Epilogue #3
Vadim went completely still behind me.
I stared at the blue cake, at the impossible little declaration tucked inside sugar and cream, and my hand flew to my stomach.
A son.
Our son.
Vadim’s arm came around me from behind as my balance tipped. His palm settled over my belly, warm and possessive and shaking just enough that I felt it.
Applause rose around us. Laughter. Tamar crying openly now and pretending she wasn’t. Petya wiping his face with his sleeve and turning away when Lev handed him a napkin without comment. Galina kissing both my cheeks, then Vadim’s, then pressing her hand over mine for one brief, fierce second.
“My grandson,” she said.
Vadim still hadn’t spoken.
I turned in his arms.
His mouth softened. His eyes looked too bright, and for a breath he only stared at me and the small curve beneath my dress.
At my stomach.
On our son.
“Vadim,” I whispered.
He looked at me then.
I’d seen him angry. Hungry. Tender. Terrifying. I’d seen him after blood, after sex, after grief, after victory. I’d seen him in the dark with all the city on his shoulders.
His throat worked once before he spoke.
“A boy,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Our son.”
“Yes.”
He put both hands on my face and kissed me in front of everyone.
It wasn’t polite. It wasn’t brief. It was Vadim, so it was controlled only because he chose to let it be.
His mouth claimed mine with the deep, steady hunger that made me forget fear in pieces and then all at once.
I held his wrists and kissed him back while the room cheered, while Tamar laughed through tears, while Galina sighed like she’d expected nothing less from her son and still wished he’d have better manners in public.
When Vadim lifted his head, his thumb brushed my cheek.
“You’ve given me everything,” he said.
“No,” I said, my voice unsteady. “We made him together.”
His eyes burned.
I took his hand and set it back over the curve of my stomach.
Cake was cut. Champagne was poured for everyone except me, and Oksana appeared with sparkling water in a crystal flute before I could ask.
Tamar hugged me hard enough that Vadim’s hand twitched, then wisely softened at the last second.
Petya hugged me even more carefully and whispered, “I’m going to be better for him too. ”
“You’ll be Uncle Petya,” I said. “Start there.”
He nodded like I’d given him a holy assignment.
Galina began discussing nursery adjustments with Oksana before the second slice of cake reached a plate. Apparently blue required a different embroidery thread, a revised layette inventory, and three more interviews because “a boy with Sorin lungs will require stamina in a nanny.”
Vadim listened for exactly ten seconds before bending to my ear.
“I told you I’m taking you upstairs after cake.”
“I’ve had one bite.”
“Take two.”
I laughed and leaned back against him.
His palm settled over the curve of my stomach. I laid mine over his, and my ring flashed against his knuckles, bright and ridiculous and real.
Once, I’d stood in a cheap apartment and typed my name into a message because I thought selling myself was the only way to save the last family I had.
Now my brother stood near the cake with blue buttercream on his thumb and tears still drying on his face. Tamar was beside me, laughing with Oksana over a crooked slice.
Vadim stood at my back, his body warm around mine, sheltering the child we’d made.
Around us, the room kept moving—Tamar laughing through tears, Petya pretending he hadn’t cried, Galina already correcting Oksana about ribbon widths for a grandson.
Vadim lowered his mouth to my hair. “My wife. My son.”
I leaned into him, into the ring on my hand, the baby beneath our joined hands, and the dangerous, devoted man who’d made himself my home.
“Your family,” I whispered.
His fingers tightened under mine.
“Yes,” he said. “Forever.”
***