Chapter 48 Dimitri
DIMITRI
The living room floor was covered with opened Christmas presents and bits of colorful wrapping paper.
Noodle and Vovk lay by the fireplace in their matching green sweaters.
Clementine snoozed in her dad’s arms. Christmas songs and the scent of fresh-baked cookies lingered in the air.
This house had never before been so vibrant and alive, and it was all because of the woman sandwiched between Juliet and Sofiya on the couch across from me.
Sienna’s laughter filled the room and made my chest hurt.
She was practically glowing. Her hair was thick and shiny, her cheeks pink as she trailed her fingers over her rounded belly.
The thick candy cane sweater Sofiya had crocheted obscured her bump a bit, but not completely.
It had grown so much bigger over the past two weeks.
I had memorized the daily changes in the size of her belly as I watched her through the house cameras and nurtured my self-loathing.
Now, she was just a few feet away, but she might as well be across the ocean.
I fucking missed her.
Romeo sat in the chair beside me, babbling about something to Dante, but I tuned him out so I could hear the girls’ conversation.
“Come on, baby Burrito. Will you move for us?” Sofiya cooed, her hand pressed to Sienna’s belly.
“Oohh,” Sienna said, moving Sofiya’s hand to another spot. “Did you feel that?”
“No.” Sofiya huffed and sat back with a disappointed pout.
I froze. Sienna could feel the baby move? Since when?
“What does it feel like?” Juliet asked.
“Like a little alien creature.” There was pure affection in my wife’s voice.
“It’s such a weird feeling at first,” Sofiya said. “But I loved it. It makes it feel real.” Sofiya smiled at her sleeping daughter. “Does your doctor want you to continue seeing maternal fetal medicine?”
“No, they said I don’t need to since Baby’s heart looked perfect on the second scan.” She smiled at her belly, looking perfectly at ease, but static filled my ears.
“What?” I barked, cutting through the chatter in the room. “What’s wrong with the baby’s heart?”
Sofiya’s brow furrowed in utter confusion. “What do you mean?” She glanced back at Sienna. “What does he mean?”
Sienna’s eyes flashed to my face for the briefest moment, and my heart stopped at the raw pain I found there.
She quickly masked it with a flawless smile and a little wave of her hand.
“Nothing’s wrong,” she said soothingly. “Dimitri wasn’t able to come with me to the anatomy scan, and I didn’t want to worry him when the doctor was so confident everything would be okay. ”
Sofiya was not placated. Her eyes bore into me like daggers, but then Clementine started crying and her attention flew to her daughter. The Mafia Don walked over to his wife, running his fingers through her hair before leaning down to kiss her forehead.
I shifted my weight, my skin crawling with the urge to pull Sienna into my arms. But since I had given up that right, I was left to pull out my phone and search anatomy scan. My heart pounded so fast I felt like I was on the verge of passing out the further I read.
A comprehensive ultrasound that measures a developing baby’s organs…high-risk pregnancies are referred to maternal fetal medicine for advanced monitoring.
While everyone was distracted, I slipped into the bathroom. I sat on the closed toilet seat, head in my hands. Pressure built in my chest until my breaths were ragged and wheezing, and the edges of my vision grew dark.
I hadn’t protected her.
Sienna must have been so scared. Not only was she physically carrying our child, she had carried the weight of knowing something could have been wrong. And where had I been?
Not fucking there. I had pushed her away with my cruelty because of my fear that she would do something to jeopardize my family’s safety when she was the one in danger.
I logged into the app that held Sienna’s medical chart with shaking hands and scrolled through the appointment notes for the first time.
Unable to obtain clear scan of heart, likely due to position of fetus. Referral made to maternal fetal medicine for fetal echocardiogram to rule out heart concerns, including VSD.
I slumped to the floor. It felt like I was breathing out of a straw, slowly suffocating on the cold bathroom tiles.
Waking nightmares flashed before my eyes until I no longer saw the bathroom.
I was transported to the past, to that dark, ice-cold night with its cracked concrete floors covered in her blood.