54. Chapter 54
54
Bella
T he sunlight pours through the garden’s glass ceiling, turning Alya’s blonde pigtails to spun gold. We’re set up at a wrought-iron table, paint supplies spread across it like a kindergarten teacher’s nightmare. Bright spring flowers bloom around us in perfectly manicured beds.
I blink at the canvas in front of me, which does, indeed, look less like a butterfly and more like something that lost a bar fight.
“It looks like it’s melting,” she says helpfully. “Or pooping.”
Mariya snorts behind her cup of tea. The sound is so rare it actually startles me. She’s settled on the edge of the garden, orthopedic shoes planted in the grass, one hand resting on the giant bag of painting supplies Alya insisted we bring outside. Her bun’s already frizzing from humidity, and her watch beeps gently at the top of the hour. As always.
“Papa paints better than this,” Alya adds, tongue sticking out as she carefully outlines a butterfly wing in neon pink.
I raise an eyebrow. “Konstantin paints?”
She shrugs. “He drew a horse once on my homework. It was okay.”
Mariya laughs again.
I try to smile, but it barely forms. My fingers tremble around the paintbrush. I set it down carefully on the tray beside me before I ruin another butterfly.
Pregnant.
The word hums in the back of my skull like it’s been looped into the air molecules. I swear even the hydrangeas heard it. It keeps flickering in my brain like a broken lightbulb.
Pregnant. You’re pregnant. You didn’t even know. Yelena knows. Yelena knows, and she’s going to bury you alive under the herb garden.
“You’re doing that weird stare thing again,” Alya says, not looking up.
“What weird stare thing?”
“The kind you do before you say something sarcastic and sad.”
Mariya glances over. Her eyes narrow. She knows something’s off—I can feel it in the way she silently pushes a bottle of water toward me like I’m going to faint.
I chug it.
Butterflies blur together. The paint smells too strong. My stomach turns. Not from the lavender this time. From the raw, unfiltered what the fuck now screaming in my body.
I glance at Alya. Her hair is pulled back into a tight braid, glitter in her lashes, cheeks streaked with paint and sun. She’s humming under her breath. The same tune I caught Mariya humming last week. Some old lullaby I can’t pronounce.
My heart cracks.
What if I’m having a kid? A kid . Like her. Like this loud, hilarious, fragile human who trusts me to stay upright long enough to help paint wings and whisper stories and remind her that monsters don’t get her in the night.
What if it’s a girl?
What if she has his eyes?
What if she hates me?
My fingers twitch. I smear red across the paper accidentally. It looks like blood.
“Oops,” Alya says. “That one died.”
I nod faintly. “So dead.”
What if Konstantin doesn’t want it?
What if he says this breaks the deal? That one year as his fake wife doesn’t come with a lifetime subscription to his DNA?
What if he tells me to fix it?
What if—God—what if he wants it?
What if I want it?
No. No. I’m not doing this.
I reach for more water. My hand shakes again.
Alya pauses. “You okay?”
“Just… thirsty.”
“You’re being weird.”
Mariya quietly sets down her tea, walks over, and rests a cool hand on my shoulder. She doesn’t say anything. Just lets her presence settle like a weight I didn’t know I needed.
“I’m fine,” I lie.
“You’re pale,” she says softly. “And you’re painting flowers like a woman being chased by wolves.”
I let out a strangled laugh.
If only she knew.
“Papa would say your butterflies look like they’ve been shot,” Alya adds proudly.
“Great,” I mutter. “Nothing says nurturing maternal energy like a war-torn butterfly massacre.”
Alya giggles. “I’m gonna make mine poop glitter.”
Of course she is.
The world swims for a second. The sun slants across the patio tiles. I close my eyes, just briefly, and all I can see is that hallway again—Katya’s voice, Yelena’s razor-sharp whisper.
No one can know. Especially not Konstantin.
Alya brushes against me, dragging her pinky through the sky-blue paint on my tray.
“Are you gonna name your butterfly?” she asks.
My eyes fly open.
My mouth is dry.
I look at her. At the clumsy, paint-smeared wings on the page in front of me.
And before I can stop myself, I say—
“Maybe.”
The “maybe” still hangs in the air when footsteps crunch across the gravel path behind us.
Alya doesn’t look up—too focused on giving her butterfly a second butt.
But I do.
Anya rounds the hedge, looking like she’s about to interrupt a funeral. She hesitates halfway and glances over her shoulder. Oleg follows—stoic, towering, and deeply uncomfortable. He’s holding a box.
Correction.
He’s holding a bright pink box.
Alya finally looks up. “Ooooh, presents?”
Anya clears her throat. “Uh… delivery. For Mrs. Belov.”
Oleg lifts the box slightly, then immediately looks like he regrets it. “It was left at the front gate,” he says. “Marked urgent.”
The box is… vile . Neon pink. Wrapped in glossy ribbon. Big red lips on the lid, like someone let a lipstick wear a thong. Across the front, in metallic cursive, it says:
“Slut Stuff.”
There’s even a tiny sticker on the side that reads: “For the wife who’s ready to make Daddy beg.”
Jesus Christ, Elena.
My soul leaves my body. Alya’s eyes go comically wide. Mariya chokes on her tea and starts coughing so hard she has to stand up.
“I ordered it,” I blurt. “It’s—it’s mine. Online. A sale. Random algorithm.”
Anya looks like she wants to disappear into a hydrangea bush.
Oleg’s ears turn pink. He sets the box down on the patio table like it’s radioactive.
“Right. I’ll… leave you to it.”
He vanishes faster than my last shred of dignity.
Mariya lifts a brow at me— that brow—but doesn’t say a word. She just claps her hands once and turns to Alya.
“Sweetheart,” she says, tone brisk, “why don’t we bring the paintings inside and pick out frames for them? You can use the little hairdryer to dry yours. You like that, don’t you?”
Alya, bless her sparkly soul, forgets the box entirely. “I want the gold frame. Like Papa’s awards.”
“Of course you do.”
I clear my throat, the sound coming out more like a strangled duck than anything resembling human as Mariya herds Alya toward the sunroom like a battlefield general in orthopedic shoes.
I snatch the box.
Tuck it under my arm like a dirty secret.
And make a run for it.
I think I win the world championship for the 20-meter crutch dash while clutching a box labeled Slut Stuff and trying not to faceplant in front of a child.
My armpits are burning, one crutch keeps clicking like it’s judging me, and my heart is doing that thing where it skips just enough beats to make me think, “Cool, this is how I die.” Not in a car chase. Not from Bratva politics. But right here. On this marble staircase. Mid-limp. Clutching off-brand lingerie and a pee stick.
Romantic.
I throw myself—gracefully, desperately—into the upstairs bathroom and slam the door behind me. Lock it. Twice.
Breath comes in sharp little gasps. Not because I’m out of shape. ( Okay, fine, maybe a little.) But because my entire body is trying to riot at once. Lungs, ovaries, frontal cortex— no one is calm in here.
I drop the box on the counter like it might explode.
Rip it open.
Under the top layer of hot-pink tissue paper and what looks like a lace thong designed by Satan’s interns, I find it:
A plain white box.
Pregnancy test.
Actually, two.
One digital. One analog. Because of course Elena covered both options.
Tucked between the test kits and the world’s most offensive thong is a folded napkin. It smells faintly like airport whiskey and poor decisions. Elena’s handwriting scrawls across it, sharp and unhinged:
“If it’s positive, I’m stealing you for a wine-and-regret road trip across state lines. If it’s negative, I’m still coming over to stage an exorcism. Either way—pee, text me and DON’T name it after a gemstone. Also, the thong is a metaphor. Burn it. Or wear it. I support you either way. Love, E (currently lurking in California and two iced coffees deep).”
I sit down hard on the edge of the bathtub. My fingers tighten around the test. My heart’s doing something weird in my chest—fluttering and slamming at the same time.
And then, just as I’m standing, reaching for the faucet to fill a cup, I realize my hands are shaking so bad I nearly spill it.
I sit again, harder this time, like the porcelain edge of the tub might anchor me to gravity. Or sanity. Or whatever’s left.
I uncap the test like it’s a grenade and try to remember how time works. Two minutes? Three? Long enough to re-evaluate every decision I’ve ever made but not long enough to build a new identity and flee the country.
I pee. I wait.
I stare at the counter like it just insulted my bloodline.
My brain short-circuits into a slideshow of horror:
—That one story about a woman who sneezed during labor, and the baby shot out like a torpedo.
—An article Elena once sent me titled “Your Organs Will Move to Make Room For It—Isn’t That Magical?”
—A terrifying memory of my high school health teacher passing out from showing us a birth video, which still haunts me more than most crime scenes.
I sit. I breathe. I don’t breathe. I check the clock. I almost check the test.
Then I chicken out and check the thong instead.
Still awful.
God, I can’t do this. I don’t know how to be a mother. I can barely be a functioning adult with a planner and a coffee addiction. What if it hates me? What if it looks like me but has his temper? Or looks like him but gets my anxiety and bursts into tears every time Spotify plays the wrong version of a song?
My hands won’t stop shaking.
I reach for the test.
One look. That’s all it takes.
Positive.
Not a faint line. Not a maybe. Not a “wait three more minutes to confirm.” No. Just a clear-as-day, digital YES+ like the stick is thrilled to break the news.
The air leaves my lungs in a soundless exhale.
I grab the edge of the sink. Hard. My fingers go white.
Holy shit.
This baby— this tiny thing —survived a car crash. Me being zip-tied. Whatever hell cocktail of stress and trauma I’ve been living in.
Also—the pill. I took the damn pill.
It’s still here.
Alive.
Fighting.
Tears sting, but I don’t let them fall. If I cry now, I won’t stop. I’ll dissolve. Slide down the bathroom tile and just—melt.
What do I do?