,” I interrupt. “You’re done playing spy. That’s my child you’re carrying. And with Desya Bogdanov back from the dead, you’re not letting it out of my sight ever again.”

Her face hardens like I’ve slapped her. “I’m more than a fucking incubator,” she says. “And I won’t trade one master for another. Not again.”

“I don’t care how you think of it. It’s happening.”

“Are you even listening?” She pushes me off, squares her shoulders like she’s rearing for a fight. “I’m not going back into a cage. I need to earn my freedom and Eli’s. And unless Brad’s taken off the board?—”

“That can be arranged.”

Horror fills her face, then fury. “I won’t have him murdered . How—how could you even think that?”

“Then what exactly are you proposing?” I ask. “You go back to him, act like nothing’s happened, and keep collecting bruises? Wait until he decides to give you a homebrewed abortion with his fucking fists? Until he puts a gun to Eli’s head again?”

Her lips press into a tight line. I can tell she’s aware of the risks. She’s no fool; she realizes she might not make it out alive. But she’s determined to do this anyway.

Fuck that.

“You’re coming with me,” I repeat with finality. “You and Eli. You’ll have the baby under my protection. I’m the only one who can keep you safe from Desya and Prizrak. Now that they know it’s my heir you’re carrying, the target is on your back, too.”

“How awfully convenient for you,” she mutters.

“If you think having my family’s murderer coming after my child is convenient for me, then you don’t know me at all.”

Guilt paints her face, but only for a second. “And afterwards?” she presses. “After the baby’s born and Desya’s dead, what happens to me?”

I clench my fists and silence the darkness inside me, the one that’s screaming Mia belongs to me. That she can never be anyone else’s. If there’s a surefire way to lose her, it’s by locking her up again.

Maksim’s words echo in my head. Sometimes, the best thing we can do for the people we love is to let them go.

Fine. So be it.

“After that,” I growl, “you can decide where to go. I’ll provide for all of you.”

Mia blinks. “You’d let me go? Just like that?”

“I’ll expect to be a part of my child’s life,” I say, a note of possessiveness escaping me despite my best efforts to stay cool. “But I won’t make you my prisoner. Whatever you may think of me, I’m not Brad.”

She purses her lips, considering. Calculating. “What makes you think I’ll go for it?”

For once, the answer’s easy. “Because you love your children,” I say. “Even if you don’t love me, I’ll never doubt you love them.”

Mia’s expression twists with hurt. With sadness, so deep and rooted I can’t help looking away. “I did love you, you know,” she whispers.

So did I.

I bury that thought as deep as it’ll go. “I’ll send a car to get Eli,” I say. “Then?—”

“No.”

“‘No’?”

“I’ll do it.” Her gaze hardens, a soldier’s look. “I’ll get my son back. For good, this time.”

There’s no talking her out of this. I can see it on her face, plain as day. This is her fight.

But she’s carrying my child, too, and that makes it ours.

“Fine. But I’m coming with you.”

She doesn’t argue, for once. She just follows me silently out of the ruins of my family home, preparing to get back hers.