75. Sienna
SIENNA
Lilya stared up at me with long dark lashes fluttering over her big blue eyes. I couldn’t stop running my fingertips over her squishy cheeks.
“She’s perfect,” Dimi said for the millionth time. It was true. Our daughter was the most perfect being to ever have existed.
The past few hours had been absolute chaos.
Dimi, Sergey, and the rest of the guys had managed to get Lilya and me safely loaded into the car and to the hospital.
The moment we got through the doors, Dimi sent Sergey to check on Maxim, which was how we’d found out he had just come out of surgery.
The doctors thought he would make a full recovery.
I had burst into tears and begged Dimi to take me to see him, but he’d refused—Maxim was still unconscious, and Lilya and I needed to be checked over—but Lyosha promised to text regular updates. It wouldn’t be hard for him to do, since he refused to leave Maxim’s side.
The medical staff had whisked Lilya and me to a room and checked us over. They cleaned us up, gave her a clean bill of health, and got me settled with two stitches and an ice pack. They had thrown out words like precipitous labor and fetal ejection to describe the speed of the birth.
As everyone bustled around us, I flipped between feeling numb and being seized by fear when I remembered the intensity of the pain, how terrifyingly alone I’d been lying there on the grass.
Dimi sensed the exact moment the memories hit—maybe from the way my breath hitched or muscles froze—and he surrounded me with his warmth.
Firm arms wrapped around me. Soothing words murmured in my ear.
Lips brushing down my neck and shoulder.
He brought me back from the verge of panic, reminding me I wasn’t alone now.
The room had finally fallen quiet as the doctors and nurses cleared out, leaving me with my tiny, precious family.
Our private room had an extra large hospital bed that allowed Dimi to lie down beside me.
He couldn’t stop kissing my forehead, cheeks, and lips, and his huge hand never once stopped cradling Lilya’s perfect little body.
“I can’t believe how blonde she is,” I murmured, running the tips of my fingers through her pale golden tufts of impossibly soft hair.
“It will probably get darker when she gets older, like her mama,” Dimi said.
I smiled, fighting the urge to close my eyes. I didn’t want to miss a second of this.
“Polina and Sveta owe me cake,” I mumbled.
“You can have as much cake as you want,” Dimi said. “But why do they owe you cake?”
“We had a bet going. I said Maksik and Lyosha would confess their love to each other before Lilya was born. Sveta thought it would happen at Christmas and Polina said this summer, but I was right.”
Dimi rolled his eyes and muttered something that sounded suspiciously like fucking idiots under his breath, as if he hadn’t threatened the life of every doctor in the hospital if Maxim didn’t recover.
Ridiculous Bratva men and their feelings.
The revelation that two of his top men were in love with each other had come as a complete shock to, well, no one besides him—which was likely the source of his irritation.
“Oh my god, look.” I held up my phone, showing him the picture Lyosha sent of Maxim. His eyes were glazed, his face frozen in a dopey expression, but he was awake and giving a thumbs up. I blinked away my tears, so thankful we had all gotten out alive.
I started to set down my phone when I realized there was actually something I needed to do.
“You need to sleep, solnyshko.”
I smiled at the new term of endearment. “Are you trying to give me as many nicknames as possible?”
“Yes,” he said simply. “You can have as many as you want.”
“Ridiculous,” I said, but there was no bite in it. My eyelids grew heavy. I stroked my fingertip across Lilya’s hand, heart melting when she curled her little fist around my finger.
Dimi cleared his throat. “Wife, did you just send me an invoice for the job?”
I pressed my grin to the top of Lilya’s head. “Hmm? Oh, yes, I did.”
“But…I’m your husband.”
I patted his chest. “Which was why I didn’t even charge you more for killing the Souleater. Just the fee for finding him.”
His mouth gaped. “Does this mean you won’t use my credit card anymore? Now that you have your own money?”
“Now that I have money? I have way more money than you.”
“Then why have you wracked up hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of charges on my card?”
“Because I’m your wife,” I said, barely holding back the implied duh.
His chest shook with laughter. “Okay, wife. You spend however much of my money you want.”
I snuggled into him. “Good. I was planning on it.”
Dimi cradled my body against his strong chest and kissed my cheek before gently moving Lilya off my chest and onto his. I would have protested, except seeing my tiny baby girl curled up on my husband’s bare chest was my favorite thing.
“Sleep,” he said.
My eyes burned with exhaustion, but I couldn’t stop looking at her. “But I’ll miss her in my sleep.”
He didn’t laugh at how ridiculous I was being as he stroked my face. “You two can meet in dreamland. And I’ll be here keeping watch the whole time.”
His words settled something deep inside me.
I ran my fingertips along his jaw. It was rough with stubble. “I love you.” The words felt right leaving my lips. Loving Dimi didn’t feel scary anymore.
His eyes flared and he kissed me hungrily. “I love you, malyshka. For the rest of our lives and beyond, I’m yours.”
There was so much we both needed to process from the past couple of days. When the shock wore off and the dust settled, we would have to face it. But right now, wrapped in our safe little bubble, was the happiest I’d ever been.
Dimi stroked my hair as I finally let my eyes close. With each deep breath I took, more tension seeped from my body.
“Malyshka?” Dimi’s soft voice floated into my hazy half-asleep state.
“Mmm?”
“You might not remember because it was a very stressful situation and I’m pretty sure I was speaking Russian, but I said I love you when we were in the bathtub.”
My brow furrowed. “Huh?”
He kissed my forehead. “I just want it to be clear that I said it first.”
My laughter followed me into my dreams.