Chapter 26 Cristian
CRISTIAN
I keep to the shadows on Valentina’s balcony. I should be gone already, but something keeps me tethered to this room.
To her.
Each night, I promise myself it'll be the last time.
Each morning, I wake knowing I'll break that promise again.
What the fuck did Alessandro want so late at night?
When he left, I wanted to barge back into her room, but instead, I’m waiting to make sure he doesn’t return.
Valentina has retreated to her bathroom, where she’s been for a long time. Is something wrong?
I quietly open the French door and re-enter her room.
"Valentina?" I knock softly on the door.
No response over the sound of running water.
Something's wrong.
I felt it the moment Alessandro knocked, beyond the panic of almost being caught.
Nothing good comes from having to have a discussion so late at night.
I press my ear against the door, hearing nothing but water running.
My stomach twists with worry.
"Valentina?" I try again, louder this time.
I should leave. Every minute I stay increases our risk.
Alessandro could return, finding me here.
Any of the household staff could walk in.
Discovery means my death.
Yet leaving her alone right now is impossible.
The water finally shuts off.
I step back from the door, relief washing over me before tension returns.
What has Alessandro said to her?
What new torment awaits her at Maksim's hands?
I've been trained to protect against physical threats.
But how do I protect her from her own family?
From the destiny they've chosen for her?
When the bathroom door finally opens, Valentina stands frozen in the threshold.
Her face is drained of color, eyes wide with fear.
"What's wrong?" I cross to her in two strides, taking her hands in mine. "Did Alessandro threaten you?"
She shakes her head. "Cristian. I'm late."
At first, I don't understand. Late for what? Then reality crashes over me. "Your period?"
"I should have started over a week ago." Her fingers tighten around mine. "I've never been late before."
The world tilts beneath my feet.
A baby.
The product of that night in the hotel when I finally broke and gave her everything she asked for.
Everything I wanted to give.
"Are you certain?" I manage.
"I’m certain I’m late, but I’m not certain it’s because of pregnancy." Her eyes fill with tears. "If I'm pregnant… Maksim will kill me. And you. And our…" She can't finish the sentence.
My mind races through scenarios, and none of them are good. Maksim discovering she's not a virgin. Maksim learning she's carrying another man's child. Alessandro finding out I betrayed him. Death is the response for all of them.
Yet beneath the terror, I feel something else. Something warm and good.
I cup her face in my hands, my thumbs brushing away tears. "Look at me, Valentina. If you're carrying my child, I will protect you both with my life," I promise.
“I don’t doubt that, I just…”
I don’t let her finish expressing her fear. Instead, I fuse my lips to hers, kissing her with everything I am.
When we break apart, I press my forehead to hers, breathing her in.
For one reckless moment, I allow myself to imagine a life with Valentina, our child between us.
Morning coffee and laughter.
Tiny hands reaching for mine.
Normal.
Safe.
Then the horror sinks in of what this means.
I won’t get to be the father.
She’ll marry Maksim, likely pass the child off as his, and I’ll be little more than a shadow in our child's life.
In fact, it's the only way to protect them all, Valentina, me, and the baby, as Maksim would surely seek to kill us all for this betrayal.
"We need to be sure," I say. "Tomorrow, I’ll get a test and bring it to you."
She nods, her fingers digging into my forearms. "If I am… what then?"
I want to promise her escape. A life together far from here. But false hope is crueler than hard truth.
"If you are…" I start but can’t find anything that doesn’t end in our deaths.
I pull her against my chest, feeling her heart race against mine.
“Maksim wants to move up the wedding. I’m supposed to go and talk with Alessandro in his office now.”
My arms are around her, but she already feels gone. I tighten my hold of her. “Then I'll find a way for us to disappear. Tonight, you meet with Alessandro, act normal. Tomorrow, we confirm, and then I start making arrangements."
She looks up at me, and I see the truth that we’ve been facing all along. The Dante family has connections everywhere. The Bratva's reach extends across continents. There's nowhere we could run that they wouldn't eventually find us.
And when they do…
I press my lips to her temple. "Go.” I reluctantly release her. "Don't give Alessandro reason to suspect anything."
As she slips from my arms, the cold reality washes over me. I may have just created a child I'll never be allowed to know.
I gently brush a strand of hair from her face, trying to hide the turmoil raging inside me. “Somehow, we’ll figure this out.”
She nods, but I see the fear in her eyes. The same fear that's coiling in my gut.
As I watch her straighten her robe and prepare to face Alessandro, I wonder how all this happened.
I was supposed to guard her, not fall for her. Not get her pregnant. Not imagine a life where she's mine.
The thought of Maksim touching her, claiming her as his wife, possibly raising our child as his own, makes my blood boil.
But what choice do we have? Run? The Dantes and Bratva would hunt us to the ends of the earth. Stay and fight? Against two of the most powerful crime families in the country?
"I'll figure something out," I promise as she heads for the door. "I swear it."
She pauses, looking back at me with those storm-gray eyes. "Don't make promises you can't keep, Cristian."
Her words only highlight that I’ve failed her.
She knows it.
She’s lost faith in me.
I don’t blame her because she’s not wrong.
I have failed her.
After she's gone, I slip out onto the balcony and into the night. She’s gone to me now.
She and our child.
The thought of it is untenable.
The idea that my child will call Maksim father terrifies me.
I need a plan.
And I need it now.
I barely sleep and the next morning, first thing,
I’m at a drug store trying to decide which pregnancy test to get.
In the end, I buy two, just in case we need to verify.
Getting into the Dante compound is easy enough. I'm expected, after all.
Getting the tests to Valentina without being seen is the challenge.
We arrange it with careful texts, coded language that would mean nothing to anyone intercepting our messages.
She slips into the garden shed where I'm waiting, the back door left unlocked for our thirty-second window when the security cameras pan away.
"Did you get them?" she asks.
I press the boxes into her hands. "Two different kinds. Just to be sure."
"Thank you." She clutches them against her chest. "I'll… I'll let you know."
The wait is excruciating.
I patrol the grounds, nodding at other guards, checking perimeters I've checked a thousand times before.
My phone burns in my pocket.
Every minute stretches into hours.
When it finally buzzes, my heart nearly stops.
Positive.
Both of them.
These words change everything.
I text her back that we need to meet.
Her day is filled with wedding decisions and so it’s just before five when I need to make another perimeter round that she meets me in the old storage room in the east wing that’s never used anymore.
When she steps inside, I know I need to make a case for us.
"We need to leave," I tell her, taking her hands in mine. "Tonight. I have cash, contacts who owe me favors. We can disappear, start over somewhere they'll never find us."
Hope flickers across her face before reality extinguishes it. "Cristian, be serious. My brother controls half of New York. Maksim's people are everywhere else. There's nowhere we could go that they wouldn't eventually find us. You know that."
"So we keep moving. South America, Europe, Asia—"
"And live like fugitives? Always looking over our shoulders?" She shakes her head. "That's no life for a child."
"Better than the alternative," I argue. "What happens when Maksim discovers you're pregnant with another man's baby?”
"I'll tell him it's his," she says quietly.
The suggestion makes me physically ill and angry. “Just like that, you’re going to hand over my child to him?”
“What choice do we have?”
I grip her shoulders, forcing her to meet my eyes. "You can't marry him. He'll destroy you. And our child."
Her eyes fill with tears. "If I run with you, they'll hunt us forever. They'll never stop until we’re all dead. But if I go through with the wedding, you both live."
I want to argue, to shake her until she sees reason.
But the terrible logic of her words sinks in.
She's right.
The only way to protect our child is to sacrifice us.