Epilogue
Varvara
Thirteen months later
“Breathe,” Yelena barks at me.
“You… you… don’t get to boss me… around in here,” I pant, breathing through another contraction that rips its way through my uterus and nearly brings me to my knees.
“I always boss you around, devochka. It’s my life’s mission.” Her thick Russian accent hasn’t dulled over her time here in London.
“Fuck… you…”
Her steely grey eyes, that match her steely grey bun, dance with amusement. “You walk thin line, little girlie. You are lucky I like you.”
“You love me, you old hag,” I pant. “You love that I don’t take your bullshit.”
“My bullshit makes the world go around.”
I snort out a laugh and grip her hand tighter. “Where… the fuck is Lev?” I grit out.
“He is on his way.”
“You said that… half an hour ago.”
She shrugs. “I command many things; London traffic is not one of them.”
“I suggest you look into figuring that out.”
She smiles and pats my hand, holding out a glass of ice chips for me. “Take the chips. Your man will be here.”
“He’d fucking better be,” I rasp, sitting back now that the contraction has passed and suck on an ice chip.
I’ve barely had time to breathe when another contraction starts low and cruel, building with brutal certainty.
“Oh, fuck off,” I snap at my own body as pain tears through me again.
Yelena tightens her hand around mine. “Good. Stay angry. Anger gives you purpose.”
“Easy for you to say. You’re not being ripped apart.”
“You are soft. You think you are only woman to have a child. Get over your entitled self, devochka.”
“Ah,” I gasp at her godawful bedside manner.
Luckily for everyone involved, a midwife appears at my side, calm and efficient, checking monitors, giving me a smile that says she has seen far worse than me growling and sweating in a private room at a very expensive clinic.
“You’re doing really well, Varvara,” she says.
“She’s doing terribly,” Yelena says.
The midwife glares at her and then at me. “You’re progressing nicely.”
“I hate that word.”
Yelena takes an ice chip for herself and crunches it. “You hate many useful things.”
“I also hate you.”
She inclines her head. “No, you don’t. Maybe at beginning.”
“You were vile to me at the beginning,” I pant.
“I gave you instructions. You followed them.”
“You nearly broke me. Twice.”
“Ah. Nearly. You make list of strongest people I know.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“I wouldn’t. You now act like pussy.”
The midwife hisses, but Yelena gives her a look that could stop a war.
“I am helping,” Yelena says.
“You’re terrifying her,” the midwife replies.
“I terrified her for two weeks, and she became better for it. Fear is educational.”
“I’m not in the office,” I snap, then groan as another contraction slams into me. “I’m pushing out a fucking Voronov.”
The door flies open hard enough to bang the wall.
Lev storms in wearing a black suit, no tie, shirt open at the throat, hair a mess, blue eyes wild enough to make half of London confess to crimes they haven’t even committed yet. He looks like death walked into private maternity care and decided to start making demands.
My whole chest loosens at once.
“You’re late,” I snap, even though relief nearly makes me cry.
His gaze locks on me, then drops to my belly, then back to my face. The panic on him is almost funny. “Traffic.”
“Did you kill it?”
“Not for lack of trying.”
He comes straight to the bed and takes my face in both hands, checking me over as if I might have picked up a bullet wound between contractions. “You okay?”
“No. I’m in fucking labour with your son.”
Another contraction hits, sharp and vicious. I make a sound that is not remotely dignified and grab his wrist hard enough to bruise. Lev doesn’t even blink. He just braces himself and lets me crush him.
“It’s time,” the midwife says.
“I go now,” Yelena says.
I nod weakly and give her a smile of thanks.
She pats my hand again and disappears, probably to terrify some nurses into producing a bottle of vodka from thin air.
The midwife moves into place with brisk confidence. “All right, Varvara. On the next contraction, I need you to push.”
“I gathered that was the general fucking theme,” I mutter.
Lev brings his forehead to mine for one second. His hands are huge around my face, warm, steady, and completely at odds with the murder in his eyes.
“You’ve got this,” he says.
“I know I’ve got this. I’m the one doing it.”
His mouth curves. “That’s my girl.”
Another wave builds, deep and vicious, dragging a curse from my lungs before it fully hits.
I bear down with a cry that tears out of me, gripping Lev’s wrist and the bed rail at the same time.
Pressure consumes everything. Pain blots out the room, the clinic, London, all of it.
There’s only this. This push. This body that isn’t listening to me anymore because it has chosen violence.
“Good,” the midwife says. “Again. Keep going. That’s it.”
I drop back against the pillows, gasping. Sweat sticks my hair to my face. Lev brushes it back with shaking fingers.
“You look beautiful,” he says, which is such obvious bullshit, I’d laugh if I had the energy.
“Liar,” I whisper.
Then the next contraction climbs over me, and I stop giving a fuck about beauty, dignity, or anything except getting this baby out of me.
“Push,” the midwife says.
I do. I bear down so hard my vision blurs. Lev is right there, one hand bracing the back of my neck, the other trapped in my death grip. If I break bones, that’s his problem. He put the child in me.
“Again, Varvara,” the midwife says. “You’re nearly there.”
Nearly there has been the biggest lie of this entire process, but I drag in air and do it again. My body burns. Everything aches. I feel split open, furious, exhausted.
“Fuck you, Lev,” I gasp.
He kisses my temple. “I know.”
“This is your fault.”
“Our fault.”
“No. Yours.”
He gives a short laugh, like the mad bastard he is. “Fine. Mine.”
Another push. A raw cry tears out of me. I hear the midwife say something about the head. Lev goes still beside me. Not calm still. Dangerous still. The kind that comes before someone dies.
“Lev,” I rasp.
“I’m here.”
“Don’t pass out.”
His eyes flash. “I’m not the one at risk of that.”
I would answer, but pain crashes through me again, and I push.
“That’s it,” the midwife says, her voice bright and firm. “Again. One more big push.”
“One more,” I pant. “You said that already.”
“I’m saying it again.”
Lev’s hand tightens around mine. “Moya sladkaya.”
“Shut up unless you’re apologising.”
“I’m deeply fucking sorry.”
Another contraction tears through me before I can insult him properly. I grab onto the sound of his voice and push with everything I’ve got. My whole body strains. I swear so viciously that the midwife bites back a smile.
Then pressure shifts.
Everything changes in one horrible, unbelievable second.
A cry cuts through the room.
Thin. Furious. Alive.
I collapse back against the pillows, chest heaving, tears springing into my eyes before I can stop them. “Oh, my God.”
The midwife laughs softly. “You did it.”
I can barely see past the blur in my vision. I hear movement, the rustle of towels, another tiny angry cry that punches straight through my ribs and into the centre of me.
Lev doesn’t speak.
I turn my head and see him staring.
I’ve seen this man covered in blood, holding guns, issuing orders that end lives. I’ve seen him walk into rooms like he owns every inch of them.
This is different.
This is Lev stripped bare.
His blue eyes are fixed on the tiny, furious little boy the midwife is holding up, and all the savage certainty that defines him is just gone. He looks wrecked by it. Utterly wrecked. His throat works once, and his fingers tighten around mine like he needs proof he’s still standing in this room.
“Lev,” I whisper.
He blinks, slow, as if he’s coming back from somewhere far away. “He’s here.”
I let out a breath that turns into a laugh and a sob at the same time.
The midwife brings our son closer, wrapped tight now, his face red and scrunched with outrage. I stare at him, and my whole body goes strange and soft. He’s so small. So perfect. So loud.
“Oh, fuck,” I whisper, because apparently that’s all I’ve got.
The midwife smiles and places him carefully in my outstretched arms, and the second his weight settles against me, the room changes again. It narrows right down to this little person and the terrifying fact that he’s ours. Mine. Lev’s. A Voronov. My son.
He makes this angry little noise, then settles for a second against my chest. I stare at his tiny nose, his tiny mouth, the dark, damp hair plastered to his head, his furious little fists fighting the blanket as if he arrived offended by the entire experience.
“He’s pissed off already,” I murmur, tears slipping into my hairline. “Definitely yours.”
Lev makes a rough sound beside me. I look up.
He’s still staring like someone has cut him open and left all the important parts exposed.
For a man who terrifies rooms on sight, he looks almost lost. It does something violent and tender to my heart.
One big hand comes down to stroke a finger over our son’s cheek with absurd care. The baby makes another angry noise.
Lev lets out a breath. “He’s perfect.”
“He’s loud.”
“He’s a Voronov.”
“He’s ours.”
His eyes shine when he looks at me again, and that nearly undoes me more than the birth did.
The midwife checks us both, talking in that calm, competent voice I already want to bottle and keep forever. I barely hear half of it. I’m too busy staring at the tiny person on my chest, trying to understand how I can love someone this much and not die from it.
“I love you and your daddy,” I murmur to him. “I’m healed. I’m happy, and your granddaddy Konstantin is going to spoil you.”
“Maybe he will take you to see where he killed his bitchy wife,” Lev adds in a baby voice that makes me snort so hard, it hurts every cell in my battered body. “It’s pretty.”
The midwife’s eyes go wide, but she says nothing as she carries on being efficient. Voronov money speaks loudly and keeps people quiet.
I look up at Lev, and he tears his eyes away from our son. My smile is shaky, but I’ve never been happier. He returns it and then stares down at the baby we made. “Aleksandr,” he murmurs. “Welcome to the London Bratva.”