Chapter 24 – Freya
The car ride was quiet, and it had been that way—ultimate silence—since Doctor Millie cleared me from the hospital.
My husband kept his eyes on the road, occasionally clenching his fingers over the smooth wheel, while he said nothing. I stole subtle glimpses in between. Sometimes, the green in his eyes looked hard and angry, and other times, they just seemed…perplexed. Like an unsolved puzzle or unasked question was hovering in the air between us, something he couldn’t quite figure out.
After sharing the same air and living in the same space with him for months, I quickly learned that Egor Yezhov never liked to be kept in the dark. He believed he could have everything at the tip of his fingers, every bit of information or anything that he considered important within his reach, and if it turned out that he didn’t have the situation under control, it vexed him. Greatly.
“ Pochemu ty predpochel rebenka svoyey zhizni ?”
Why did you choose the baby over your own life?
Finally, the king had spoken. And it was in the softest, most unimaginable tone I’d ever heard from his mouth. It threw me off guard, rattled the words in my brain, left me speechless for seconds, and when I could finally speak, my answer came out in his language.
“ YA ne mogu ubit’ eto,” I answered softly.
I can’t kill it.
His brows made the smallest twitch. He was not expecting that form of response, either. I peeled my gaze away from the spiral rotation of colorful street lights reflecting on his face through the windshield and stared at my palms. It was easier to talk to my hands than to speak to him. After all, I’d been doing it for weeks already, walking around the empty house and chatting while I made breakfast or singing to myself while chopping up veggies for dinner. Breakfast and dinner that I ate alone, days unending.
The memory of the bone-chilling loneliness I’d endured in those times almost tore a bitter laugh out of me when I remembered what he’d said to Doctor Millie.
We’ll do this together, wife.
Could have fooled me if I wasn’t the one living the nightmare.
“It’s life.” Burning emotion welled up at the back of my eyes like heated tears, but I cleared my throat and swallowed it down. “I meant what I said when I told Dr. Millie I’d come too far to give up now. It’s a part of me now. I want this baby….”
A stubborn tear dropped on my wrist when I blinked, and I sniffled the rest up before I began to cry myself a river.
The rest of my sentence floated between us in a quiet whisper. “I mean, it’s not like I have a choice, either.”
His feet went down on the brakes, and the car skidded to an abrupt halt, nearly catapulting me from my seat if I didn’t hang on for dear life.
Thank God for seatbelts.
My head snapped to his, eyes wide, breathing ragged, with my mouth agape, like someone who might have lost her life if she’d been flung out of the windshield.
“ Jesus Christ,” I muttered. “Have you gone mad?”
A sharp, crisp click-chunk filled the air as the seatbelt released its hold, followed by a soft whoosh of fabric as Egor’s body lifted out of the seat.
“Out. Now,” he grumbled without sparing me a glance and marched out of the car, his heavy footsteps echoing through the faintly lit pavement, punctuated by the loud thud of the car door slamming shut behind him.
I followed after him, with my heart thumping in my chest, not knowing what to expect. Where Egor was concerned, the next moment was unpredictable.
Tiny stones crunched under the soles of his polished leather shoes as he paced the cemented ground with a hand on his hip, the other raking through his hair. Behind us was a deserted playground, with a few young lovebirds scattered in the darker places of the area, and my gaze lingered on him—his sleek, formal suit and tie jarringly out of place amidst the warm, relaxed atmosphere of the evening.
He stormed up to me, swallowing up the distance and pressing close enough for me to catch the light stubble growing on his chin and the scent of musk and man oozing off him. Instinctively, my hand flew to my stomach, not entirely sure what I was shielding myself from.
His jaw clenched, and he surprised me by slipping a finger under my chin and tilting my head up to meet his blazing eyes.
“Freya, you....” The remaining part of the sentence got lost in a thick string of Russian.
His warm breath fanned my lips, stirring flurries in my chest and forcing my eyes to flicker to his lips.
“Eyes up here, wife.”
My cheeks warmed, and my heart raced when the smallest smile appeared on his lips, smoothening the deep creases on his forehead, making him appear less like the monster I’d pegged him to be.
Slowly, his thumb ran ghostly against my cheeks, and for a lingering moment, something alien surfaced in his eyes. Something resembling care.
In a blink, it was gone, and he took a step back, letting his hands fall back to his sides.
“You have a choice,” was all he said, and the weight of his words sank in, his silence saying more than we both knew he ever would.
Egor Yezhov was saying I could trade the baby’s life for mine. He was giving me the power to make the decision. I didn’t have to keep the pregnancy because…because my life had value. More value to him.
Something delicate, like a crystal vase teetering on the edge of a shelf, struck my heart—a pang of uncertainty. My breath caught in my throat, and my thoughts began to swirl into a mad tornado. The words echoed through my mind: Does he care about me?
A flutter of anxiety stirred in my chest, like a bird beating its wings against the confines of its cage, and my mind raced.
Surely, I was mistaken because that was most certainly not possible. A man like him did not have the capacity to care about anyone other than himself.
Shaking my head, I buried the absurd thoughts as quickly as they had surfaced and stared at him with a bravery that faltered.
“Thank you for giving me the choice, but no. I’m content knowing I have a shot at this, seeing my baby, even if it’s for only a second.”
“ Our baby,” he corrected sternly. “My blood and yours flow through its veins.” And while he was speaking, from his pocket, he produced….
No, it couldn’t be.
“A phone?”
The sleek black edges glinted under the streetlights as he handed it to me. With a skeptical glare, I took it, inspecting the sides because they looked oddly familiar.
My eyes snapped back to meet his, studying me curiously. I raised the device in the air like something sacred that wasn’t meant to be touched.
“This is mine.” I looked at it and back at him, still disbelieving that I had it with me. “This is my phone.”
His eyes held no emotion when he said, “Yes, it's yours. And it’s monitored. You can call your mom, sister, and friend, too, whenever you want. If you try to make contact with anyone other than those three people on the list, I won’t hesitate to take it back from you. Understood?”
I didn’t need him to explain that he was referring to John as “anyone other.” But the burning tears I’d tried so hard to keep buried rushed out in a messy torrent.
It started with a sniffle. And then more sniffles. Right before I broke like a dam, with a slumped shoulder trembling as I finally cried myself a river, I clutched the phone close to my chest, feeling the weight of my loneliness crash down on me.
Egor’s footsteps echoed through the silence, clicking on the pavement as he walked closer. His presence wrapped me in comforting warmth, worsening the sobs. They grew louder and more ragged, accompanied by hiccups and bubble snots from my nostrils, as he wrapped his arms around me, pulling me into a gentle hug.
I stiffened, and then relaxed. It felt good. So, so good. I could get lost in it for a long time.
For the first time, I felt his touch not just as a physical sensation but as a sense of safety, of being enveloped in a warmth that seeped deep into my bones. It was hard but encouraging—detached but just what I needed to let my guard down and just be .
We could both tell that this was hard for him, foreign territory, with the way his hands made staccato pats on my back in a soothing rhythm, his silence speaking louder than his words ever could.
He was trying, in his own way, to comfort me—to be there for me. And in that moment, it was enough.
At first, in that hospital room, shrouded with the possibility that either me or my— our— baby could die, I hadn’t believed a word he’d uttered about being there for us. But now, sealed in this time capsule where the stone and steel Egor Yezhov himself reassured me with a hug, I felt it…that tiny ray of hope, shining forth in the midst of darkness.