12. Svetlana
Chapter 12
Svetlana
I clutch Samantha to my chest, kissing her cheek and whispering in her ear that she’s safe and that I love her. I tell her again that Vitya will find us and get us out of here, and my voice cracks when I say his name. I can’t imagine how scared he must be right now. When I’d woken up last night to give Samantha her bottle, I’d planned on feeding her on the couch so he wouldn’t wake up. I didn’t realize we weren’t alone until the gun was pressing to the back of my head and a stranger’s voice was telling me to not make a sound. He’d told me if I screamed that he would kill Vitya and Samantha. He said he’d let me live, and in that moment I couldn’t imagine anything worse than that. I’d been frozen with terror, holding Samantha as he removed the gun from my head and aimed it at her instead. I knew in that moment that I would agree to anything if it meant keeping the two of them safe.
I kiss her soft cheek again, remembering how I’d convinced him to let me pack her diaper bag and grab extra formula. While I was packing, I’d looked out the front window, my heart sinking when I saw the white truck parked out front, knowing that Vitya had been right about being followed. I’d scribbled a note for him as I grabbed the formula, but I was in such a hurry that I don’t even know if it was legible or if he’s even found it. I have to believe that he has. I have to believe that he and my family are looking for us. I’m not sure how they’re going to find us, but I have to believe that they will.
I look around at the rundown motel room we’re in. It’s in a small town I’ve never heard of or been to, and judging by the threadbare carpet and outdated everything, I’m guessing this motel has been here since the town’s beginning. The man pacing in front of me, the man who said his name is Shane and that he’s Erin’s dad, is trying his best to wear a path across the room. Every time I call her Samantha, he looks like he wants to hit me, but so far he hasn’t hurt either one of us. He can’t be much older than me, but his life choices have aged him, giving him a haggard appearance. The acne scars, greasy hair, and beer gut aren’t helping.
“You need to let us go,” I say, trying to reason with him.
“And you need to shut the fuck up,” he says, giving me his usual response.
“This isn’t going to end well for you, Shane. My family is going to come for you. You know they will.”
Shane runs a hand through his greasy hair and shakes his head. “I warned Wes to not get involved with your family’s fucking Bratva. He thought he could get a good deal from Radomir and then sell the pills off and make a profit. Fucking idiot.”
“Is that what all this is about? Drugs?” I hold Samantha tighter and adjust her pacifier when she starts to get fussy. She’s been doing an amazing job of holding it together, but she misses her old routine, and she seems to like her birth father about as much as I do.
Shane stops pacing and turns to face me. He looks at the way I’m comforting his daughter, but when he looks at her, there’s nothing in his eyes, no fatherly love, no affection, nothing. It’s like he doesn’t even see her.
“No,” he tells me. “This is about money, a lot of fucking money.”
“I don’t understand. What do you need us for? Are you holding us for ransom?”
Shane lets out a harsh laugh. “You must think I’m a fucking idiot,” he mutters, and even though I know how much trouble my ass is in right now, I can’t bring myself to kiss his and tell him I think he’s a criminal mastermind. He’s right. I do think he’s a fucking idiot.
“I’m selling her,” he says, pointing a finger at Samantha, “and then I’m getting rid of you and getting my ass as far away as I can.”
My grip tightens on the sweet baby in my arms. “You’re what? You can’t sell her, you bastard.”
“She’s my daughter. I can do whatever the hell I want with her.”
I nearly vomit at the thought of who might be buying a baby and what they plan on doing to her. He sees my disgust and waves my fears away like I’m overreacting.
“Relax,” he tells me. “They can’t have kids and they want a baby.”
“Then why don’t they adopt?”
He sighs, evidently annoyed at having to answer my questions. “The man has a police record.”
“For what?”
Shane looks over at me. “Why the fuck does it matter?”
“Don’t you even care about the kind of people you’re handing your baby over to?”
He shrugs and sits in the chair by the window. The ugly, floral curtains are closed, but they’re thin enough for me to see the occasional semi-truck drive by on the highway we’re facing.
“She’ll be fine. He sells drugs, but he was put away for murder. It was work related, though, not personal, and he did his time, even got out early on good behavior.”
“So he’s a murderer and a drug dealer? That’s who you’re selling Samantha to?”
His eyes narrow and the gun he’s still holding is pointed at me when he says, “Her name is Erin, and you’re one to talk. You were raised by criminals, drug dealers and murderers, and look how amazing you turned out.”
“Fuck you,” I tell him, covering Samantha’s ears as I say it, knowing my family is nothing like the assholes he’s doing business with. I kiss her head and gently rock her in my arms. There’s no way in hell I’m letting her go. I’m not sure how I’m going to stop it or what I’m going to do, but she’s staying with me.
Shane laughs and reaches for the bag of food he’d brought, digging around until he finds a candy bar. He eats it while going back to ignoring me. I put my focus on Samantha, trying to remain as normal as possible with her so she doesn’t get upset. I play peek-a-boo with her, smiling when she gives a deep belly laugh, and then I talk to her in Russian so Shane can’t understand me. I tell her how much Vitya and I love her and how my entire family is searching for us. It’s as much for her benefit as it is mine. I can’t afford to fall apart yet. She needs me, and I need to keep it together for her.
When she starts to get fussy, I give her a bottle and then change her diaper. She falls asleep soon after, and I curl up on the bed next to her, wrapping my body around hers while she sleeps. I don’t remember falling asleep, but the next thing I know I’m jerking my eyes open, disoriented and terrified. The room is dark, the only light coming from a small lamp in the corner, and my heart doesn’t stop racing until I look down and see Samantha still cuddled up next to me. Her small chest rises and falls with her breaths, and when I’m convinced she’s okay, I let out the breath I’ve been holding.
I keep my hand lightly on her chest as I look around the small room. I can’t see Shane, but when I glance behind me, there’s a light coming from under the bathroom door. Without giving myself a chance to debate the pros and cons, I very carefully lift Samantha up, cradling her to my chest as I inch off the bed. My shoes are still on, but I don’t waste time getting my jacket. I do stop and grab the pink fuzzy baby blanket that’s still lying on the bed, though. Tucking it around her, I hurry to the door and quickly undo the chain, cringing when my shaky fingers make the chain rattle softly against the door. Refusing to turn around and see if the bathroom door is still shut, I let go of the chain and turn the deadbolt before flinging the door open and running outside.
“It’s okay,” I whisper to Samantha when she starts to fuss about being jostled around. Scanning the nearly empty parking lot, I eye the area we’re in. I can’t see anything beyond the highway in front of us. It’s a remote location and nothing is within walking distance. Knowing we’re running out of time, I turn and head for the motel’s main office, figuring I can convince whoever’s on duty to lock the doors while I call Vitya. If I can just get in touch with him, then everything will be fine. I know he and my family will take care of the rest.
We’re almost to the door, so close I can see the bored teenager behind the counter with his head buried in his phone, when I feel someone fist my hair right before a hand is clamped over my mouth.
“Stupid fucking bitch,” Shane growls in my ear, dragging me backward, giving me no choice but to walk with him or risk falling and hurting Samantha. He manages to get us both back in the room without anyone spotting us, and then he slams the door shut, scaring Samantha and making her scream. Pissed at me and now annoyed that there’s a baby crying, he rears back and smacks me across the face hard enough to have me spinning around. I clutch Samantha against my chest, protecting her as I hit the wall and then slide down onto my ass.
We’re both crying by the time I hit the ground. Shane squats in front of me. He’s tired and mad and scared. It’s not a good combination for a man who has no experience handling high-stress situations. He’s in over his head. We both know it.
“My family will pay you whatever you want if you let us go.”
“No,” he corrects. “Your family will kill me the second they see me. I’d rather have less money and a chance at a future.”
“They will find you and kill you,” I tell him. “It won’t matter where you go. You’ll never be able to run from them.” I try to keep my voice calm and believable when I say, “I can help. I can convince them to not kill you. They’ll listen to me.”
He thinks about it for a second and then shakes his head. “I don’t think so. I was watching you at the grocery store. I saw the way he looked at you. He’ll never let me live after taking his woman.”
“But you haven’t hurt me,” I quickly say. “One smack across the face, that’s it. I’ll tell them it was my fault, that I mouthed off. Trust me when I say they’ll believe it. They know how frustrating I can be.” I lie my ass off, trying to convince him that my family won’t hurt him, that they won’t be out for blood because he dared to lay his hands on me, but for once in his life, Shane is actually using his brain. He knows my family will kill him. He was dead the second he put his gun to my head. He still thinks he has a shot at running, though. He’s very wrong about that.
Samantha starts screaming again, and when he looks down at her, I shield her from his view as best I can and place a protective hand over her head.
“She’s just scared,” I quickly say. “Don’t hurt her. I can get her to quiet down if you step back and give me some space.”
I breathe a sigh of relief when he stands back up and grabs the chair he’d been sitting in. He drops it down in front of the door and sits in it, so he’s facing me, making it painfully obvious that there’s no way in hell I can escape without first going through him. I ignore him and stand with Samantha, kissing her head as I gently walk with her, pacing the carpet like Shane had done earlier. After a few minutes she settles down enough to take her bottle.
She’s sweaty from crying, and I know she’d sleep better if I could give her a bath, but I don’t have any of her things. I could use a shower myself, but I’m not about to let her out of my sight to do it. He already laughs every time I take her with me to use the bathroom. If I’m not letting her out of my sight for the couple of minutes it takes me to pee, then I’m sure as hell not trusting him to watch her while I jump in the shower.
Since it’s still the middle of the night, I climb back in bed with her. I curl my body around hers again and stack a couple of pillows on her other side just to be safe. Resting my head on my arm, I keep my hand on her belly while she plays with my fingers and sucks on her pacifier. I can see her clearly enough in the dim light, and I’m once again overcome with love for her. I swear I couldn’t love her any more if she were my own biological child. She’s mine. In every way that matters, she’s mine, just like Vitya is. We’ve become a family, and I’ll do anything to protect my family.
Knowing I’m going to need my strength, I eventually drift off to sleep when the sun starts to rise and the light outside the curtains grows brighter. I’m not sure how long I sleep, but when Samantha’s wiggling body wakes me up, the sun is bright enough to light up the whole room and Shane is standing by the window, peeking out from the side of the curtain.
Hearing me sit up, he glances over his shoulder and says, “We’re meeting them tonight.”
“There’s still time to stop this,” I try to tell him, but he just tells me to shut up and then goes back to staring out the window.
Tears cloud my eyes as I change Samantha’s diaper and get her bottle ready. Her sleep schedule is completely screwed up, and when I think about how hard Vitya and I had worked at getting her into a nice routine, the tears start to fall. I always thought I wanted an exciting nightlife, to go and hang out at clubs and do all the things that other young women get to do, but I’m not wishing for any of that now. All I want is the quiet life that I had a couple of days ago. Sitting in Vitya’s lap while we watch Samantha kick at her piano, laughing at how excited she gets, the times he’d pull me aside just so he could kiss me and leave me breathless, falling asleep and waking up in his arms, those are the things I miss and would give anything to have back.
I try to stay positive as I go through the motions of diaper changes and bottle feedings, but my heart sinks as the clock ticks down. I can’t let her go. I can’t let Shane give her to another couple. I’ll never be able to find her once she’s gone. They could take her anywhere. She’s too young to track easily, and surely they’re going to have fake documents made. They’ll all have new identities, and we’ll have no way of knowing what they are or how to find them.
My lungs feel tight and too small, and no matter how hard I try to fake it, Samantha can sense something is wrong. She’s unusually fussy, and by the time Shane says it’s time to get ready, I can tell he’s more than a little annoyed at having been stuck in the small motel room with her all day.
“Don’t you even feel a little bit guilty?” I ask him, unable to comprehend how anyone can be so callous .
He glances at Samantha, but there’s no emotion on his face other than irritation. “No. I never wanted her. I told Dana to get an abortion, but she wouldn’t listen to me. At first I thought she wanted to keep her and raise her on her own, but then she started talking about how people will pay a lot of money for a healthy baby.”
I can’t hide my disgust when I say, “Her own mother wanted to sell her?”
Shane shrugs while throwing the rest of his food into a plastic bag. He’d never offered to share any, and I hadn’t asked. The mere thought of food makes me feel queasy.
“Dana was practical. She knew we needed the money more than we needed a baby.”
“What happened to her?”
“Drug overdose. I had to leave for a couple of days. Alan was supposed to be watching them.”
“You know Samantha almost died, right? Vitya found her in a closet next to her dead mother. She was barely alive. You’re a shit dad, and you never deserved her.”
He doesn’t seem even slightly offended by my comments. “It’s not like Dana and I were in love. She was a girl I fucked, and then she was a girl who gave me a great idea. Alan was supposed to watch them, but even if those fuckers hadn’t come in and killed them all, I was due home that night. I got there a little after that killer you’re so in love with showed up. I knew something was wrong, so I parked down the street and watched. Some psycho with a mask came out and drove off, and then I watched as another man left, this one obviously hiding something in his jacket. I knew he had my daughter, so I followed him.”
“You were watching the whole time?”
“I couldn’t get into the apartment building, but then you all left, making it easy for me. I followed you to the grocery store and then stuck a tracker on your SUV. After that all I had to do was wait for the right time.”
He gives a soft laugh and adds, “I didn’t think it was going to happen. That man keeps a very close watch on you, but then I found the open window above the trellis.”
I bite back the angry yell I want to give at the mention of the trellis. I swear I’m tearing that thing down the first chance I get. I can’t believe my means of escape with Natalya has been used against me like this. The thought sickens me, but Shane keeps talking, completely oblivious or more likely completely uncaring about the knife he’s twisting in my chest.
“I was hiding upstairs while he fucked you against the wall like a goddamn animal, and then I waited while you ate supper and played family with my daughter.” He looks over at me, disgust written all over his face. “And then you came out to give her a bottle, giving me the perfect chance to grab you both. I only needed her, but this worked out better. I didn’t want to deal with a screaming baby.”
The thought of this man hiding in the house, listening to a moment that was beautiful and intimate and just for Vitya and me, makes me feel sick. I can’t help but be grateful that I decided to stay in the living room that night, though. If he had managed to sneak into our room while we slept and to steal Samantha from her crib, I’m not sure Vitya and I would’ve survived it, and if it had been Vitya in the kitchen that night and Shane had panicked and shot him in the back of his head while he was feeding her, I know I wouldn’t have survived it. If anyone had to be taken, I’m glad it was me. Looking down at Samantha, all I can feel is relief that she’s not here alone, that I’m at least able to take care of her and comfort her.
“Let’s go.” Shane grabs my arm, and I quickly grab the diaper bag and blanket before he yanks me out the door.
When we step out, I’m hit in the face by a cold wind that has me bundling the blanket around Samantha to try and protect her from it. With her body pressed tightly against mine, I shield her from the wind as best I can while Shane pulls me to his truck. The parking lot in front of the motel is as dead as it was last night when I’d tried to make a run for it. What few guests are here are already in their rooms and asleep for the night. I highly doubt any of them could help me anyway. They’d just get shot for trying, and this situation is bad enough without innocent blood on my hands.
“You don’t have to do this,” I say, pleading with him again once we’re in the truck and turning onto the highway. “Just let us go, and I swear you’ll get however much money you want.”
“Shut the fuck up, Svetlana. Your part in this is almost done anyway. Be nice and I might let you go.”
Samantha’s car seat is buckled in between us, and I keep my hand on her chest while my mind races to come up with a solution that will get us out of here.
“If you let us go, my family won’t come after you.” He ignores me, but I keep talking anyway. “If you do this, Shane, they will kill you. I can promise you that. They will hunt you down and they will kill you in ways you can’t even imagine, but if you let us go, I can convince them to let you live.”
He grips the steering wheel harder, and I can tell my words are getting to him, that he’s at least thinking about turning this whole thing around, but then he smacks the wheel and shakes his head. “No,” he says, and I can hear the determination in his voice. “This is my best chance. I made a deal, and they’ll come after me if I don’t deliver Samantha. If I let you go afterwards, then your family will have no reason to kill me.”
“They will. You kidnapped me, and they’ll kill you for selling Samantha.”
“She’s not your daughter,” he screams at me, upsetting Samantha, and when I see her bottom lip tremble, I quickly lean over and kiss her forehead while giving her the pacifier she loves so much.
I meet her big brown eyes and smile down at her while I say, “Yes, she is. She became my daughter the second I held her in my arms.”
“You might want to learn to forget about her because she’s about to belong to someone else.”
His harsh words are like a slap to the face. Tears come to my eyes as Samantha plays with my fingers and smiles around her pacifier. I can’t look away from her. She’s looking up at me with absolute trust, but the truth is that I don’t know what in the hell I’m doing. I have no idea how to get us out of this mess.
When Shane turns onto a dark alley, my breath catches in my throat, and my hand feels sweaty against Samantha’s pink sleeper. I’d put her in Vitya’s favorite, the one with little white bunnies all over it. Tears prick my eyes at the thought of him. As much as I’ve grumbled about having a bodyguard over the years, I could sure as hell use one right now.
“They’re here,” Shane says, looking ahead at the black car that’s parked in the shadows. He flicks his lights at them, and they respond with a quick flick of theirs. When he reaches for the seat belt that’s keeping Samantha’s car seat in place, I grip the handle, determined to not let her out of my sight.
“Let go,” he hisses at me.
“No.” That one word is meant to sound strong, but it comes out as more of a whimper, one last plea for him to not rip my heart from my chest. “Please,” I beg, not giving a shit about my pride. I’ll gladly beg for this lowlife if it means I get to keep Samantha.
He pulls his gun and points it at me. “I will shoot you if I have to. Let her go.”
I face him, scared to death and shaking so badly I can barely catch a breath, but I don’t let go. He’s going to have to kill me if he wants to take her from me. Stalling for time, I say, “Let me carry her out to them at least. They need to know her routine, how many bottles she takes, what formula they should use.”
I could go on and on, but he’s too annoyed to listen to me, so he just cuts me off by saying, “Fine, but I swear I’ll shoot you if you try anything.”
I nod, willing to agree to anything if it keeps her in my arms. He waits for me to get out, not trusting me to stay in the truck without him, and then he quickly joins me before I can make a run for it. I glance around at the dark alley, trying desperately to find a way out, but there’s nothing but a brick wall. My fingers are gripping the car seat handle so tightly they ache, and I’m sobbing by the time we reach the black car. No one’s gotten out yet, and I can’t see anything because they’ve turned their headlights back on. Shane shields his eyes and hollers at them to get out.
The car door opens, and a man steps out, but I can’t see anything beyond a dark shape. I don’t recognize the man when he steps closer, blocking the light and giving me my first look at him. My heart sinks. I hadn’t realized how much I’d been hoping for a last-minute miracle, but seeing the man who’s about to buy the baby I’ve come to think of as mine is what finally sends me over the edge. I scream and take a step back, angling the car seat behind me in an effort to protect Samantha.
“What the fuck is going on?” the man asks Shane.
Shane points his gun at me. “Give him the baby.”
I shake my head and take another step back. “No.”
“I will shoot you, Sveta.”
“Then fucking shoot me,” I yell. “You’ll have to pry this car seat from my dead fingers, you pathetic fucking asshole.” I look between the two men. “I wish I could be there when my family kills you both, but I have no doubt they’ll do me proud.”
The man glares at Shane. “What is she talking about?”
“Nothing,” Shane quickly says. “She’s fucking crazy.”
“I’m Svetlana Melnikov,” I tell him, “and this is my baby you’re trying to take.”
I can tell he recognizes my last name because his jaw tenses and he shoots a murderous look at Shane.
“She’s lying,” Shane says, but the guy is already starting to back away, proving that he’s a lot smarter than the dumb fuck he’s doing business with. “Where are you going? We had a deal!”
The man starts walking back to his car. “I didn’t agree to buying a Melnikov baby. I don’t want any part of this shit.”
Without another word, he gets back in his car and starts to leave. When I look over at Shane, the rage I see directed right at me has me taking a slow step back. I keep Samantha behind me while Shane keeps his gun aimed straight at my chest. Even if he’s a terrible shot, he’ll still hit me from this distance, and chances are high that I won’t survive it .
“You stupid fucking bitch,” he growls at me.
I take another step back right as a deep, accented voice says, “Drop the gun, Shane.”
I nearly weep at the sound of Vitya’s voice. He steps out from where he’d been hiding in the shadows, gun drawn and aimed right at Shane’s head.
“Don’t come any closer or I’ll shoot her,” Shane yells.
Vitya stops a few feet from us, and when he meets my eyes, my knees threaten to buckle. It’s a quick look, but it holds so much. He gives me a lifetime’s worth of love in those few precious seconds.
Putting his focus back on Shane, he says, “You’re surrounded, and you’re not getting out of this alive. Put the gun down, and I give you my word it’ll be a quick death. Keep pointing that gun at my girls, and I’ll make sure you die a very slow death.”
Time stills as Shane looks between me and Vitya. He’s not the brightest man on a good day, and this is really testing his limits. I can see movement in my peripheral vision, but I can’t look away from the man who’s pointing a gun at me. I hear Samantha’s soft cry behind me seconds before I know Shane’s made his decision. I have just enough time to look at Vitya once more before everything goes to shit.
I wait for the pain that I know is coming, for the force of the bullet to knock me back, but instead I hear Vitya yell my name, and then his body is in front of mine right as the loud crack of the gunshot echos through the dark alley. His arms wrap around me, cradling me so his larger body is completely protecting mine. I hear his deep grunt when the bullet that was meant for me hits him instead. More shots go off as the car seat slips from my fingers and the weight of Vitya’s body pulls me down.
Samantha screams while the wet heat of Vitya’s blood covers my chest. I roll him over as gently as I can while also desperately looking around to make sure Samantha is okay.
“I’ve got her, Sveta,” I hear Luka say right before he grabs the car seat and gets her out of the way. “She’s okay.”
A sob tears from my throat when I look down at Vitya. The exit wound on his upper chest is bleeding freely, and when I press my hands to it, he groans as his eyes start to roll back.
“Don’t you dare leave me,” I sob, feeling like I’m living in some sort of hellish déjà vu that I’ll never be able to escape from.
Pyotr kneels beside us, taking over as I cup Vitya’s face and force him to look at me. I’ve never seen him look so sad before, and I hate it because I know what he’s thinking. He’s looking at me like he’s trying to say goodbye, and I’m not fucking having it. I shake my head and kiss him before resting my forehead against his.
“Don’t leave us,” I beg him. “I love you so much.”
I’m crying so hard that the tears are dripping onto him, but all he does is rest his hand on mine. The movement is sluggish, like it’s taking all his strength to do it.
His eyes look glazed when he looks into mine, and his next words destroy me.
“Thank you for saving my life.”
He’s never thanked me for that night, and even though it’s annoyed me at times, it’s also one of the things I love most about him. It’s a long-standing joke between us, and the only reason he’s saying it now is because he thinks he’s dying.
“I wanted more time to love you,” he whispers. “Both of you.”
“You’re not leaving us, Vitya. Do you hear me?”
His eyes start to close while Pyotr tells me they need to get him in a car. When I’m too slow to move, he yells, “Sveta, we need to move him now!”
I fall back on my heels while they carry him to a waiting SUV. I try to get to my feet to go after them, but a pair of hands stop me. Dazed, I look up into my dad’s face, and seeing his familiar brown eyes is when I completely lose it. He catches me as I collapse, and then he holds me while I sob against him. I hear the SUV speed off, taking my heart with it as my dad’s hand cups the back of my head and he holds me tightly, just like he used to do when I was little and scared from a nightmare. He tells me over and over again that he loves me and that everything is going to be all right, but I’m no longer a child. I’m old enough to know that bad things do happen and that happy endings aren’t always guaranteed.
When I’ve sobbed myself into a numb state where my body still gives the occasional shudder but my eyes have no more tears to give, he cups my face and pulls me back just enough so he can see me. Worry fills my dad’s eyes as he studies me, making sure I’m okay, but his face hardens when he sees the bruise that Shane left on my cheek.
“He hit you?”
“I’m fine. It was just one hit.” My words sound hollow, all the fight gone right out of me, and I think that scares my dad more than anything.
“Did he do anything else?”
“No,” I quickly tell him. “Nothing else.”
He lets out a relieved sigh before saying, “They’re taking Vitya to Dominic’s. His doctors are ready and waiting. They’re going to do everything they can for him.” He keeps searching my face, watching to see how I’m handling the news so far. When I don’t pass out, he says, “Do you want me to take you there, or would you rather go home and we can wait until we hear something?”
I’m already shaking my head at the idea of being anywhere other than with Vitya. My home is with him, and there’s nowhere else I want to be. My dad sighs, seeing the determination on my face.
“Okay, I’ll drive you there. We can call your mom on the way and let her know you’re okay. We’ve been worried sick about you.”
My dad is always the first one to make a joke, always so quick to smile and laugh, and I’ve never seen him look like this before. His voice cracks when he tells me he loves me and pulls me in for another hug.
“I love you too, Dad,” I tell him. When he lets me go, I look around for Luka. He’s standing near his car, holding a bundled up Samantha while my brother digs around in the diaper bag for one of her bottles. As soon as I see her, my eyes start to fill again. Overcome with the urge to hold her, I break away from my dad and run over to them. My brother grabs me before I can get to her, pulling me in for a tight hug.
“Jesus, Sveta, you scared the hell out of me. ”
I cling to my twin, sobbing all over again. “He lost so much blood,” I whisper against his shoulder.
“He’s tough,” Val says, trying to reassure me. “This isn’t the first time he’s survived something like this. He did it once, he can do it again. He has everything to live for now. He’ll fight to stay here with you.”
I nod, hoping he’s right, hoping that we haven’t tempted fate one too many times. “I can’t lose him, Val.”
He cups my head, keeping me pressed against his chest. “You won’t.”
I cling to the determination in his words, the absolute certainty in his voice, because I’m desperate to believe it. I have to or I’m going to fall apart, and I can’t do that, not when Vitya is fighting for his life and depending on me to be strong. I nod, and when he feels it, he kisses my head and then takes a step back so I can get to Samantha. Luka’s giving her a bottle, gently rocking her and baby talking to her in Russian. She’s staring up at him, eyes wide as she grips his finger, and when I look at my cousin’s face, I can tell he’s smitten with her.
“Thanks, Luka,” I tell him, stepping closer and running my fingers over her cheek.
“How are you holding up?”
I lean against his shoulder while Samantha watches us. “Not so well,” I admit. “My dad is going to take me to Dominic’s so we can be with Vitya.”
“If you need Lara and me to watch her, just let us know. We’re more than happy to.”
“I might take you up on that,” I tell him, “but I’m not ready to let her go just yet.”
“I understand.” He gives her another smile and then passes her into my arms. “There’s nothing quite as comforting as having a baby in your arms.”
He’s right. As soon as Samantha’s familiar weight is in my arms again, I instantly feel better. I’m still scared to death and worried about Vitya, but her presence is comforting, and she’s a link to him, one I’m desperate to hold onto.
Luka squeezes my shoulder and then gives both of our heads a quick kiss before walking off to help the others. I hadn’t paid any attention to anything else after Vitya was shot, but when I look over, I see Shane’s body lying in the alley. I’m grateful for the darkness that keeps his body mainly in shadow. He ended up getting the quick death that he didn’t deserve, but I’m just relieved it’s over and we no longer have to worry about him.
Samantha smiles up at me, oblivious to the dead man just a few feet away as I walk her to my dad’s car. Shane may have been the sperm donor for her conception, but that fucker was never her father. Vitya’s been her daddy since the second he saw her, and he’s the only one she’s ever going to remember.
My dad has already strapped her car seat in the back, and after I’ve buckled her in, I get in the passenger seat. I let out a shaky breath as I grab the seat belt, remembering how many times Vitya’s had to tell me to buckle up. My dad and I sit in silence for several miles before he reaches over and grabs my hand.
“I called your mom and told her you’re okay. She’s going to meet us at Dominic’s.” He waits a few more minutes and asks, “Want to tell me about it?”
I look over at him, and while I squeeze his hand for support, I tell him everything. I leave out the more personal details that no dad would ever want to hear, but I tell him about how I’ve always been in love with Vitya and how I thought he couldn’t stand me, and then I tell him about the day I snuck down to his apartment and found him with a baby. My dad lets out a few heavy sighs, but he doesn’t interrupt me. He just lets me talk, and by the time we’re pulling into Dominic’s driveway and waiting for the guards to open the gate, I’ve told him everything there is to tell.
He parks near the front and turns to look at me. “Do you really love him, Sveta?”
“Yes. ”
He glances back at the sleeping baby. “You sure this is what you want, honey?”
“Yes.”
He lets out another heavy sigh. “I warned him to never touch you.”
“You can’t cut his dick off, Dad.”
The corner of his mouth lifts up the tiniest bit. “He told you about that?”
“He did.”
“I never go back on my word, Sveta.”
“Well, you’re going to this time.”
He looks at me like he wants to argue, but I don’t give him the chance. “I love him, Dad, and we’re going to get married. We’re going to adopt Samantha, but I want more kids.”
“You know I can’t deny you anything, so this is really fucking unfair.”
My heart is still breaking over Vitya, but I manage to give him a small smile. “I’m so lucky to have you as my dad.”
“Jesus, kid, you know how to lay it on.” He’s trying to make a joke of it, but I see the glassy look to his eyes, and I hear the emotion in his voice. He pulls me in for a hug and kisses my cheek. “Come on, let’s go see how my future son-in-law is doing.”