Chapter 40
NATALIA
Itell Leks my news the night before he’s flying back to Russia to get Leonid. The Pakhan is letting him use the private jet, so we’re hoping he’ll be back in a week. I selfishly hope so, though I’ll understand even if it takes him months.
“I think I’m pregnant,” I confess as I climb into bed beside him.
My period, normally like clockwork, is already two weeks late. I’ve pushed it out of my mind, worried that it was too much to deal with when we already have one child to look after.
This morning, I couldn’t handle the curiosity anymore, so I went to the drugstore while Leks thought I was in the art studio. Then, the nerves took over, and I realized I couldn’t do it alone.
His reaction is immediate, his hands pulling me close. “Have you taken a test yet?”
I shake my head.
“Do it right now,” he growls, his tone suddenly urgent. “Zolotse, I need to know if this is the first night that I’m going to fuck my pregnant wife.”
I go to the bathroom and pee on the stick, then come to sit beside Leks on the bed. His hand wraps in mine and he pulls me onto his lap while we wait, his hands tracing lazy patterns on my skin.
We don’t say a word, but the second my phone timer sounds, both our eyes flick to the test.
“Ready?”
He nods.
I flip over the test to see two pink lines. One second later, I’m pinned on the bed beneath him.
His midnight-blue eyes are dark with satisfaction. As he kisses his way down my body, over my lower belly, he lets out a low growl before his mouth makes me see stars.
“I won’t go,” he tells me later that night. “I don’t want to leave you like this.”
“Don’t you remember what I said? I meant it, Aleksandr.”
“We don’t know how long I’ll be gone.”
I point to my belly. “This baby is not yours unless you prove you can look after the one you already have.”
He looks sheepish, raking a hand through his dark hair. “But I’ll miss you,” he protests.
“So either take me with you or face the consequences.”
His face darkens. Leks has steadfastly refused to take me to Russia on this trip. He doesn’t want to associate me with his memories of the Ivanov Center.
“I can’t,” his throat bobs. “I’m sorry. I just can’t.”
“Then it looks like your mind is made up.”
“Fine, but I’m not leaving you here alone.”
That’s how I end up with Yuri as a live-in bodyguard while Leks is away.
I throw open the door before they even knock. It only took five days for Leks to find his son and return to me.
Thank God. I missed him so much.
I’ve had Yuri watch the CCTV all day so he can tell me the second that Leks’s car pulls up outside.
A five-year-old version of Leks walks through the door and launches into a formal introduction in Russian.
I pull him into a hug before he can finish and he freezes up like he’s never had a hug before.
“It’s so lovely to meet you, Leonid.” I press a kiss to his cheek.
I don’t care if I’m being too American and effusive right now. This boy deserves love.
“And is it lovely to see me, too?” Leks asks.
I narrow my eyes at him, straightening to my full height. “I guess you can be trusted to look after children,” I tell him as he pulls me into a kiss.
Later that night, Leks explains what happened. Leonid’s mother, Yulia, died in the fire at the asylum. The one that Leks started.
I’d expected him to look regretful at this, but he only looks relieved. I imagine it is something like the way I felt when my father died. The demon is dead, even if her spirit will haunt him forever.
Leonid has spent the last three months being looked after by the cook from Yulia’s household, a kind but poor Russian woman who’s told him a lot of scary Siberian folk tales.
“He was lucky,” Leks says. “It could have been so much worse than a few nightmares.”
I don’t think I would describe Leonid as lucky. Every night he wakes up screaming in his sleep.
We pull him into our bed to read him less terrifying bedtime stories.
The poor kid has been through more than any five-year-old should. Three months without either of his parents, knowing that his mother was dead and not knowing where his father was.
Utterly abandoned and alone.
I don’t hug Leonid again, understanding that he might need his space.
One night, of his own accord, he snuggles himself against me while we’re reading him a bedtime story. I wrap my arm over him and try to hold back my tears. I’ve always cried easily, but now that I’m pregnant I may as well be the waterworks.
“I like you better than my other Mommy,” he whispers and my heart breaks for him.
If anyone knows what it’s like to have a cruel parent, it’s me. I only hope that I can be enough for him.
“Do you want to hear something exciting, Leonid?”
He nods up at me, his blue eyes huge. So much like Leks — but without any of the harshness that Leks has developed as a protective mechanism. He’ll never have to go through what Leks did.
Leonid has a family who will love him and protect him.
I place his hand on my belly. “You’re going to have a baby brother or sister.”
He gives a gasp of excitement. “I have always wanted a sibling. Can I choose the name?”
I let out a laugh. “Well, that depends. What do you want to call your sibling?”
He thinks for a second. “Potato,” he says gravely.
I ruffle his hair. “If you can convince your Daddy, we’ll think about it.”
Leks makes a noise of outrage. “Oh, so you’re making me be the bad guy here?”
He wraps an arm around his son, too. “We’re not calling your sibling Potato. Sorry.”
“What about Carrot?”
Leks chuckles. “Well, maybe if they have red hair.”
A warm, overwhelming sensation settles in my stomach. It’s a kind of steadiness, a certainty in the knowledge that these people will always be here for me.
I’d thought I had family before — but this is different. This is a kind of joy I haven’t felt since my brothers were alive.
Leks’s hand stills on me when he sees my face. “Is something wrong?” he asks, kissing away a tear.
“No,” I whisper, tracing my hand over his stubbly jaw. “I’m just really happy.”