35. Vadim
VADIM
She walks toward me before I can decide whether I should go to her.
For one brief, disorienting second, all I want to do is drop to my knees in front of her and apologize for every hour of fear I have put into her body, every locked door, every accusation, every moment she must have believed she was nothing more than another problem for me to control.
Then I remember Petrov.
I remember Mila.
I remember the footage, the reports, the lies that still don’t fit together no matter how many times I turn them over in my head.
I force myself to stay where I am.
Sloane stops a few feet away, and up close she looks worse than she did downstairs, the exhaustion beneath her eyes deeper now, her face pale from too little sleep and too much stress, one hand resting low against her stomach as though supporting the weight has become something she does without thinking.
“Ethan is safe,” I tell her.
She looks past me toward the suite. “I know.”
Her voice is weak. Not angry.
That concerns me more.
“You should rest.”
“I should be with my brother.”
“You have been with your brother.”
“I still should be.”
“You can barely stand.”
“I’m standing.”
“Badly.”
Her eyes lift to mine. There she is. Still enough fight left to hate being told what to do.
I turn toward the room across the corridor and open the door. “I had them prepare a separate suite for you.”
She stares at me. “Of course you did.”
“It’s next to Ethan’s.”
“I don’t need a suite.”
“You need a bed.”
“I need my brother.”
I don’t answer. Instead, I step closer and place both hands around the underside of her stomach.
Sloane inhales sharply. For half a second I think she will slap me again.
Then the weight shifts into my hands, and her entire body changes. Not dramatically, but enough. Her shoulders lower. Her eyes close. A tiny breath leaves her.
Relief.
The knowledge hits me somewhere I’m not prepared for.
I’m holding the weight of her child.
Maybe mine.
Maybe—
I shut the thought down before it reaches the other name.
“You’re exhausted,” I say quietly.
She opens her eyes. “You don’t get to be nice to me now.”
“I’m not being nice.”
“You’re holding my stomach.”
“I’m preventing you from collapsing in a hospital corridor.”
“That sounds suspiciously considerate.”
“Then I’m doing it badly.”
Something almost like a smile touches her mouth and disappears so quickly I might have imagined it. I ease my hands away. She immediately looks annoyed at the loss of support.
That nearly makes me smile too.
“Come.”
She hesitates. Then, reluctantly, she follows me.
The moment she steps into the suite, memory catches me with enough force that I almost stop. The aircraft. The first time I ordered her into a room because I decided she needed rest and she looked at me like I was the most unbearable man alive.
I close the door behind us.
She glances around at the bed, the sofa, the private bathroom, the small table already stocked with water and food. Then she looks back at me. “You haven’t changed at all.”
I lean against the door. “Difficult to change when you were not around to supervise the process.”
Her expression shifts.
The line was meant to be dry, but it doesn’t feel dry once it’s out.
She looks away first. “You survived.”
“Barely.”
Her eyes flick back to mine. I let the silence sit there. She doesn’t ask what I mean.
Maybe she already knows.
Eventually she crosses to the bed and sits down carefully, one hand braced behind her while the other rests over her stomach.
She looks so tired that my anger toward her becomes inconvenient again, refusing to remain uncomplicated when she’s sitting in front of me looking like she has spent months carrying the entire world by herself.
“Lie down.”
“I’m not five.”
“Then demonstrate adult judgment and lie down before you fall down.”
She gives me a look, but she does it. She lowers herself onto the mattress and turns onto her side, adjusting the pillows until she finds a position that doesn’t make her uncomfortable.
I remain standing.
She notices. “You’re hovering.”
“I’m standing.”
“You hover very aggressively.”
I pull the chair closer and sit. “That better?”
“No.”
“Good.”
Her eyes close for a second. When they open again, I decide I can’t keep avoiding it.
“Petrov.”
Her gaze stays on the ceiling. “What about him?”
The lack of alarm catches me off guard.
“I want to know how you know him.”
She exhales. “Yes, funny thing about that.”
I wait.
She turns her head toward me. “I actually met him right after our first flight.”
I frown.
She gives a tired little shake of her head. “Camille took me out. There was a club. He came over, introduced himself as Viktor, we talked for maybe fifteen minutes, and that was it.”
I stare at her.
She sounds almost embarrassed by how ridiculous the coincidence was. “I had no idea who he was.”
The reports said otherwise.
Paris. Before she ever stepped onto my aircraft. Before me.
Iosef had been very specific.
I study her face.
She’s lying. She has to be.
Unless—
No.
I cut the thought off.
“Right after our first flight?”
“Yes.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
Her brows pull together. “I don’t particularly care what you believe anymore. And I knew anyway you wouldn’t. That’s what Daniel told me.”
My gaze cuts to her. “Daniel?”
She shakes her head. “He overheard your men talking. He thought you might harm me. Was he wrong?”
I clench my palm but say nothing.
She turns on her side. “Thought as much.”
“I was told you knew him before that.”
That gets her attention. Her eyes open fully. “By who?”
Before I can answer, she yawns.
Then again.
The second one seems to irritate her.
“You were saying?” I ask.
“I was saying whoever told you that is wrong.”
Her eyes close.
“Sloane.”
Nothing.
I wait. Her breathing begins to change almost immediately. I sit there watching her for several minutes, still expecting her to open her eyes and continue arguing simply because she usually would.
She doesn’t. She’s asleep.
My attention moves toward the table beside the bed. Her phone is there.
I hate myself before I even stand, but I take it anyway.
The screen wakes.
Passcode. Of course.
I try the obvious first. Her birthday.
Wrong.
I don’t know her brother’s birthday.
I stare at the screen.
I should put it back. Instead, another date enters my mind.
My birthday.
I told her once. In passing. Months ago. There’s no reason she should remember it.
I enter the numbers, and the phone unlocks.
I stare at the screen. For several seconds, I don’t move at all.
She remembered.
Then I sit down beside the bed with her phone in my hand and begin looking.