Chapter 7 Riley #2
Fast. Impossibly fast. A hummingbird heartbeat, frantic and real.
Everything stops. My vision narrows to that gray screen, to the flicker, to the sound that is louder than my own screaming thoughts.
I feel Mikhail’s fingers dig into my shoulder.
He makes a noise—low, ragged, barely human.
When I tear my eyes from the monitor to look at him, his face…
Eyes damp. Jaw slack. The Bratva boss is undone.
He hears it too.
But for me, it is devastating.
Dr. Lennox prints a photo. Prescribes prenatal vitamins. Schedules us for four weeks from now. She hands me a paper bag with samples and a pamphlet on first-trimester nutrition, her professional smile firmly back in place.
“Congratulations,” she says.
And she means it.
We don't speak on the ride home. Mikhail stares out the tinted window, my hand prisoner in his. I stare at the ultrasound photo, memorizing it. Will this be the last picture I have of my child?
My child…
We go up together, but he has to leave. A crew hit one of his warehouses. Something that requires the Pakhan. He kisses me hard at the door, one hand framing my face, one spread wide over my stomach.
“Rest,” he orders. His eyes search mine. “Are you alright?”
I nod. I don’t speak. I can’t.
If I open my mouth, I’ll say don’t go.
But I'm not sure who that plea is for…
So I say nothing. When the door closes, I stand in the center of the quiet living room. I swear I still hear it. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. It’s inside me. Not his. Not fully. Mine.
Except it is mine. It's not a blur on a computer screen. My child is already depending on me. Needing me. Relying on me to be there. Everyday. Counting on me to—Not. Walk. Away.
I promised myself I would never do this. I thought I could. Turns out I can't break this promise. I just can't.
I walk to the bedroom on shaky legs. I pull the designer tote from the closet—the one he bought me. I open the bottom drawer where I stashed my old life.
The thrift-store peacoat that smells of bus stations and stale smoke. My black jeans with the frayed hem. The hoodie with a bleach stain on the sleeve.
My hands quake as I change. The coat is tight across my chest now, but not from the baby. From the care he gives me, delicious, full meals, as much food as I could ever want. After a lifetime of hunger, I have a man who demands that I eat, but not that I stay.
It doesn’t matter. I put on my old clothes. I leave the silk robes hanging in the closet. The cashmere sweaters folded in the drawer. My new phone sits on the nightstand with the laptop and credit cards. The life he built around me, but never for me.
I take only what I came with, along with the prenatal vitamins and the ultrasound photo. The photo is a mistake—but I can't leave it. It’s proof.
The elevator takes forever. Every second, I expect an alarm to sound. Expect Mikhail’s voice to crackle over the intercom, cold and furious and betrayed. But nothing happens. I’m not a prisoner. I was never a prisoner. I was an incubator with an expiration date.
The doormen know me. They smile as I pass through the lobby, one tipping his hat. “Ma’am.”
I smile, though it hurts my face. “Just getting some air.”
Outside, the November air turns my clothes to gauze. I walk fast, head down, toward South Station. I don’t know where I’m going. Just away. North. South. Anywhere the Red Line or a bus or my own two feet will take me before he realizes I’m gone and sends his wolves.
I should be relieved. I’m terrified.
He will hunt me. I know this with absolute certainty. The Pakhan does not lose what he owns. And I am carrying his blood, his legacy, his heartbeat beneath my ribs. Mikhail will tear the city apart. He will bury anyone who helps me.
But I heard that heartbeat too. It’s mine. I’m its mother. And no contract, no amount of money, no glass tower can buy that from me. I will not become my mother. I will not leave my child to wonder why its mother abandoned it.
I’m crying by the time I reach the station. Cold tears track down my face, and I don’t bother to wipe them. I pay cash for a fare card at the machine. My hands tremble so badly that I drop the bills twice.
The station is a storm of chaos. Commuters with briefcases. Tourists with rolling suitcases. The homeless huddled in corners. Pigeons picking through crumbs near the wall.
I move through it like I’m underwater. My tote bag is clutched to my chest. The heartbeat is in my ears, louder than the PA announcements, louder than the trains screeching against the tracks.
Thump-thump.
I find a bench near the southbound tracks. I don’t know which line to take. A train? A bus? Commuter rail to Providence? I just need to move. I need distance before he gets home and finds the bed cold and the closet half-empty.
I pull the ultrasound photo from my pocket. Stare at the smudged little bean.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I’m so sorry, baby. But I’m keeping us.”
“Riley Miller.”
The voice comes from behind me. Close. Too close.
I turn.
Three men. Black puffer coats. One with a teardrop tattoo under his left eye. The posture is wrong. Too casual. Definitely not Mikhail’s men—they stand straighter, move with more precision. These men move like jackals.
The one in the middle smiles. A single gold tooth gleams with a sick, slick shine.
“Big Jay says hello,” he says.
I open my mouth to scream. A hand clamps over it from behind, reeking of cigarettes. Something sharp pricks my neck—a bee sting, then fire blazing through my veins. My legs turn to water. The tote bag slips from my fingers and hits the concrete with a soft thump.
The prenatal vitamins roll away. The ultrasound photo flutters down.
The last thing I see before the darkness swallows me are the lights of South Station receding farther away. I blink furiously, trying to stay focused. Fighting with everything I have for myself and my child.
Rough hands grab me and drag me backward. Through a side door. Down concrete stairs that smell of mold and iron.
The world tilts. Stairs. More stairs. The air turns damp and cold. We’re under the trains. Deeper than the subway. Into the dark guts of the city.
An underground engine room. Brick walls sweating condensation. A single yellow bulb swinging from a frayed cord, casting long, jerking shadows.
And him.
Jayshaun Briggs.
He’s bigger than Dante was. Meaner-looking.
He sits on a folding chair like it’s a throne, rolling a switchblade between his fingers, the steel catching the weak light.
When they drop me at his feet, my knees buckle against the cold stone.
I can’t hold myself up. The drug has turned my limbs to sand, but my mind is screaming, clawing at the inside of my skull.
He crouches. The blade presses under my chin, forcing my head up until I’m looking into eyes that are nothing like his brother’s—colder, emptier, dead long before I ever met him.
“Well, well,” he says. His voice is a low, ragged growl. “The Pakhan’s little virgin. The one he killed my brother for.”
I can’t move. I can’t speak. But the terror in my chest drums a wild, frantic beat.
He leans close. His breath is hot and foul against my face.
“Don’t worry,” he whispers. The blade traces down my throat, slow as a lover’s promise, stopping at the hollow where my pulse hammers.
“We’re gonna take real good care of you.
And when Mikhail comes lookin’ for his property—and he will—we'll teach that Russian motherfucker what happens when you take a man's family.”
The tip of the knife presses harder, denting the skin. "And leave him with nothing to lose.”
Blackness.