Chapter 60 Dimitri #2
“No, malyshka.” Emotion choked me, and I cleared my throat. My instincts blared at me to lash out instead of peeling myself open. I shoved them aside and told her the truth. “I would be thrilled if we’re having a daughter.”
Her trembling breath skated across my neck. “We’re having a girl.”
“I can’t wait to meet her.”
I hung up my call with Aleksei. Maxim had gotten him up to speed on everything that had happened, and the hacker had jumped straight into tracking down the Souleater.
But once again, the monster had vanished like smoke.
Was he lying low, tending to the possible gunshot wound Sienna had landed?
Or was he gathering his army, gearing up to attack?
All the Bratva men had been notified of the potential threat, along with all our allies in Chicago.
Rossi and Finnegan’s men were stationed at the house and at Mila and Nikolai’s safe house, and I was grocery shopping.
Doing something so fucking mundane felt wrong...but there was nothing else to be done right now, and my wife needed more to eat than pantry staples.
I pushed the cart down the grocery store aisle, scowling as I tried to locate the correct brand and variety of ice cream.
Sienna had teased me before I left the safe house—have you ever gone grocery shopping before?
I wasn’t about to admit that no, in fact, I had not. But really, how hard could it be?
The joke was on me because this store was like the fucking Minotaur’s labyrinth.
I couldn’t find anything without walking up and down each aisle at least three times.
The shoddily constructed cart I’d acquired rattled loudly with every step, ensuring the entire store was alerted to my incompetence by the time I made it to the checkout.
None of that mattered when Sienna grabbed the ice cream from the bag the moment I returned, bouncing happily as she started eating it straight from the carton. “Thank you,” she said sweetly. “How was your first ever shopping trip?”
I grunted, not about to dignify her question with a response. I narrowed my eyes. “Wait, have you ever gone grocery shopping?”
“Yeah, of course. I’ve gone tens of times,” she said with a cheeky grin.
I snorted. “My mistake.”
She held out a spoonful of ice cream in front of my face.
The move was so unexpected it took me a minute to realize she was offering it to me.
I slowly wrapped my fingers around her wrist, maintaining full eye contact as I opened my mouth and took the ice cream off the spoon.
I barely tasted it. How could I when it didn’t hold a candle to the sweetness of having my wife’s bright eyes on me?
Her cheeks flushed pink and I wanted nothing more than to kiss her, taste her, make her cry out with pleasure…
but I didn’t deserve any of that. I released her wrist and resumed putting away the groceries.
“Was everything okay here?” I asked. Every minute away from her had me crawling out of my skin, but it was safer for her to stay here. She was too memorable with her cute baby bump.
“It was fine, except after I got the encrypted server set up, I turned my phone back on. I had about one million panicked calls and texts.”
“Did you talk to your brother?” I started slicing open the many packages of raw meat I’d gotten for Vovk at Sienna’s insistence. She’d acted like the wolf was on his deathbed after going twenty hours without food, even after I’d told her he could easily go a week without eating.
“Yeah, and Sofiya. They weren’t very impressed by my reckless decisions.”
I might have agreed with her brother, but I didn’t like the sadness in her voice. “Are you okay?”
She shrugged. “Yeah. Everything turned out okay, so I guess that’s the important part. Anyway, after I got off the phone with them, I called Maxim and ended up talking to him, Lyosha, Polina, Sveta, and Vasya.”
I arched an eyebrow. What did she need to discuss with my gardener? “Vasya?”
“He wanted to know if I was serious about building an otter habitat in the yard.” A strangled sound left my chest, and she laughed. “Just kidding.”
“Uh-huh,” I hummed skeptically.
Sienna and I danced around each other for the rest of the evening, unsure and fumbling through our steps.
I fed Vovk, made dinner, and forced Sienna to eat something other than ice cream.
We exchanged plenty of shy smiles and casual touches, but it didn’t go beyond that.
This thing between us was fragile, and I was terrified of breaking it.
All you do is bring death and destruction. She would still be here if it wasn’t for you.
Telling her about my past forced me once again to face every horrible thing I’d ever done. The blood that would never come off my hands.
After dinner, she’d turned on some home renovation show and curled up beside me on the couch. She kept up a string of commentary about the design choices, but all I could focus on was the perfect feel of her body against mine and my daughter’s steady kicks against my palm.
Sienna yawned for the fourth time in a row, and my heart sank. “Time for bed,” I murmured.
She let out an adorable groan but allowed me to nudge her off the couch. We walked to the bedroom. She stood in front of the door, fidgeting with the sleeves of the sweatshirt she’d stolen from me.
“Goodnight, malyshka.”
“You don’t want to come in?” There was an edge of hurt to her voice that made me hug her to my chest.
“Of course, I do. But…I broke your trust. I need to earn back my place at your side.”
She gazed up at me with an unreadable expression. “I want to forgive you, but I’m afraid.”
Her heartbreaking confession went straight to my chest. “I know, baby.” I leaned down and pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead. “Sweet dreams.”
Vovk followed her into the bedroom. With a final murmured “goodnight,” she closed the door behind her.