Chapter 37
She looks sublime.
Uncomfortable, but sublime.
With Echo next to me in Ilya’s living room, I can’t help but look at her, admiring her beauty. After we had returned home from the store, she had attacked me with a vigor that I hadn’t expected her to have, barely allowing us to make it upstairs. Then she’d napped like a cat that got the cream with the request that I wake her up after a thirty minute nap. When I had woken her up hours later, though she had been feeling better, she had been sour that I had let her sleep so long. She had complained that she wouldn’t have enough time to do her hair.
Which looks just fine to me.
It’s not often that I get to see the fullness of her curly hair and the length that it stops at, but tonight, Echo has her hair out. Curls that look precise and crisp frame her face in an elegance that makes me want to touch them, even with the knowledge that I’m not supposed to. She’s wearing a minimal amount of makeup, and somehow, she seems to be paler than her usual chocolate color that I love so much, making the random array of freckles on her face stand out more. Her lipstick is a neutral brown, which makes her lips more full. Her clothes complement mine by being upscale but casual. She’s wearing a summer dress that’s fitted to her frame, accentuating every curve on her body to emphasize the utter perfection she exudes, as well as zones in on her swollen belly.
When she’d woken up from her nap, the bump had barely been noticeable, but now, after eating, it has become more pronounced to the point where I can’t stop myself from rubbing it.
Next to me, Echo yawns. Her hand moves up to cover her mouth, and I look at her. “Are you okay, Bellissima?”
I ask her.
Slowly, she nods. “Yes, I slept too much. Now, all I want to do is get back into bed.”
I stifle the laugh I want to let out. “I will let you sleep however long you need.”
Echo rolls her eyes, but I see the light behind the action versus any irritation. “That’s fine when we don’t have plans.”
“You are nurturing a life, and if it’s anything like its parents, a demanding one. You need rest.”
To impress my point more, my hand moves to her stomach again, and I rub my hand over it.
The truth is that while I enjoy making a point to her, I enjoy touching her more with the knowledge that she’s carrying our baby. It has taken her a lot of time to even say the words out loud without looking or sounding inconvenienced, and Benicio has told me that I have to prove to her through my actions that I want this baby despite the initial agreement we had.
And I do.
Echo smiles at me. Leaning in, her lips touch mine. “Tease.”
She says a moment later. Her warm breath glides over my lips before she kisses me quickly and returns to her position next to me when we hear nearing footsteps.
“Okay, we’ve got drinks.”
Casually, Ilya and Anya enter the living room, both of them holding drinks in each hand.
Anya hands a drink to Echo that looks identical to the one that she has, and Ilya hands me an old-fashioned. Without hesitation, I drink. One, because I could use the slight stinging comfort of Ilya’s overpriced whiskey, and two, I see Echo hesitantly eyeing the glass that she was given. I’m showing her that I trust Anya and Ilya irrevocably.
She hesitantly takes a sip but doesn’t express if she likes it or not. Instead, she clasps her cup between both hands and looks around the living room. A silence stretches among all of us, and I know it’s literally because of Echo, but don’t mention it. It’s not an awkward silence or one where we have nothing to say. We’re aware that she’s not accustomed to domesticity, and this is a level of things that she won’t become accustomed to any time soon.
My wife is adept at playing parts, but playing the dutiful, meek wife and loving mother expected of affiliated women isn’t one of them.
But she will come around to this group. Not because she’s my wife and she has no choice but because she will see that in our lives, people more genuine than the ones in front of us won’t come around again.
A throat clears, and all eyes fall on Anya. For a moment, the formidable woman looks like a lost, dejected child but smiles briefly. “So, um, Echo, how far along are you?”
“Far alon–”
Echo stops her question. She looks at me, confused for a moment. “I’ll be fourteen weeks tomorrow.”
Anya smiles at that. “Oh, you’re just starting your second trimester?”
“Yes.”
I sip from my drink, exchanging a look with Ilya, who is smirking. He’s fully aware that Echo isn’t being rude, but seeing that he finds this situation funny is annoying. Echo is my wife, and even in a situation like this, I will protect her without regard to anyone else.
Anya smiles. “How have you been feeling?”
The motherly aura that emanates from Anya feels comforting and smothering at the same time. I know all too well that she has always claimed that she can see auras, and the fact that she's still trying to carry a conversation with Echo, conscious of the fact that my wife isn’t being receptive, is proof of that.
I’ve seen Anya not even speak a word to people because she claimed that they stole her energy.
I attempt something I know can go either way with Echo. I sip from my drink. “She was sick at the beginning. Benicio said it was morning sickness, but was actually all day long.”
Echo’s eyes cut to me, and I see that she knows what I’m doing but doesn’t look annoyed. She looks back at Anya. “I was. My morning sickness was all day.”
She seems to debate her following words. “Vlad told me about the chicken broth and crackers that you used.”
At the mention of Vlad or her chicken broth, Anya lights up. Her crystal blue eyes shine happily. “I knew that he asked for you.”
She exclaims. “I was like, there is no way that Vlad has– You know?”
We all chuckle or laugh at the last part. Vlad is a great bodyguard and almost feels like an impenetrable force, but I can’t see him conversing enough to get a woman to fuck him.
But there have been other things I haven’t seen.
“Yes, that was for me.”
She seems to relax a little and sips from her drink, but her grip doesn’t loosen up. “I haven’t gotten much relief just yet, but the broth definitely helps out a lot.”
That makes Anya happy again. “That’s good to know. My first pregnancy was easy. If I hadn’t known any better, I wouldn’t have thought that I was pregnant, and it was probably why I agreed to have another so quickly. With my second pregnancy, it was so difficult.”
I vaguely recall Ilya mentioning how sick Anya was with Dmitry but didn’t pay too much attention at that time. In my mind, I had figured that it was only a problem that Ilya would be familiar with.
Until I found myself facing something similar.
I had never imagined that I would get married after I had mentioned my intent to marry Keyshia years ago and my forced nuptials to Amelia, but the instant that I saw Echo in my bar, I knew that I would have her. As soon as she had walked past me in the hallways and our eyes had met, I had known that she was for me.
Premeditated actions behind it on her behalf didn’t matter anymore.
One way or another, God would have graced me with her presence.
She was mine.
She is mine.
“Damiano.”
My eyes lift to Ilya, who is standing now. “Si?”
He chuckles. “Let's get another drink.”
Without saying anything, I stand. When Echo looks at me, I lean in and kiss her forehead. “Don’t kill anyone while I’m gone,”
I say, so only she hears me.
That seems to get her to relax a little, and she winks up at me. I follow behind Ilya to his bar with a quick nod at Anya. I know we didn’t necessarily need new drinks, but Ilya wanted Anya and Echo to get acquainted better without us in the room with them. Growing up in this lifestyle, making friends has never been easy, and we barely come across people that we can consider friends who don’t eventually cross us or wind up dead.
To be a wife that is indoctrinated into this proposes another set of difficulties. In the last decade or so, men have become more lenient about which wife they choose, mainly because a good portion of the women have started to marry men who can protect them within the ranks. Marrying into another family isn’t too common unless an alliance is trying to be solidified, but we’ve all learned that alliances don’t always mean peace.
Even when marrying women that are supposed to know their place.
“I like her.”
Ilya disturbs my thoughts. “Your Echo.”
I look up at him, walking towards the bar he has. I place my drink on the bar, and he starts to make it for me. “That’s a compliment coming from you.”
I receive a chuckle as a response. “It is.”
The same glass slides in front of me, and I pick it up. Ilya makes his way around the bar to sit next to me. “I didn’t understand the allure at first, but I see it now.”
Allure?
I resist the urge to roll my eyes at his words. “There’s an allure?”
Ilya nods. “Of course.”
To be dramatic, he sips his drink. “She is what you need.”
I stop myself from drinking, though my glass is inches from my mouth. “Is she now?”
Ilya shrugs, not seeming as nonchalant as he is trying to pretend. “Maybe not then. Perhaps I was wrong.”
I chuckle, more to myself than at the conversation that is going to become old quickly. “Elaborate.”
“She’s your opposite. Инь и Янь.”
I look at Ilya in question to his last words that were spoken in Russian. The words sound vaguely familiar. I want to make sure that I understand him clearly. “Yin and Yang.”
“Ah.”
I manage. “I see Anya has been talking about us.”
He laughs. “Anya talks.”
Ilya’s dismissive and nonchalant air about how his wife's observations about everybody is endearing in its own way. He’s never been possessive, but he gets what he wants no matter the price. “She worries too much.”
I know that firsthand. “She’s a nurturer.”
He seems to appreciate my explanation of his wife’s semi-intrusive nature. “To a fault.”
His eyes leave mine, and he looks behind me. “Now, your wife, she’s not a natural nurturer. She may grow into the role.”
He nods in the direction that he’s looking, and I turn in time to see Anya thrusting Dmitry into Echo’s hesitant hands.
I smile lightly at her awkwardness holding a baby. You wouldn’t be able to tell that she reads to the baby every night and carries one-sided conversations from the way that she’s holding the hefty baby at arm's length.
“She’ll come to like it. She’s got about six months.”
I respond.
Anya rushes past me to the sink that is behind the bar, grabbing a dish towel, she runs it under the water and wipes at something white that stands out on her red blouse. She exchanges a few words with Ilya in Russian, then looks at me smiling. “The one time that I dress nice, he has to throw up all over me.”
We all laugh, then look back at Echo as if we all are thinking the same thing. “She’s a natural.”
Anya jokes.
“She’s a fighter. As long as she’s holding a grudge, she will always fight against anything that can weaken her.”
Anya and I make eye contact at Ilya’s words, then Anya laughs again. “Are you reading people now?”
I roll my eyes when Ilya quickly grabs Anya, and she squeals before he kisses her roughly. It takes only a milli-second before I stand, giving them a moment that I’m sure they haven’t had since the baby was born.
I give them six months before Anya is pregnant again.
Casually, I return to where Echo is sitting. In the last few minutes, she has managed to relax her hold on Dmitry, and now he’s leaning back on her legs while she cradles his head and rocks him from side to side gently. She looks up at me expectantly, a broad smile on her face that doesn’t hide her giddiness but makes her glow stand out more in that alluring way that Ilya mentioned.
“Can you imagine doing this every day?”
She looks back down at Dmitry with her head cocked to the side. Her eyes take on a forlorn, lost look, and for a second, I believe I ruined her night until she smiles again. Her thumb strokes the back of Dmitry's head, and he stares up at her with the brightest cerulean blue eyes I’ve ever seen. There isn’t the same happiness behind it, but she doesn’t let it fall. “I want to imagine it. Our baby won’t be as chunky, but definitely cuter.”
I guffaw. “Cuter, huh?”
She nods, cooing words to Dmitry, who smiles up at her. “With our great looks, bone structure, and charisma, definitely.”
I move and angle my body to be closer to hers, but where I can still look down at Dmitry. “You sound biased.”
She doesn’t skip a beat. “Unequivocally.”