Chapter Twenty-One #3
That’s a terrible thing to do. Audacity opposed the motion. We’re not leaving here without that strip. We’ve been caught already. What’s the worst thing that’s gonna happen?
“Listen, Yelena, um…” I began, my eyes locked on hers. “This is embarrassing.” A nervous chuckle slipped out. “I need something from you.”
“From me?” She raised her brows slowly. “What…what could I possibly have that you would need?”
My throat tightened with sudden dryness. I drew closer to her and lowered my voice. “One of your pregnancy strips.”
A hint of shock crossed her face as she wondered how I knew about them.
“I kinda overheard you talking about your strip collection with the girls,” I explained.
She lowered her head, as if to hide her embarrassment. Yelena scratched the back of her head. “I promise, ma’am. It’s not what you think—I’m not weird or anything…” Her voice trailed off into silence.
“Hey, I’m not judging,” I said softly. “But I really need one of those.”
She finally met my gaze again and nodded. “Okay.”
No questions asked, she headed to the same cupboard I had checked earlier on and picked out a strip.
What the…?
“It’s been there this whole time?” I asked her, amused.
“Yes.” She curled her full lips into a faint grin.
“How come I missed it?”
She halted in front of me. “Let’s just say I’m very good at hiding stuff in plain sight.”
“Hmm. That’s true talent right there.”
She smiled, handing me the strip.
I accepted it. “Thank you.”
She hesitated. “Do you know how to use it?”
A pause.
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
I lingered a second longer than necessary. “Goodnight, Yelena—and sorry for invading your privacy.”
Her response was a bright smile. And with that, I walked out of her room, staring at the strip in my hand.
***
As early as six a.m. the next morning, I sat on the edge of the tub for a long time after, holding the test in both hands. With a racing heart, I stared at the two marks on the strip, knowing exactly what that meant.
Positive.
Under different circumstances, this would have been good news.
Except I was currently sitting alone, in a marble bathroom five floors above the ground in the house of a man who had surveilled me.
A man who lied to me, kidnapped me, and kept me prisoner.
A man who, apparently, was also the heir to a conflict with my own bloodline that I hadn’t known existed until forty minutes ago.
That’s the man whose baby I was pregnant with.
Rodion Tarasov.
How could this be good news in such a messy situation?
I set the test down on the edge of the tub, very carefully, like handling it gently would contain what it meant.
I sat with my hands in my lap and my eyes on the cold marble floor. My lips were quivering, my heart was racing, and a strange heat spread across my whole body.
Fear, anger, anxiety, and something I couldn’t yet name flooded my mind all at once.
I felt completely, utterly lost.
Not the investigative kind of lost. No. Not the kind that had a direction. Or the kind where “lost” just meant “not yet found,” and you simply kept looking until the picture resolved.
This was something older and quieter than that.
My father’s name.
The 2003 restructuring.
Rodion’s losses.
My degree.
Meridian Solutions.
The incident I witnessed.
The surveillance.
The fake identity. The office sex.
The night we fucked for the second time in this room.
Everything hit me at once.
I sat in that bathroom for a long time.
I didn’t cry. Not because I didn’t want to—God knows I did. But I couldn’t find the tears.
Underneath the shock, the grief, and the overwhelming weight of what I’d just confirmed in two separate ways that afternoon, something harder and quieter was already forming.
I was carrying his child.
I was bound to this man by blood I hadn’t known about. And now by something irreversible that hadn’t existed until a day in an office neither of us had planned on.
Now I was sitting in his house, with his rules, with his staff and his marble—trapped.
I needed to understand what he knew—when he found out in the midst of all this madness whose daughter I was.
I needed to know whether I was collateral damage from an old war or if this was planned from the start.
I picked up the test from the edge of the tub, wrapped it carefully in tissue, and buried it at the bottom of the bathroom bin beneath everything else.
Then I washed my hands and looked at my face in the mirror for a long moment. I could barely recognize the woman staring back at me. Despite all the mental and emotional stress I was going through, I seemed to be glowing more by the day.
My breasts were fuller and heavier, my twin peaks way too sensitive.
I combed my fingers through my messy blond hair and exhaled sharply.
“Whatever happens from here on now is beyond your control,” I said to the woman in the mirror. “But know this, Aria…you’ll be fine. It’ll work out in the end—I don’t know how, but it will.”
Tears streamed down my cheeks, and this time, I didn’t fight them. I let them flow, allowing the heaviness in my heart to find expression.