34. Damir
DAMIR
Maksim burns against my chest.
He’s on my lap in the back seat, wrapped in Irina’s coat because she pulled him out of bed without thinking to bring his own.
His face is red, his hair damp at the temples, and every few seconds his body gives a small, weak shiver that makes Irina press both hands over her mouth like she can hold herself together that way.
“What happened?” I ask.
Irina is sitting opposite me, pale and shaking. “I don’t know. He was fine this morning. He had breakfast, played in his room, then suddenly he said he felt cold. I touched his forehead, and he was burning.”
“When?”
“Twenty minutes ago. Maybe less.”
“What did he eat?”
“Toast. Eggs. Some fruit. The same as always.”
“Who was with him?”
“His nanny. Then me.”
I look at Nikolai in the front passenger seat. “Where is Grigori?”
“I called him,” Nikolai says. “He said he will meet us at the hospital.”
Maksim shifts against me and makes a low sound.
I look down at him. “Maksim.”
His eyelids flutter, but he doesn’t properly wake.
I put one hand against his cheek, then move it to his forehead. Too hot. Not ordinary fever hot. Fast, hard, wrong. His pulse beats too quickly under the side of his neck.
I think of Sofia’s hand over her stomach in the music room.
Our child.
The thought comes at the worst time and stays there.
A child changes the weight of everything.
Maksim is not mine, but I have carried him since he was a baby, watched him fall asleep at family dinners, listened to him argue with grown men about wooden soldiers as if his opinion controls the table.
I know the exact shape of his small hand when it grips my sleeve.
Soon there may be another child in my house.
Mine. Sofia’s.
The idea should wait.
It doesn’t.
Maksim coughs once, weakly.
Irina leans forward. “Is he breathing properly?”
“Yes,” I say, though I keep my hand on his chest to feel it for myself.
The car cuts through the road. Nikolai speaks to the driver, and the engine pushes harder.
Maksim’s fingers twitch against my shirt. I look down. There’s a strip of clear adhesive on the inside of his wrist, almost hidden below the cuff of his pajama sleeve. It’s small, medical, pressed carefully over the skin.
I peel the sleeve back. Under the adhesive is a puncture mark. A faint bruise sits beside it, the shape of fingers holding a child’s wrist still.
My body goes cold.
Irina leans forward. “What is it?”
I don’t answer. I lift Maksim’s wrist closer. There is a faint smell on the adhesive, almost stinging and chemical beneath the sweat and fever.
Sergei’s voice comes back to me. Someone has been feeding you lies.
I look up slowly. “Nikolai.”
He turns in his seat. “Yes?”
“How did Grigori know about Sofia’s attacker at the club?”
Nikolai frowns. “What?”
“I told you to keep it quiet.”
“It was quiet.”
“Then how did Grigori know?”
Nikolai’s frown deepens. “Hard to keep it quiet from someone who gave me the information.”
The car seems to lose sound for one second.
Irina says, “This is not the time for this.”
I keep looking at Nikolai. “Grigori gave you the lead?”
“Yes,” Nikolai says. “One of his people followed the man after we dumped him in the street. Grigori said the attacker ran to Sergei’s side gate.”
“And how did he manage to procure the photograph?” I say.
Nikolai frowns. “He didn’t say.”
I look down at Maksim’s wrist again. A puncture hidden under clear adhesive. A child made sick.
Grigori was the one who told us Arman’s network couriered the wedding invitation.
Grigori was the one who connected Anya to Arman, the one who stood in my study and made every line point back to Sofia.
Now his son is violently ill at the exact moment the house has emptied around my pregnant wife, and Grigori is not in the car, not with his child, but supposedly meeting us at the hospital.
I look down at Maksim’s wrist again, at the hidden puncture, the medical tape, the bruise from a controlling grip, and the fever that came too quickly to be natural.
The pattern doesn’t need to be explained now.
It’s sitting in my lap, burning and unconscious, while the woman carrying my child is locked inside a house I just left behind.
“Stop the car,” I say.
Irina jerks forward. “What are you doing?”
“Stop the car.”
The driver brakes hard near the curb. Irina grabs the seat to steady herself, her face twisting with fear as she looks at Maksim. “Damir, he needs the hospital.”
“He will get there.” I shift Maksim carefully into her arms, making sure his head is supported before I release him. She clutches him to her chest immediately, and I lean close enough that she has no choice but to hear me clearly. “Your child will be taken care of.”
“What does that mean?” she demands.
I look at Nikolai. “Take them to the hospital. Call Dr. Morozova’s pediatric team directly, they’ll take care of your every need.” Then I continue, looking at Irina. “Your son will be fine.”
Nikolai’s face changes. “I’m coming with you.”
“No.”
“You need men.”
“I need you to keep the child alive.”
He stares at me for one hard second, then reaches under his jacket and pulls out his gun. He hands it back without another word.
Irina’s eyes are wide now, the anger draining into something colder. “Damir, what is happening?”
I open the car door, then look back at her.
Maksim’s face is still red against her coat, his mouth slightly open as he struggles through the fever.
She has every right to hate me for stepping out of this car, but Sofia is alone, and every second I spend explaining may be the second Grigori uses to reach her.
“He has all my best people,” I say. “My wife has only me.”
I step out before either of them can stop me. The door shuts behind me, and the car pulls away at once, cutting back into traffic toward the city with Maksim, Irina, and Nikolai inside it.
I stand at the curb with Nikolai’s gun in my hand and the streets silent around me.
Then I turn toward the road back to the house.
“I’m coming, Sofia.”