Chapter 24
EVA
“You think you’re about ten weeks along?”
The OB/GYN peers over her glasses at the monitor, scanning my chart. I’d spent fifteen minutes in the waiting room, surrounded by other women in various stages of pregnancy, filling out page after page of questions. Yet she asks me the same ones I’d already answered.
“Around there.”
The doctor’s gaze slides from the screen to me. “How long have you known?” she asks. The way she’s assessing me says there’s a right way and a wrong way to answer, and I don’t know which is which.
“I think I was about seven or eight weeks? Maybe a little less?”
The doctor’s mouth purses, and she looks at me over her glasses the same way she did my chart. “You’re supposed to come in at seven weeks so we can make sure everything looks good with the pregnancy, that it isn’t tubal, and to start vitamins. I assume you’re not taking prenatals?”
One thin brow arches, and I want to snap, of course I am.
Except I’m not.
“No.”
The look the doctor gives me says she didn’t think so, and she turns her attention back to the computer. She types notes into my chart slowly and deliberately.
“I’ve been busy.”
The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them, but the excuse sounds as lame coming out as it had in my head.
I didn’t want to tell her the real reason, that I’ve been trying my best to pretend I’m not pregnant at all, that the sickness in the afternoon is stress.
Maybe if I ignored the problem, it would go away.
And I certainly can’t tell her the baby’s father is a Russian mob boss, or that I waited until he was out of town to go to the doctor so he wouldn’t find out.
Except now the morning sickness I thought was mild is ramping up. It’s so bad in the middle of the afternoon that I have to tell Evgeny not to disturb me so I can throw my guts up in private for an hour.
Alona knows. I’m sure of it. She brings me tea and crackers daily, silent as I heave up the little I’ve eaten. Both help settle my stomach so I can go on pretending I’m okay for the rest of the day. And I’m pretty sure the older woman hasn’t told a soul. Yet, anyway.
I don’t know how much longer I can keep this a secret.
The OB/GYN gets up from her stool and crosses the room to retrieve a rolling cart with an instrument and a small monitor. “We’re going to do an ultrasound to check the baby and make sure everything looks good.”
“Okay.”
“And then I’ll give you a prescription for prenatals, although you can take whatever brand you want as long as it contains folic acid and not a lot of sugar, and order blood tests for you. Have you ever had genetic testing done?”
“No.”
The rush of information whirls around my head as the doctor has me lie back on the upright end of the exam table and lift my shirt.
“This is going to be cold,” she warns, but I barely feel it as she squirts gel onto my still-flat stomach.
My mind is still stuck on the genetic testing question. Do I need to get it done? Does Evgeny need it, with known issues in his family’s imperial history?
Jesus, this kid is half Evgeny and three-quarters Russian, with ties to the last Russian dynasty and Queen Victoria herself. Never mind their father’s occupation, both legal and illicit.
What the hell am I doing bringing a kid with all that on their shoulders into the world?
“Okay. Let’s see what we see.”
I gulp as the doctor sets the wand on my abdomen. At first I hear a soft whooshing, like ocean waves, followed by a steady pulse.
“Is that—”
“The baby.”
The doctor smiles for the first time since she walked into the room, and a sense of wonder creeps in with the fear.
There really is a baby in there, a growing being I can hear.
The doctor lets me listen a moment more, then pauses when the sound shifts. It’s as if the baby’s heart has an echo. Her brow wrinkles, and she cocks her head, listening hard. She stares at the screen in front of her, which is still turned away from me.
I almost ask her if everything is okay, or if the sound means bad news. But I’m too afraid to ask, too afraid to know.
“Well, that’s interesting.” The OB/GYN shifts the screen so I can finally see it.
“What’s interesting?” I gulp.
“It looks like you’re having twins. See?” She points to the screen.
At the word twins, my brain stops.
“Do twins run in your family? Or your partner’s family?” the doctor asks, calm as ever, as if she announces multiple babies to expectant mothers all the time.
“No,” I manage faintly, my brain still stuck. “Not on my side, anyway. I’m not sure about the father’s side.”
A prickle hits the backs of my eyes without warning, swelling into a thickness in my throat and a burn in my nose before I’m gulping back tears. I can’t force them away fast enough, and they slip down my cheeks, turning into a torrent and leaving me a sobbing mess.
What do I really know about Evgeny? How will he react to the news? Does he want children? Will he turn me out, leaving me to raise two children on my own? Will he take them from me and raise them to become Bratva leaders like he is?
The doctor hands me a tissue without a word, and I only cry harder.
My panic spirals wide to include the disastrous morning. With Evgeny out of town for some kind of Bratva business back East, I’ve finally taken myself to the doctor. Alone. But not before going to my family home to fight it out with Jordan.
The kid is a mess. I told him I was tired of saving his ass, that it was time to pull himself out of it. Jordan got defensive and mean, and I told him I was done. He couldn’t keep doing this to our family, to me. I’d tried everything, but I couldn’t do it anymore.
It was the wrong thing to say, coming from a place of anger and frustration and pregnancy hormones. Jordan had cursed me out and stormed from the house.
To make things worse, I’d gone downstairs to leave for my appointment only to be confronted yet again by my father, telling me to break it off with Evgeny.
He said maybe I, growing up safe in L.A.
, didn’t understand what Evgeny is. But he’d been in Russia and knew what the Bratva are about.
He promised me that Evgeny would never change.
Whatever I thought was going on, whatever feelings I thought he had for me, I was wrong about him.
Evgeny only cares for the power and the vows of brotherhood he took, including forsaking family.
It’s been one hell of a day, and it’s barely noon.
“Twins aren’t all that rough,” the doctor soothes as she hands me another tissue, assuming that’s what I’m crying about. “You’ll figure it out. All moms do.”
I nod, scrubbing my face with the wadded-up ball of tissues crushed in my hand. Then I listen as the doctor gives me instructions, explains warning signs of trouble that make my anxiety skyrocket, writes a prescription for prenatals, and orders the blood tests.
When she’s done, I run as fast and as far as possible from that office, wanting to put distance between all the truths and questions that had flooded me throughout the half-hour appointment.
Only a half hour, and my life will never, ever be the same.
There’s one more life-changing event I have to get through today. I know it’s time to tell Evgeny, whatever the consequences. I walk through the door, hoping he’s already home, since his plane had landed and was waiting for a taxi the last time we spoke.
When I get back to the estate, there are multiple missed calls and a message from Jordan on my phone. It’s been hours since he called. I’d been too caught up in my problems to check, and fear grips me as I listen to the message.
“Eva? Eva, I did something bad. Really bad. I told a secret I shouldn’t have to a guy I’m in debt to. I think he’s going to kill me. Please help me. Come get me. I’m sorry. I promise I’ll go straight. Just please come help me.”
I can hear the tears in my little brother’s voice even through the recording, the panic, the fear.
“Please, Eva. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Please come—”
The message cuts off, and I can’t call him back fast enough, my heart pounding and hands shaking. The first call rings until it goes to voicemail. So do the second and the third, until I feel sick.
“Come on, Jordan. Answer the damn phone!”
My fourth call goes to voicemail, too, my plea unanswered.
“Eva?”
My nerves ready to explode, I nearly screech at the sound of my name.
Vasya stands in the hallway, hair a mess as if he’s just woken up. “Is everything okay?”
“No.” More tears spill over, and Vasya’s image blurs. “Something’s happened to Jordan. He called, and he was scared, and I can’t get ahold of him now…”
“Let’s go.” Vasya doesn’t need to hear any more to jump into action. “Let’s go. Do you know where he is?”
“He texted me an address.” I look it up as I hurry after Vasya.
“I’ll take you to him.”
I feel the tears well again, panic thrumming through me until I feel sick with it.