Chapter Twenty-Four
Arkady
Pregnant.
I can’t process it. Can’t make it fit with reality.
Another baby. Another child. I’m going to be a father of two.
Bozhe moi.
“How far along?” The question comes out rough. Too loud.
“Four or five months.” Her voice is small. Uncertain.
Four or five months. She’s been carrying my child for almost half the pregnancy, and I didn’t know. Didn’t notice. Too wrapped up in my own shit to see what was right in front of me.
The timeline clicks into place. Five months ago, we were still dancing around each other. Then she was in my bed. And all this time she’s been pregnant, terrified, planning her escape.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask. Even though I already know. Even though the answer’s obvious.
Her eyes flash. “Tell you? Really?”
“Mirabel—”
“The very first thing I heard from you—before I even met you in person—was you telling your fiancée that you never wanted kids. Two minutes before your wedding, Arkady. Two minutes.” Her voice cracks.
“And then you walked away from Rosanna at the altar because she was pregnant. You chose nothing over becoming a father.”
Every word lands where it should. In the places that already hurt.
“And then I find out you have a woman and a baby hidden in your house?” She’s crying harder now, angry tears.
“All this time, I thought you had a secret wife and child. That you were lying about everything. How could I stay? How could I keep working for you and sleeping with you when I didn’t know what was real? ”
Chert voz’mi.
She’s right. Completely, devastatingly right.
What she doesn’t know is why. Why I hid Debra. Why I took Aleks. Why I’m so fucked up about fatherhood that I ran from one pregnancy, and now I’m drowning in two.
“I was going to tell you,” I say. “About Debra. When she was ready. When I thought—” I stop. Press my palms against my eyes. “She has PTSD. Severe. She’s still in treatment. Dr. Harrison comes three times a week, and some days Debra can’t even leave her bed without dissociating.”
Mirabel’s watching me. Listening. Not interrupting.
“I didn’t know how to tell you,” I continue.
“Didn’t know when the right time was. Debra needed space to heal before I threw her twin sister at her.
And you—” I look at her. Hold her gaze. “You would have wanted to fix her. Would have pushed too hard, too fast because that’s what you do. You care too much.”
“So you decided for me.” Her voice is flat. “Decided I couldn’t handle it.”
“Yes.” Honesty. All I have left. “I decided for you. I was wrong.”
She nods slowly. Processing.
“And Aleks?” She wipes her face with her sleeve. “The baby?”
“Aleks is the baby Rosanna was pregnant with. At the wedding.”
Her eyes widen. “Where is she? Rosanna?”
“Gone.”
The word hangs there. Heavy.
“Gone? Gone where?”
“Dead.” I force it out. “Car accident. She was clinically depressed. Had been for years. There are suspicions that it wasn’t an accident. That she—” I stop. Swallow. “That she chose it.”
Mirabel stares at me. Searching my face for the lie. For the manipulation. She won’t find it.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers.
“Me too.”
We stand there in the garden. The afternoon light going dim through the trees. Her packed bag still on the flagstones between us. My child growing inside her. Debra somewhere in the house with another child that may or may not be mine.
Everything’s a mess. My entire life is one massive fuck-up, and I’ve dragged Mirabel into the center of it.
“Come with me.” I gesture toward the house. “We need to talk. Really talk. No more bullshit.”
She hesitates. I can see her weighing it. Stay and listen, or grab her bag and run.
Please don’t run.
After a long moment, she nods. “Okay.”
I lead her to the sitting room off the main hallway. Small space. Private. No windows overlooking the garden where anyone could see in.
I close the door. Lock it.
She sits on the sofa. Perched on the edge like she might bolt. Her hands twist together in her lap.
I move to the bar cart. “I have water. Coffee. Or—” I eye the bottles lined up. “Something stronger, but you probably shouldn’t.”
“Water’s fine.”
I pour her a glass from the pitcher. Pour myself three fingers of vodka. I need it. My hands are shaking.
I hand her the water. Raise my glass. “Za vas.”
She doesn’t toast back. Just watches me knock back the vodka in one swallow. The burn does nothing to steady my nerves.
I set the glass down. Turn to face her. “I need to come clean. About everything. No more secrets. No more lies.”
She nods. Waiting.
Fuck, I don’t know how to do this. Where do I even start?
At the beginning, mudak. With the thing that broke you.
“When I was thirteen, I killed my younger brother.”
Her eyes go wide. I keep talking before I can lose my nerve.
“His name was Mikhail. Mishka. He was ten.” The words scrape out. “We were playing with my father’s guns. I thought the safety was on. It wasn’t. I accidentally pulled the trigger and—”
I stop. Breathe.
“He died in my arms. Blood everywhere.”
Mirabel’s hand goes to her mouth.
“My mother never forgave me. Every look said ‘murderer.’ Said I killed her favorite.” The old anger surfaces. Hot. Bitter. “She withered away. Faded. Six months later, she walked into the ocean. They found her body three days later.”
“Arkady—”
“So I killed them both.” I cut her off. “Mishka and my mother. Two deaths on my hands before I turned fourteen. And my father—” I spit the word. “Blamed me for everything. Punished me. Made sure I knew exactly what I’d taken from him.”
I move to the window. Stare out at nothing. Can’t look at her while I say the rest.
“Gavriil runs human trafficking operations. Has for decades. Young girls. Little more than children. He kidnaps them, breaks them, ships them overseas to men who pay top dollar for virgins.”
Behind me, I hear her sharp intake of breath.
“I’ve hated it for years. Fought with him about it.
Built my own operations separate from his.
Tried to end his business. But he’s powerful.
What he says goes.” I turn back to her. “Recently, I found out he was running a new pipeline. Local girls this time. Stefan’s daughter went missing. That’s when I knew I had to act.”
“Stefan?” Her voice is small.
“My second-in-command. You’ve seen him around here.”
“The one with the tattoos on his head?” Her eyes are wide. “I saw him in the woods that day. I thought he took Debra.”
Something clicks into place.
Fuck. She’s been carrying this, too. No wonder she’s been so freaked out.
“Stefan’s one of mine. Was trying to stop the kidnapping that night. But you saw him and assumed—” I shake my head. “Wrong place, wrong time. Debra was taken that night. By my father’s men. And then he kept her.”
Mirabel’s crying again. Silent tears streaming down her face.
“I didn’t know.” The admission is like a lump in my chest. “I swear to God I didn’t know she was there.
If I had, I would have—” I stop, hating myself for not having found all of them.
“I shut down his operation that night. Thought it was over. But when I found out he’d started up again, I raided his estate.
We pulled out twenty-eight girls from his cellar. Debra was one of them.”
“Twenty-eight,” she whispers.
“Twenty-eight we saved. God knows how many we didn’t.
” The guilt sits like concrete in my gut.
“I found Debra in the living room. Gavriil was—” The memory makes me sick.
“He was using her. She looked exactly like you, and I thought for a second—” I shake my head.
“Doesn’t matter. I got her out. Brought her here.
Set her up with therapy, medication, security. Everything she needs to heal.”
Mirabel’s staring at her hands. Processing.
“There’s more,” I say. “Rosanna’s father, Sergei Tulikov. He came after me when I humiliated his daughter at the altar. Threatened you. Used Mishka’s death as leverage.” I bite down hard. “I killed him.”
She looks up fast. Eyes wide.
“It was self-defense. Mostly.” It feels like a lie, even though it’s technically the truth.
“But it was also calculated. He was a threat, and I eliminated him. And when Rosanna found out her father was dead—” I stop.
Breathe. “She was already depressed. Already fragile. But losing him pushed her over the edge. And when she turned to me, I pushed her away. So her death—the baby being motherless—that’s on me too. ”
“Aleks,” Mirabel says softly.
“Aleks.” I nod. “I don’t know for sure if he’s mine. The timing works, but Rosanna—” I stop. Wave it off. “Doesn’t matter. I killed his grandfather. I refused to marry his mother. I’m the reason she’s dead, even if I didn’t pull the trigger. So he’s my responsibility now. My son, blood or not.”
The room falls silent. Just the sound of her breathing. The tick of the clock on the mantle. The distant sound of birds outside.
There. I’ve laid it all out. Every sin. Every secret. Every piece of darkness I carry.
Now she knows who I really am.
Not the powerful businessman. Not the dangerous Bratva prince. Not the skilled lover who made her scream my name.
A killer. A liar. A man drowning in guilt and violence, who somehow thought he could have something good.
“Say something,” I hear myself say. “Please.”
She looks up at me. Eyes red-rimmed. Face pale. “I need to process this.”
Silence. Heavy. Suffocating.
“This is just too much to handle,” she says.
The words are final. Devastating.
Too much.
Of course it’s too much. What the fuck did I expect? That I’d confess to killing my brother, my mother’s suicide, human trafficking, murder—and she’d just accept it? Accept me?
I’m a fucking idiot.
She’s carrying my child, and I’ve just given her every reason to run. To pack that bag sitting in the garden and disappear. Take my baby and build a life somewhere I can’t touch it. Can’t ruin it the way I ruin everything else.
And the worst part? She should.
She should run. Should take our child far away from me and my father and the Bratva and all the violence that comes with it.
Should find some normal man with a normal job who doesn’t have blood on his hands.
Who won’t teach their child how to kill.
Who won’t pass down trauma like it’s a family heirloom.
But the thought of losing her—losing them both—is unacceptable to me.
I’ve lost everyone. Mishka. My mother. Rosanna in a different way. Every person I’ve ever cared about has either died or been destroyed by proximity to me.
And now Mirabel.
The only woman who ever saw through my bullshit and still chose to stay. The only person who made me think I could be something other than what my father made me.
She’s going to leave.
And I’ll let her. Because that’s what you do when you love someone. You let them go. You let them save themselves.
Even if it kills you.
“Da. Take your time,” I manage. My voice sounds like gravel. “Take as long as you need.”
She nods. Doesn’t look at me.
I stand there like an idiot. Waiting for something. Forgiveness? Understanding? Some sign that she won’t disappear?
But she just sits. Staring at her hands. Processing the magnitude of what I’ve just unloaded on her.
I should leave. Give her space. Let her think without me hovering like some desperate pizda.
But my feet won’t move.
Because the moment I walk out that door, this ends. Whatever we had—whatever we could have had—it’s over. And I’ll spend the rest of my life wondering what our child looks like. If they have her eyes or mine. If they’re smart like her or fucked up like me.
Blyad.
I’m going to lose everything.
Again.