ELENA
Isit on the edge of the bed with the bag dumped open beside me, and for one stupid second, I keep staring at the lining as if the paper may crawl back from wherever it went.
Lipstick. Receipt. Keys. Tissue. No tiny perfume bottle, because I already gave it to Maksim and he took it with that look on his face. The printout is gone.
I pick up the bag and shake it once. Nothing falls except a wrapped mint and a coin that rolls under the bed. I drop to my knees fast, and pain tugs through my ribs, but I reach under the bed anyway. My fingers close around dust, the coin, and the parquet floor. No paper.
“Damn it,” I whisper, and my voice comes out thin enough to make me angry.
I check the bag again, slower this time. I run my fingers along the seams and press the lining flat. I unzip the inside pocket and turn it inside out. I pull apart every receipt, open every folded tissue, and shake the bakery napkins over the blanket.
I rack my brain and try to see the evening as it was when I walked in. The kitchen smelled of butter, onions, and fresh bread, Mrs. Wentworth asked about tea, and Maksim was by the counter, slicing mushrooms while wearing that look he saves for me when I come back late.
I had the printout then. I’m almost sure I did. My stomach tightens.
I cross to the wardrobe and pull open the drawer under the sweaters, pushing through the neat stacks, then move to the bathroom and shut the door behind me.
I open the cabinet, then the drawer under the basin, checking places I know make no sense because my hands won’t stop.
Nothing. My breath slips, and I grip the edge of the sink.
Think. The word lands in Maksim’s voice, and I hate him for it, and myself for hearing it.
The printout is just paper, one thin clinic sheet with the scan image at the top and the prescription beneath it. Folic acid every day. No alcohol. No raw fish. No heavy lifting. Call a doctor for bleeding, severe pain, fever, fainting, or anything that feels wrong.
Then the tiny measurement under the scan. And my note.
Seven weeks. Sweet pea.
I folded it small, tucked it into the lining of my bag, and brought it back with my pulse beating too fast. I could have thrown it away after memorizing the medical parts.
I kept it anyway.
The scan looked clinical. The report could expose me. But that one stupid sheet gave the baby a size I could understand, small enough to picture in my hand.
My hand moves to my stomach. There’s nothing there yet. No proof under my palm. Nothing Maksim can see unless I give myself away. He sat across from me last night, poured vodka for himself, and noticed when I covered my glass. He asked no second question, but he noticed. He always notices.
Now he may have the paper. My throat tightens, and I unlock the bathroom door before I can stand there any longer.
A knock lands at the door.
I freeze.
“Elena?” Mrs. Wentworth calls from the hall. “Would you prefer tea brought up, or are you coming down?”
I shove everything into the bottom drawer under a sweater, then stand with my hands at my sides. “I’m coming down.”
There’s a pause. “Are you unwell?”
“No. I’m looking for something.”
“Shall I send Lidiya?”
“No,” I say too fast, then make myself slow down. “No, thank you. I made a mess. I’ll find it.”
“As you wish.”
Her footsteps move away. Mrs. Wentworth survived a breach, hid in a supply cage, and still knows when to stop asking questions.
I take out my phone and call the pharmacy.
“Did I leave a printout there this morning?” I ask. “A printout of a scan. Folded.”
A pause. Then, “No, madam. We haven’t found anything.”
“Check again,” I say, then make myself ease back. “Please.”
Another pause. “Nothing here.”
I end the call and stand there with the phone in my hand.
This secret has had days to settle into me.
It changes what I eat, what I refuse, where I stand, how I sleep, and how I let Maksim touch me.
It was there in the safehouse, in the car back to the estate, in the legal room while I traced Sergei’s gaps and let Maksim think the worst thing my father left behind was paper.
If Maksim finds out from a missing clinic sheet, there will be no careful way to tell him. No steady voice. No right moment.
He’ll see the dates, the vitamins, the foods to avoid, and the warning signs.
Then he’ll see the scan. He’ll know I knew when men dragged me through the estate.
I knew when he carried me out, and when he changed my dressings with hands that stayed careful even when his face didn’t.
I slept with him after the safehouse and still kept the truth locked behind my teeth.
And I don’t know which part will hurt him worse.
He won’t read that as fear first. He’ll read it as a risk.
I stand because sitting is useless, then check the hallway.
No one is outside my door. My grip tightens around the bag.
I go downstairs, moving fast enough that my ribs remind me who owns the pain today.
The hall is busy. Guards stand in the side corridor.
A maid carries linens with both arms tight against her chest. Lidiya comes out of the sitting room with a tray and stops when she sees my face.
“Miss Sokolov?”
“Did anyone pick up paper from my bag?”
Her eyes widen, then she looks at the purse in my hand. “No, Miss.”
“From the kitchen last night? From the hallway?”
“I didn’t.”
“Think.”
She swallows. “Mrs. Wentworth cleared the plates. I took the bakery bags this morning. Mr. Volkov carried one bag upstairs after you left the kitchen, but I don’t know which one.”
The floor drops under my feet for half a second, and I catch the wall before my knees can embarrass me.
Lidiya reaches out. “Miss?”
“I’m fine.”
“You look pale.”
Everyone in this house needs to stop saying that word.
“Where is he?” I ask.
“Study, I think. Or the legal room. Leonid came in with new registry copies.”
In the legal room, I pause with my hand near the handle.
Voices come through the door. Maksim’s, controlled and flat. Leonid’s, careful. Another man answers about registrar access and emergency filings. Paper moves across the table. A chair scrapes.
I can still turn around.
I can go back upstairs, search again, and pretend the paper slipped behind the cabinet or stayed in the bakery bag. I can buy ten more minutes, get one more breath before this becomes his problem, his order, his doctor, his version of survival.
The door opens before I touch it.
Leonid steps out with a folder under his arm, and his face changes when he sees me. He moves aside at once. “Elena.”
Inside, Maksim stands at the far end of the table, now littered with open ledgers, stamped folders, clipped contracts, and a clerk bent over the page Maksim is dictating.
Maksim turns when the door opens. His mouth tightens, and he stops mid-sentence. He flicks two fingers toward the door.
“Out.”
The clerk lifts his pen from the page, looks from me to Maksim, then gathers his notebook and hurries past me. The door shuts behind him. Now it’s only us, the table, and everything I came here to lose.
Maksim doesn’t move. He holds the printout in one hand.
My whole body goes cold, and for a second, every word I know disappears. The paper looks small in his grip, creased at the fold, with the clinic header visible above the list I had memorized.
He hasn’t torn it or crushed it. His face is calm in the worst possible way. His shoulders are squared, his mouth set, and his eyes stay on mine without warmth. He’s furious. I can see it in how still he stands, in how carefully he holds the paper, in the space he leaves between us.
He’s waiting for me to speak first.
“Maksim,” I say, and his name barely clears my throat.
His hand tightens once around the paper. The black ink at his wrist bends near the scar, the same ink that moved against my skin when his hand covered my stomach.
He looks down at the printout, then back at me.
“How long?” he asks.
My lips part, but nothing comes out.
He takes one step around the table, slow and controlled, and every inch he closes feels earned by every lie I told. “You went to a clinic.”
I grip the back of the nearest chair. “I had to.”
“You had to.”
“Yes.”
His eyes flick down my body once, and the look lands on my stomach before coming back to my face. “You had my guard outside the door while you confirmed my child.”
The words hit so hard that I feel them in my teeth.
“I didn’t know how to tell you.”
His eyes stay on my face, dark, hard, and unblinking. “No,” he says, and there’s no heat in it. “You knew exactly how to tell me. You chose not to.”
I shake my head, and my hand slides to my stomach before I can stop it. His eyes catch the movement, and the last of his stillness fractures. He comes closer, the printout in his hand, his face carved into something I’ve seen turned on other men and never on me.
“Elena,” he says, looking me dead in the eye. “Explain yourself.”