Chapter 15 #2
He nods. “Zavid is waiting for me downstairs.”
I leave his room with my blouse buttoned wrong, my hair tangled, and the taste of him still in my mouth.
The corridor is empty. I enter my room, close the door, and sit on the bed with the laptop open.
I don’t connect for a few minutes until I feel calmer and am sure I no longer look like I was freshly fucked.
As the intensity of the encounter fades, the nausea returns. I really hope this isn’t going to be my reaction every time I have to play Katya, though I hope that won’t be for much longer.
Kimberly picks up on the first ring and immediately frowns. “You look terrible.”
I laugh. “You always say that. I had to do a thing.” I keep it vague, but she’s probably pieced together enough from these chats to have an idea of what I did. She knows why Valentin took me and a few details, but nothing that could endanger her.
“You always look terrible in that place.” She studies me through the screen.
“You look worse tonight though. Your color is wrong. You’re sweating at the temples, and you’ve got that thing happening with your jaw where you’re gritting your teeth to keep from gagging. How long have you been vomiting?”
I freeze. “I’m not. I haven’t since the last time I did something similar.”
“Maybe you aren’t vomiting, but you’re nauseated. How long has that been going on? Your color is wrong, your lips are dry, and you’re holding your stomach with your left hand without realizing it.”
I look down. My left hand is pressed flat against my abdomen, a position I didn’t choose consciously. I move it. “It’s stress.”
“Margot.” Kimberly sets her coffee down. “How long?”
I press my thumbnail into the edge of the desk.
I force myself to think backward, realizing the times I’ve not eaten because I was nauseated, then told myself it was because I hadn’t eaten.
That goes back farther than the incident where I fell apart after the first in-person meeting as Katya.
“Maybe two weeks. On and off. It comes in the morning and sometimes after meals. Anya gave me anti-nausea medication and said it was adrenaline and poor nutrition.” I sound defensive.
She gives me a stern look, daring me not to tell her the truth. “When did you last have your period?”
The question stops me. I stare at the screen and try to remember.
“Margot?”
“I don’t remember.” My voice sounds wrong in my own ears.
“I’ve been so focused on the training and the exchanges that I stopped tracking.
” Nadia brought me a cache of feminine hygiene supplies when she brought in Katya’s clothes the first time, so I’ve had access to them for about six weeks but haven’t needed them.
“Stress delays cycles. That’s documented. That happens.”
“It does happen.” Kimberly’s voice is steady and careful. “Stress delays cycles. Pregnancy also delays cycles. It also causes morning nausea, fatigue that doesn’t respond to rest, appetite changes, and breast tenderness. Have you noticed any of that?”
I close my eyes. The symptoms line up in my head like evidence in one of Mara’s case files.
The nausea that started three weeks ago and hasn’t improved.
The period I attributed to stress without counting the weeks.
The fatigue that goes beyond training, the bone-deep tiredness that sleep doesn’t fix.
The way certain foods have started making me gag when they didn’t before.
“When was the last time you had sex without protection?”
I open my eyes. “Every time we’ve been together.”
“You aren’t on the pill?”
I shake my head. I was when I was living with Grant, because I’d never bring a baby into the world with him, but I got out of the habit while on the run, using cash to avoid leaving a paper trail, let alone seeing a new provider for such practicalities.
Kimberly doesn’t react or scold me for being so foolish. She just breathes. “Then you need to take a test.”
“I can’t take a test. Every supply in this building goes through the medical chain. Anya reports to Valentin. The security team monitors procurement. If I request a pregnancy test, Kolya’s security console logs it, and Valentin knows within the hour.”
Kimberly thinks. I can see her running the problem like it’s a problem at the hotel. “Does Anya answer to you or to Valentin?”
“Both. She’s the residence doctor.”
“Do you trust her? Do you think she ethically follows rules that don’t allow her to share every bit of information with Valentin if he asks for a health report?”
I think about Anya wrapping my wrists with compression bandages and checking on me after the restaurant without making it feel like surveillance. Anya treats me like a patient, not an asset. “Yes.”
“Then tell Anya you need a test. She can buy one and smuggle it in. She probably won’t mind not being paid back.”
I bite my lip. “What if she gets caught?”
“Then you deal with that when it happens. Right now, you need information, and you can’t make decisions without it.”
I can’t argue with her, and I can’t keep pretending. I’ve been rationalizing my symptoms for almost three weeks because I couldn’t bear to think of any other reason I might be feeling this way. It’s better to know than not know.
After ending the chat with Kimberly, I use the room phone and press the button labeled ANYA. She doesn’t answer, so I leave a message requesting she call me back. She does just a few minutes later. “What can I do for you?”
Carefully, I explain what I need. “A pregnancy test with no record of being purchased showing up on inventory or expense reports. I need you to buy it for me and smuggle it in.”
She hesitates for only a second. “Okay.”
I’m afraid to trust that. “That means your complete discretion, especially if the outcome is…unexpected. I’ll need time to figure out what to do.”
This time, there’s no hesitation. “Okay. I’ll come by tomorrow to check on you and bring it with me.”
“Thank you.”
I send Kimberly a brief update through the laptop after hanging up. The nausea is worse now, either from fear, or because I’m not actively refusing to acknowledge it for the first time in weeks.
Anya shows up the next morning. She looks me over, slips me a test, and doesn’t stay around for me to take it. She just writes her phone number on a pad by the house phone. “Call me if and when you’re ready.”
I nod and thank her. Once she leaves, I take the test into the bathroom and close the door. The box is a standard home pregnancy test with instructions I read twice even though I understand them perfectly. Reading them twice delays the moment when I have to use it.
I can’t put it off any longer. The instructions say results appear in two to five minutes, but mine appear in seconds as the urine moves across the window.
The lines appear and quickly darken. There are two pink lines, sharp and defined.
There’s no ambiguity, and it completely eliminates the stress explanation I’ve been holding between me and the truth like a shield.
I grip the edge of the sink with both hands and stare at the lines on a plastic stick in a bathroom down the corridor from the man who kidnapped me but never forced me into his bed. I chose my way here one touch and one bad decision about contraception at a time.
The bathroom is small. The mirror reflects a woman with damp hair, red eyes, and a pregnancy test in her hand who looks nothing like the person who checked into Room 214 at the Starlight Motor Lodge seven weeks ago.
That woman was running, but the positive test in my hand means I can’t run anymore.
Not from Grant, Valentin, or the decisions I have to make. Do I want it?
The answer is an immediate yes.
Is it safe to tell Valentin?
There’s no clear answer this time.
It’s been about six weeks since I could have conceived in Valentin’s office, which means a doctor would date the pregnancy at roughly eight weeks.
Neither of us reached for protection. I knew it was reckless while I was doing it.
I told myself I’d deal with it later. Later is now.
Later is two pink lines on a plastic stick in a bathroom down the hall from Valentin.
I need to tell someone, so I return to the bedroom to call Kimberly with the laptop. I don’t expect her to answer, since she’s at work, but she connects immediately. “What is it? Are you okay?”
I force air through my nose the way Anya taught me after my first in-person meeting, when she gave me anti-nausea meds and agreed it was probably stress. “Positive.” My voice cracks on the second syllable. I grip the laptop harder.
Kimberly doesn’t speak for a moment before saying, “Breathe.”
I’m breathing. I’m roughly eight weeks pregnant in a compound where every supply requisition crosses a security console, the leak hasn’t been found, and the man responsible for all of this is downstairs with his attorney.
I look at the bathroom door. Beyond it, the bedroom. Beyond that, the corridor.
I could tell him. I could walk downstairs right now, put this test on his desk, and witness the fallout.
I instantly discard the idea. I can’t tell him yet.
I need to know whether Valentin Bykov would leave behind his current dangerous life to ensure our child can survive before I give him an advantage that could make me more valuable as an asset than as a person.
The distinction between asset and person has been the line I’ve been walking since the interrogation room.
A pregnant woman in this building is either a hostage or a partner, and I need to know which one he sees before he knows what I’m carrying.
Kimberly asks, “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to keep this between us.” I don’t blink. “You, me, and Anya. Nobody else. Not until I know what kind of man he is when the stakes include a child.”
Kimberly nods slowly. “How long?”
I shrug. “As long as it takes me to be sure.”