Chapter Ten #2
I crossed the room in three strides, my hand immediately going to Mila’s face. Her skin was clammy and cool, her breathing shallow. But her eyes opened at my touch, unfocused and glassy.
“Alexei?” Her voice was barely a whisper.
“I’m here.” I looked up at Volkov, and the edge in my voice could have cut steel as I asked him, “What’s wrong with her?”
He glanced at me with a polite smile and a nod that said, “Just a minute, please.”
Then he finished his examination with methodical precision—checking her pupils, her pulse again, asking her questions in a gentle tone that she answered in fragments.
When was the last time she ate? Had she been dizzy before? Any nausea?
“Mr. Lobanov,” Volkov said finally, straightening with the careful posture of a man about to deliver news he wasn’t sure would be well-received. “I’d like to run some tests, but based on the symptoms—”
“Tests for what?”
“I believe your wife is pregnant.”
Everything inside me stilled.
The warehouse burning. The body swaying in the flames. Moretti’s declaration of war. The leak in my organization. The thousand calculations and strategies that had been running through my mind like background noise—all of it faded beneath the quiet sound of that single word.
Pregnant.
Beside me, Anya made a sound that might have been a gasp or a laugh. On the bed, Mila’s eyes had gone wide, one hand moving unconsciously to her stomach.
“I—” she started, then stopped. “I didn’t realize. I thought it was just stress, or—” Her voice trembled, and she looked at me with something like uncertainty. “It must have happened after the first time. We didn’t—I wasn’t—”
“Yeah,” I cut in, nodding briskly.
We hadn’t been careful. Not that first night, lost in the unexpected intensity of finally giving in to the pull between us.
And apparently not careful enough in the weeks since, despite my attempts at precaution that had grown increasingly half-hearted as my desire to claim her completely had overridden practical concerns.
Dr. Volkov was explaining something about blood tests and confirming dates and prenatal vitamins, but I barely heard him. I was looking at Mila—at her pale face, trembling hands, and the fear in her eyes that told me she had no idea how I was going to react to this.
And then I laughed.
Not the cold, sharp sound people knew me for—the one that usually preceded violence.
This was different. The sound that burst out of my lips without permission was quiet and unguarded, like something ancient inside me had just found its purpose.
Like a lock tumbling open after years of being sealed shut.
Anya stared at me like I’d lost my mind. Dr. Volkov paused mid-sentence. And Mila just looked confused and heartbreakingly vulnerable. It felt wrong to me that she’d be unsure of my reaction, even for a single second.
I knelt beside the bed, ignoring everyone else in the room, and cupped her face in both hands. Her skin was still too cool, still clammy with shock, but she was here. She was alive. And she was carrying my child.
Mine.
“Moya krov ,” I whispered in Russian, my thumb brushing across her cheekbone. “Moya zhizn. Ty dala mne vse.” My blood, my life. You’ve given me everything.
I knew she didn’t understand the words—not yet, she was still learning the language, still piecing together phrases from what she’d overheard—but the way I looked at her must have conveyed something. Because the fear in her eyes softened, replaced by something that looked almost like hope.
“You’re not angry?” she whispered.
“Angry?” I said it in English this time, my voice rough with an emotion I couldn’t name. “Mila, you’re carrying my heir. My child. How could I possibly be angry?”
“I thought—” She bit her lip, and I watched a tear slide down her temple into her hair. “I thought it would complicate things. Make everything harder. The war with Moretti, the danger—”
“Everything was already complicated.” I pressed my forehead to hers, breathing her in—jasmine and fear and something essentially Mila. “This doesn’t change that. But it changes everything else.”
Because she wasn’t just my wife now. She was the mother of my child.
She was carrying my blood, my heir, the future of everything I’d built and was still building.
And for a man like me, who’d learned early that loyalty was the only currency that mattered, that blood ties were the strongest chains and the greatest gifts—that meant everything.
It meant I would burn the world to ash before I let anything happen to her.
It meant Moretti had just made the fatal mistake of declaring war on a man who now had something even more infinitely precious to protect.
It meant that the careful control I’d maintained, the surgical precision with which I’d been planning my response to Enzo’s provocations, was about to become something far more ruthless.
Dr. Volkov cleared his throat delicately. “Mr. Lobanov, I really should run those tests—”
“Run them.” I didn’t look away from Mila. “Whatever she needs. The best of everything. I don’t care what it costs.”
“Of course. I’ll need to take her to the clinic for—”
“No,” I refused. “You’ll bring whatever equipment you need here. She doesn’t leave the estate.”
Mila’s hand caught my wrist. “Alexei, I’m fine. I can go to a clinic—”
“No.” My voice was softer, but the steel underneath remained. “Not with Moretti making moves. Not until this is finished. You stay here, where I can protect you.”
Where I can keep you safe.
Where I can see you, touch you, reassure myself that you’re real and alive and mine.
She must have seen something in my expression because she didn’t argue. She just nodded, her fingers tightening on my wrist like she was afraid I’d disappear.
“I’ll arrange everything,” Dr. Volkov said, already gathering his equipment with the efficiency of a man who knew better than to argue with a Lobanov.
“In the meantime, rest and fluids. The fainting was likely a combination of low blood sugar and the early effects of pregnancy. Nothing to worry about as long as we monitor her closely.”
Anya had been silent through all of this, but now she stood, her green eyes bright with unshed tears. “I’m going to be an aunt,” she said wonderingly. Then she turned to face Mila. “You’re going to be a mother.”
Mila’s free hand went to her stomach again, that unconscious gesture of protection and wonder. “I guess I am.”
After Dr. Volkov left with promises to return within the hour, and Anya kissed us both and slipped out with a knowing smile, I climbed onto the bed and pulled Mila against me. She came willingly, tucking herself into my side with a sigh.
“I had no idea,” she murmured against my chest. “I really didn’t know how you’d feel about it.”
“How do you feel about it?” I asked. “Be honest with me.”
She was quiet for a long moment, and I could practically feel her thinking, analyzing, trying to find the right words.
“Terrified,” she finally admitted. “I never thought about having children. Not really. My life was supposed to be quiet and safe and far away from all this. And now I’m married to you, living in this world, and I’m pregnant with a child who’ll inherit all of this violence and blood and—” Her breath hitched. “I’m so scared, Alexei.”
I tightened my arms around her and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. "I know."
“But I’m also…” She paused. “I’m also happy? Which seems insane, but I am. Because it’s yours. Ours. And despite everything—despite the fear, you know, the danger and how completely unprepared I am for this—I want it.”
Something in my chest cracked open at those words. Want. Such a simple thing, really. But coming from Mila—who’d never asked me for anything, who’d accepted this marriage with quiet dignity and made the best of an impossible situation—it felt like a gift.
“I will protect you,” I promised. “Both of you. Whatever it takes. Moretti, anyone else who threatens what’s mine—they’ll learn what it means to make an enemy of me.”
“I know.” Mila’s hand found mine, our fingers lacing together over her still-flat stomach. “I’ve always known. That’s what scares me most. Not that you won’t protect me, but what you’ll become in the process of protecting me. Well, us now.”
She saw too much—right from the very beginning. But instead of running from what she saw, she stayed. She chose this. Chose me.
“I’ll become whatever I need to be,” I told her. “For you. For our child. There are no lines I won’t cross, Mila. You need to understand that.”
“I do.” She tilted her head back to look at me, and her hazel eyes were clear despite the fear. “And I’m choosing to stay anyway.”
Later—after Dr. Volkov returned with equipment and confirmed what we already knew, after the sun had fully risen—I stood at the window of our bedroom and watched Mila sleep.
She was curled on her side, one hand still resting protectively over her stomach, her face peaceful in a way it rarely was when she was awake.
In sleep, she looked impossibly young. Impossibly vulnerable.
My wife. The mother of my child. My everything.
One of my warehouses was gone. The message from Moretti had been received. And somewhere out there, Enzo thought he was winning this war of attrition, thought he could make us weak. He had no idea what he’d just unleashed.