Chapter 16
ELLE
Iguide Natalia through the front door like I'm leading a bomb into our sitting room, and the one I choose is far too pretty for the conversation we're about to have.
I sit across from her. Arms folded. Spine straight. Knees locked like my entire body is a fortress.
The guards flank us with hands on their weapons, ready to ventilate her if she so much as sneezes wrong.
Natalia looks around like she might cry again. I'm nice enough to let her in, but not that fucking nice. The guards need to go, though. Not because I care about scaring Natalia, but because I care about the kid I've asked to be kept away.
"Leave us," I say. "Make sure what I said is done."
I'd whispered the rest earlier, when Natalia couldn't hear: no matter what, Pasha doesn't come near this woman. I don't know her, and he doesn't need his world upended by news of a long-lost mother rising from the dead.
Besides, she could be lying. I could have let in the wrong woman entirely.
Fuck. I wish Nikolai was here.
I don't offer tea.
I don't ask if she's okay.
I definitely don't tell her Pasha's name.
Instead, I lean forward, elbows on my knees. "So. You think my husband's son is yours."
Her eyes widen at the word husband. I can practically see her recalculating.
"I don't think," she says, stronger than I expected. "I know. Damon is my son."
"His name is not Damon. And leaving a baby outside an apartment building doesn't exactly scream maternal rights."
She flinches. "I was nineteen. I was barely surviving."
"So was he. He was six months old."
Natalia swallows hard. "I didn't come to cause trouble..."
"I don't care why you came. I want to know why you left your innocent, helpless baby on a doorstep."
She looks older now than she did at the gate. Like the adrenaline wore off and she's just a tired woman who's run out of plans.
"I wasn't the right person to raise him," she says, voice shaking. "I had no money. No job. I was drinking. I was a mess."
She wrings her hands. I eye the chipped nails.. No wedding ring.
"Why not a safe haven?" I ask. "A church? A hospital? Literally anywhere but the street."
"I wanted him to have a chance. Not go into the system. Not be lost. I knew Nikolai would take care of him."
"So you knew exactly which doorstep was his."
"He used to come around the block in this big black car. I figured anyone who looked that powerful had to have resources. I thought maybe he'd do right by him."
I stare at her. "So your master plan was to stalk a Russian mobster, drop your infant on his doorstep, and hope for the best?"
"I didn't know he was..." She breaks off. "I didn't know exactly who he was."
"No. You just knew he was powerful enough to make your problem go away."
Her chin trembles. "We had a one-night stand. I didn't plan the pregnancy."
I bite back the guilt threatening to rise. I can't afford to get soft.
"You abandoned a baby," I say flatly. "You left a newborn outside in the cold."
"There was a note!"
"Which said what? 'Good luck, sucker'?"
"I said I loved him." Tears spill. "I still do. I never stopped."
I look away, jaw tight. Part of me wants to scream at her until her ears bleed. Another part wants to run upstairs and hold Pasha until this whole nightmare turns to smoke.
"I got sober," she says. "Two years ago. I've been looking for him ever since."
"You don't get a gold star for that. You left. You made your choice."
Natalia nods. Defeated. "I just wanted to see him. Just once. To know he's okay."
"He is okay. Better than okay. He's smart and kind and gentle and strong. He's not some project you get to revisit now that your life's on track."
"I'm not trying to take him."
"Good. Because that's never going to happen."
The door creaks open behind me. I brace for a guard.
It's Nikolai.
He fills the doorway like an avalanche, jacket swinging behind him, eyes scanning the room until they land on her. When they do, something tightens in his face. His mouth pulls into a line sharp enough to cut glass.
"You," he says.
This is the Russian mobster I should fear. This is the man that kills those that cross him.
I crossed him. This is a violation. I know it. I feel it.
But I’m not afraid of him.
Natalia rises like a deer about to get flattened by a semi. "Nikolai. I didn't..."
"You don't speak." His voice is quiet. Too quiet. The kind that lives right before a gunshot.
I jump up, putting myself between them. Palms out. "She's not here to cause trouble."
"You let her in?" He growls it at me, jaw ticking. "Are you out of your mind?"
"She showed up screaming about our son. What was I supposed to do? Have her shot on the lawn?"
"Yes."
I blink. "You're not serious."
He doesn't move. Just burns holes through Natalia like he wants to reduce her to atoms.
"She left him," he snarls. "She left him. And now she thinks she can show up here and what? Be welcomed like family?"
"She said she's clean. She just wanted to see him."
"She doesn't get to want anything."
Natalia chokes out, "Please..."
"Shut your mouth." He snaps it like a whip. "You come near him again, and I will kill you. Do you understand me?"
"Stop it," I hiss, grabbing his arm. "She's not a threat."
"She's the threat. She left him alone. Anyone could've taken him. He could've died. And now you're defending her?"
I pull him toward me, forcing him to look at me instead of through me. "I'm protecting Pasha. Just like you."
His eyes flash at the name. I instantly regret saying it. Natalia stiffens behind me. I don't look at her.
"I don't want her in my house," Nikolai says through his teeth.
"She's leaving. Now." I nod at the guard by the door.
The guard moves. Natalia stumbles back, clutching her bag like a lifeline.
"I'm sorry," she whispers. "I just needed to know he was okay."
"Don't come back," Nikolai growls. "Next time, I won't be this polite."
She nods. Follows the guard out. The door shuts behind her with a final-sounding click.
Nikolai turns to me. Rage written in capital letters across his forehead. I'm sleeping with one eye open tonight and a knife under my pillow.
"I didn't mean to overstep," I say quietly.
"You think this is a joke? You let someone in. A stranger. Someone from before. You don't know what that could mean."
"I know she could've been lying. That's why I kept Pasha from her. I didn't tell her his name. I interrogated her, Nikolai, and it was only when I believed she was telling the truth that I let her in to talk."
"Pasha could've been taken. Poisoned. Shot. Do you know how many enemies I have?"
"I know what it's like to grow up feeling abandoned," I say, and my voice cracks. "Wondering why I was never loved by the person who was supposed to love me most. I looked at that woman and I saw someone who wanted to love her kid. And I couldn't be the one who slammed the door."
He stares at me. Something flickers behind the rage. Not softening exactly, but fracturing.
"You can't make decisions like this alone," he says. "Not here. Not in this world."
"Then be here." The words come out sharper than I intend. "Be here when these things happen instead of disappearing into meetings all day. You want me to ask permission? Fine. But you have to be present enough to give it."
The silence that follows is thick enough to choke on.
He stares at me for a long beat. Then he turns and walks out. Slams the door behind him.
I sink into the chair, heart pounding, arms numb.
Nikolai and I were just starting to figure each other out. To share space. To feel real.
And now I don't know if I made things better or worse.
All I know is that today, I made the right call for a boy who launched a rocket and laughed like it could carry him to the stars.
But maybe it cost me everything else.