Chapter 44
Mary
“Absolutely not.” Jasper stands in my bedroom doorway, hands on his hips, looking at me like I’m a particularly disappointing art installation.
“You need to get out of this bed,” he says.
“I’m fine here.”
“You’re marinating in sadness and his pillow. That’s not fine. That’s a cry for help wrapped in Egyptian cotton.”
I clutch said pillow tighter. “I’m grieving.”
“You’re spiraling.” He walks over, yanks the curtains open. Sunlight floods in. I hiss like a vampire. “And you smell like despair and morning sickness. When did you last shower?”
“Yesterday.”
“Try again.”
“The day before yesterday.”
“Mary Cathrine Sullivan.” He uses my full name. Never good. “Get your ass in the shower. We’re going outside.”
“I can’t—”
“You can. You will. I’ll pick your outfit. Something that doesn’t scream ‘my boyfriend left me and I’m dying inside.’” He opens my closet, starts rifling through. “Although, to be fair, that’s most of your wardrobe these days.”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” I mutter.
Jasper turns, one eyebrow raised. “Excuse me?”
“He’s… I don’t know what he is.”
“He’s the father of your baby. He’s the man you’re in love with. He’s the reason you haven’t eaten solid food in two days.” Jasper pulls out a soft gray dress. “He’s your person. Even if you’re too stubborn to use labels.”
My throat tightens. “What if he doesn’t come back?”
“Then we’ll deal with it. Together. But right now, he’s alive, and you’re alive, and this baby needs you to stop living like a gothic heroine waiting to die of consumption.” He tosses the dress at me. “Shower. Now. I’ll make you toast.”
“I’ll just throw it up.”
“Then you’ll throw it up in the park like a normal person instead of in this depression den.”
Thirty minutes later, I’m clean, dressed, and standing in the elevator with Jasper while he critiques my hair.
“When did you last brush this?”
“This morning.”
“With what? A rake?”
I glare at him. He grins back, unrepentant.
The elevator doors open. Dima’s in the lobby. Of course he is. He’s always somewhere, watching.
“We’re going for a walk,” Jasper announces.
Dima looks at me. Then at Jasper. “Where?”
“The park. Fresh air. Vitamin D. Revolutionary concepts, I know.”
“I’ll come.”
“You will not.” Jasper steps between us. “She needs normal human interaction. Not a bodyguard hovering three feet away.”
“She needs protection.”
“She needs to breathe without seven layers of security suffocating her.” Jasper crosses his arms. “We’ll be in public. Daylight. Lots of witnesses. Even a psychotic Russian mobster wouldn’t try something in front of a farmer’s market.”
Dima’s jaw tightens. “Lev and I will follow. At a distance.”
“How far a distance?”
“Far enough that you won’t notice.”
“I’m going to notice. You’re six-foot-five and built like a refrigerator.”
Dima almost smiles. Almost. “Then pretend you don’t.”
Jasper sighs. “Fine. But if you scare any children, I’m reporting you to… I don’t know, whoever manages mobsters.”
We leave before Dima can respond.
The park is fifteen minutes away. Trees, grass, that weird urban peace that comes from being surrounded by nature in the middle of a city.
I breathe. Actually breathe. For the first time in two days.
“Better?” Jasper asks.
“A little.”
“Good. Now talk to me about something that isn’t Anton.”
“I don’t know what else to talk about.”
“Literally anything. The weather. Your favorite color. That weird mole on your shoulder blade.”
“I don’t have a mole—”
“You do. It’s shaped like a comma. Very grammatical.”
A sound escapes me. Half-snort, half-laugh. Entirely undignified.
Jasper grins. “There she is.”
I shake my head, focusing on putting one foot in front of the other. Left. Right. Left. Right. Simple. Manageable. Not thinking about Anton or Moscow or the twelve days stretching ahead like an endless highway.
Just walking.
We walk in silence for a bit. Then I see them.
Kids. Everywhere. Running, screaming, laughing. A toddler faceplants in the grass, gets up, keeps running like nothing happened.
Jasper makes a noise. Somewhere between disgust and resignation.
“What?” I ask.
“Children. They’re so… sticky.”
“They’re cute.”
“They’re biological nightmares wrapped in primary colors.” He watches a little girl chase a butterfly. “Okay, fine. That one’s moderately adorable. But only because she’s not screaming.”
A woman pushing a stroller walks past. She’s maybe thirty, hair in a messy bun, wearing yoga pants and a shirt with spit-up on the shoulder. She looks exhausted. Happy. Real.
“Excuse me,” she says, stopping near us. “Do you know if there’s a bathroom nearby?”
“Um.” I blink. “I think there’s one by the pavilion?”
“Thank you.” She smiles. Glances at my stomach. “How far along?”
My hand moves there automatically. “Ten weeks.”
“Oh, still early! Congratulations.” Her baby starts fussing. She rocks the stroller absently. “First one?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s terrifying and amazing. You’ll be great.” She waves and keeps walking.
I stand there. Frozen.
Jasper nudges me. “You okay?”
“She just… assumed I’d be great.”
“Because you will be.”
“She doesn’t even know me.”
“She knows you’re standing in a park on a beautiful day, even though you probably feel like death. That’s pretty great already.”
Tears prick my eyes. I hate hormones.
We keep walking. Pass a playground. A dad is pushing his daughter on a swing. She’s laughing so hard she can barely breathe. He’s grinning like she’s the best thing he’s ever made.
I stop walking.
“Mary?”
“That’s going to be Anton.” My voice breaks. “He’s going to push our baby on a swing and make them laugh like that.”
“Yes. He is.”
“What if he doesn’t come back?”
Jasper turns me to face him. “Then you’ll push the swing yourself. And the baby will laugh anyway. Because kids don’t care if life is perfect. They just care if they’re loved.”
The tears spill over. I can’t stop them.
“But I want him here,” I whisper. “I want him to see this. I want him to be the dad pushing the swing.”
“I know.” Jasper pulls me into a hug. Right there in the middle of the park. “I know, buttercup.”
I cry into his shoulder. He doesn’t tell me to stop. Just holds me until I’m done.
When I finally pull back, I’m a mess. Mascara everywhere. Nose running. Attractive.
“You know what your problem is?” Jasper hands me a tissue from nowhere. How does he always have tissues?
“That my boyfriend is in Russia trying not to die?”
“Besides that.” He waits until I blow my nose. “You’ve made him your whole world. And I get it; he’s hot, he’s dangerous, he knocked you up, very romantic. But you’re losing yourself.”
“I’m not—”
“When’s the last time you did something just for you? Not for him. Not for the baby. Just you.”
I open my mouth. Close it.
“Exactly.” Jasper starts walking again. I follow. “You used to bake. Like, constantly. Your apartment always smelled like butter and vanilla. You had seventeen different types of flour.”
“Sixteen.”
“My point stands. You loved it. And then you met Anton, and everything became about survival. About staying alive. About loving him.” He stops, turns to me. “But you’re still here, Mary. You’re still you. And you need to remember what made you happy before all this.”
“Baking made me happy.”
“So bake.”
“I don’t have the energy—”
“Then find it. Because you need something that’s yours. Not his. Not the baby’s. Yours.” His voice softens. “For your own sanity. For your grandma, who’s going to want to visit and see you thriving. For the baby who’s going to need a mom who knows who she is.”
I swallow hard. “I don’t know if I can.”
“You can. You’re literally growing a human while your mafia boyfriend fights his way through Moscow. You’re stronger than you think.”
“I don’t feel strong.”
“No one ever does. That’s the whole point of strength—it doesn’t announce itself.”
We sit on a bench. Watch the world move around us. Kids playing. Parents chasing. Dogs barking. Life happening.
“I miss him so much,” I whisper.
Jasper takes my hand. “I know.”
“It’s only been two days.”
“I know.”
“How am I supposed to do twelve more?”
“One day at a time. One hour if you have to. One minute if it comes to that.”
I lean my head on his shoulder. “Thank you for dragging me out here.”
“Anytime. Although next time, maybe shower before I arrive?”
I elbow him. He laughs.
Then I see them.
Dima and Lev. Walking toward us through the park like they’re in a spy movie. Long coats. Serious expressions. Moving in perfect sync.
Everyone stares. A mom clutches her stroller. A jogger literally stops jogging.
They stop in front of our bench.
“It’s time for lunch,” Dima says.
Just like that. No preamble. No “sorry to interrupt.” Just a statement of fact.
Jasper’s mouth falls open. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“You’ve been gone ninety minutes,” Lev adds. “Dr. Vera said she needs to eat every three hours.”
“I’m not a hamster.”
“Hamsters eat constantly.” Lev grins. “You’re eating once a day. If that.”
Jasper stands, hands on hips. “Do you two just… follow us everywhere?”
“Yes,” Dima says.
“That’s deeply unsettling.”
“That’s the job.”
“I’m starting to understand why Mary’s losing her mind.”
I stand too. Slowly. Because moving fast still makes me dizzy. “You guys didn’t have to come all the way here.”
“Yes,” Lev says. “We did.”
And the way he says it—simple, final, no room for argument—makes something in my chest crack.
Because they’re here. Even when Anton can’t be. They’re here.
“Fine.” I sigh. “Let’s go eat.”
Jasper loops his arm through mine. “For the record, this is the most dramatic lunch invitation I’ve ever received.”
“Welcome to my life.”
“Your life is insane.”
“Tell me about it.”
As we walk back toward the car, Dima and Lev flanking us like Secret Service, Jasper leans close.
“You know what you should bake first?”
“What?”
“Those cinnamon rolls. The ones you made me last year for my birthday.” He grins. “I’ve been dreaming about them ever since.”
And despite everything—despite the ache in my chest and the fear crawling up my throat and the two massive Russians treating lunch like a tactical operation—I smile.
“Okay,” I say. “I’ll make cinnamon rolls.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow. Maybe.”
“I’ll hold you to that.”
“I know you will.”
Because that’s what Jasper does. He holds me accountable. He pulls me out of bed. He reminds me who I am when I forget.
And right now, I need that more than anything.