Chapter 20 - Keira
Three days since the pregnancy test, and I still didn't know what to feel.
I'd expected clarity. Some definitive emotional response that would tell me how to process this impossible situation.
Instead, I woke each morning with a different feeling—fear one day, something like wonder the next, then back to fear again.
My body was changing, even if I couldn't see it yet, and my mind couldn't keep up.
The nausea was the worst part. It came in waves, unpredictable and merciless, striking at random moments throughout the day. I'd be in the middle of a video session, nodding along to a patient's struggles, and suddenly I'd have to fight the urge to bolt for the bathroom.
Today, it hit during my session with Benjamin.
"—and my sponsor says I need to focus on the present, but I keep thinking about all the things I messed up, you know? All the people I hurt when I was using. How do you move past that?"
I swallowed hard, willing my stomach to settle. "Moving past it doesn't mean forgetting it. It means integrating it into who you are now. The person who made those choices isn't the same person sitting here today."
"But it is, though. I'm still me."
"You're a different version of you. A version that's been clean for eight months, that shows up for these sessions, that's doing the work.
" I paused, taking a slow breath. "The guilt you're feeling—it's actually a sign of growth.
It means you recognize the impact of your actions.
That recognition is what keeps you from repeating them. "
He nodded slowly, processing. I used the moment to reach for my water glass, taking a careful sip, letting the cool liquid calm my rebellious stomach.
We finished the session without incident, but by the time I closed the laptop, I was exhausted. The kind of bone-deep fatigue that made my limbs feel like they were filled with sand.
I leaned back in the chair and closed my eyes, one hand resting on my stomach. Still flat. Still unchanged, at least from the outside. But I knew something was happening in there. Something that would change everything.
A soft knock at the door. "Come in."
Rodion entered, his eyes immediately scanning my face with that assessing look he'd developed over the past few days. "How was the session?"
"Fine. Benjamin is doing well." I opened my eyes, managed a small smile. "The nausea was manageable."
"Just manageable?"
"That's better than yesterday."
He crossed the room and sat on the arm of my chair, his hand finding mine. The gesture was becoming familiar—this casual intimacy, the way he reached for me like it was instinct. I still wasn't used to it. Part of me wondered if I ever would be.
"I spoke with Dr. Jackson," he said. "She can come tomorrow afternoon. Completely discreet—she's worked with the family for years."
"The family." I couldn't keep the edge out of my voice. "You mean she's treated gunshot wounds and kept her mouth shut about them."
"Among other things." He didn't flinch from it. "She's also delivered babies, handled complicated pregnancies, dealt with high-risk situations. She's good at what she does, and she knows how to be invisible."
"I'm not sure I want a mob doctor examining me."
"She's not a mob doctor. She's a doctor who understands that some patients need privacy." He squeezed my hand. "I'm not going to force you. If you'd rather find someone else, we'll figure it out. But the more people who know about this, the more risk there is."
He was right. I hated that he was right.
"Fine," I said. "Tomorrow afternoon."
"Thank you."
"Don't thank me. Just—" I stopped, shook my head. "I don't know. This is all so strange. A week ago, I was just trying to survive. Now I'm planning prenatal appointments with a doctor who probably knows how to remove bullets."
"She does. Very efficiently." A ghost of a smile. "But she's also delivered three of my cousins' children. All healthy. All without complications."
"You have cousins?"
"Several. In Russia, mostly. We're not close, but they exist." He shifted closer, his thumb tracing circles on my palm. "There's a lot you don't know about me."
"There's a lot you don't know about me either."
"I'm looking forward to learning."
The sincerity in his voice made my chest tight. I looked up at him—this man who'd killed for me, married me, gotten me pregnant in the space of a few weeks. This stranger who was somehow becoming the most familiar person in my world.
"I called Amber earlier," I said.
"How is she?"
"Worried about me. She can tell something's different, even over the phone." I pulled my hand from his, wrapping my arms around myself. "I didn't tell her about the pregnancy. It's too early. Too uncertain. But I wanted to."
"Why didn't you?"
"Because then it would be real. I'd have to explain—" I gestured vaguely at everything around us. "All of this. And I don't know how to explain something I don't understand myself."
He was quiet for a moment. "What don't you understand?"
"How I got here. How I went from a life that made sense to—" I laughed, a broken sound. "To being pregnant with the child of a man I've known for a month. A man whose family killed my father. A man who lives in the exact world I spent twelve years running from."
"Do you regret it?"
I thought about the life I'd had before—the apartment, the practice, the careful loneliness I'd cultivated like a garden. Safe. Controlled. Empty.
"No," I admitted. "That's what scares me. I should regret it. Everything about this situation is insane. But when I'm with you—" I stopped, struggling to find the words. "It doesn't feel insane. It feels like the first real thing I've had in years."
He moved off the arm of the chair and knelt in front of me, his hands on my knees. "Keira."
"Don't." I held up a hand. "Don't say something romantic. I can't handle romantic right now."
"I wasn't going to say something romantic."
"What were you going to say?"
"That you're overthinking this." His eyes met mine, steady and sure.
"You do that. You analyze everything, try to understand it from every angle, figure out what it means.
And sometimes that's useful. But sometimes—" He reached up, tucked a strand of hair behind my ear.
"Sometimes you just have to feel it. Without understanding. Without knowing where it leads."
"That's terrifying."
"I know."
"I don't know how to do that."
"Neither do I." He smiled, and it transformed his face—made him look younger, softer, like the man I'd glimpsed in our therapy sessions before everything fell apart. "But I'm willing to figure it out. If you are."
I looked at him for a long moment. This man who was somehow both a stranger and the most intimate person in my life. Who had seen me at my most vulnerable and hadn't flinched. Who was offering me something I'd never let myself want.
"Okay," I said quietly. "I'm willing."
He kissed me then. Soft at first, gentle, like he was asking permission. I answered by threading my fingers through his hair and pulling him closer.
The kiss deepened. His hands slid up my thighs, gripping my hips, pulling me to the edge of the chair. I could feel the heat of him through his clothes, the solid strength of his body, the way he held himself back even as his breath came faster.
"We should move to the bedroom," I murmured against his lips.
"We should."
Neither of us moved. His mouth found my neck, teeth grazing the sensitive skin below my ear, and I arched into him with a gasp.
"Rodion—"
"I know." But he didn't stop. His hands were under my shirt now, sliding up my ribs, his thumbs brushing the undersides of my breasts. "Tell me to stop."
"I don't want you to stop."
"Then stop talking."
He stood in one fluid motion, pulling me up with him, and before I could catch my breath, he was lifting me. I wrapped my legs around his waist instinctively, and he carried me out of the study and down the hall, his mouth never leaving mine.
The bedroom door was open. He kicked it shut behind us and pressed me against it, the cool wood against my back a sharp contrast to the heat of his body against my front.
"I've been thinking about this all day," he said against my throat. "Watching you work, seeing you handle everything with that calm professionalism, knowing what you look like when you come apart."
"That's very distracting for you."
"Extremely."
He pulled back long enough to strip off my shirt, then my bra, leaving me bare from the waist up. His eyes raked over me with an appreciation that made my skin flush.
"Beautiful," he said. "Every time, you're more beautiful than I remembered."
"Flattery won't get you—"
He silenced me with his mouth, one hand coming up to cup my breast, his thumb circling my nipple until it peaked under his touch. I moaned into the kiss, my hips rocking against him, seeking the friction I desperately needed.
He carried me to the bed and laid me down, following me onto the mattress. His weight pressed me into the sheets as he kissed his way down my neck, my collarbone, the valley between my breasts. His mouth closed over one nipple, sucking hard, and I cried out, my back arching off the bed.
"More," I gasped. "I need more."
"Patience."
"I don't have any patience."
"I've noticed." But he was smiling as he said it, and his hands were already working at the button of my pants, pulling them down along with my underwear until I was completely naked beneath him.
He sat back on his heels, still fully clothed, and just looked at me. The vulnerability of being exposed while he remained covered should have bothered me. Instead, it sent a wave of heat through my core.
"You're overdressed," I said.
"Am I?"
"Very."
He made no move to remedy the situation. Instead, he traced his fingers up my inner thigh, stopping just short of where I needed him most.
"Rodion."
"Yes?"
"Stop teasing me."