Chapter 24
ARTUR
By dawn, I have arranged two obstetric appointments, ordered prenatal vitamins from three pharmacies, replaced the bedroom water filter, then rejected a fourth medical practice because its rear exit opens toward an unsecured alley.
I also spent twenty minutes sitting on the bathroom floor after Katie placed the test in my hand.
She didn’t speak while I read the word repeatedly, expecting the letters to rearrange into something less enormous.
When I finally looked at her, fear stood naked across her face, preventing every foolish promise from leaving my mouth.
I could guarantee guards, doctors, and secure houses, but I couldn’t guarantee that my blood wouldn’t make danger follow the child before it learned to breathe.
So I held Katie while she shook once against me, then laughed because the test remained trapped between our bodies. We stayed on the floor until her legs went numb, and after she slept, I began making lists.
Katie watches from the kitchen table while eating one dry cracker in several suspicious bites.
The positive tests remain in the bathroom drawer down the hall, though I don’t need to see them again because the word on the digital screen has burned itself behind my eyes.
Pregnant.
All night, I treated joy like a threat because threats have procedures. Unlike happiness, they can be isolated, assessed, then placed behind armed doors. No comparable discipline exists for joy; with fear naked on her face, Katie stood before me, and the floor seemed to vanish beneath my knees.
“You ordered a thermometer for the bath,” she says.
“Temperature matters.”
“It has a rubber duck on top.”
“The duck was not listed as optional.”
She bites the corner from her cracker while the kitchen smells of toast. Coffee has been banned from the house until her stomach forgives it, and rain freckles the dark window behind her.
“Come here, Artur.”
I close the medical article on my phone.
Katie wears my gray shirt over sleep shorts, the cotton slipping from one shoulder before falling to the middle of her thighs.
Nothing about her body appears changed. Knowing it has changed makes every familiar inch newly significant: the breasts hidden inside my shirt, the soft stomach I held under my palm, the pulse moving in her throat while a future too small to see takes shape inside her.
Desire survives the knowledge, but wonder enters beside it and leaves me afraid to touch her carelessly.
I stop beside the table.
“Lower,” she says.
I kneel between her knees.
My hands settle at her waist; beneath the thin shirt, her stomach remains soft and flat. I place one palm against it with less pressure than I would use to touch glass.
There is nothing to feel, and the absence terrifies me because three plastic tests claim a life exists where my hand can detect only warmth.
Katie threads her fingers through my hair. “You look as if you’re waiting for it to issue demands.”
“It is a Dymov.”
“Half Dymov. The other half may have enough sense to remain quiet while developing organs.”
I rest my forehead beneath her ribs while her breath moves the cotton against my temple.
“Tell me what you’re thinking,” she says.
“The clinic should have barriers at both vehicle entrances.”
Her fingers tighten. “The thought under that one.”
I have told men they would die without allowing my voice to shake. Four words require more courage.
“I want the child.”
Katie becomes still.
I look up. “I want you.”
The confession stops before love because that word has lived inside me since the ruined casino corridor, yet speaking it feels like placing a weapon in her hand with instructions for my execution.
Katie deserves the full answer, even while I withhold its final word.
Love was once a promise that I would keep Misha safe, made with a brother’s certainty before fire proved certainty worthless, and saying it to Katie would make the promise again.
My mind understands that silence offers no protection, although the scar beneath my ribs believes otherwise for now.
Her hand moves from my hair to my cheek without demanding the word I failed to give, and that mercy makes the omission heavier.
Her eyes shine. “You certainly wanted me during the manufacturing process.”
The crude remark breaks the pressure in my chest, drawing a laugh from me against her stomach, and Katie joins in with one hand covering her mouth when nausea turns the sound uncertain.
I rise at once.
“Sit down,” she tells me. “Laughter is not a medical emergency.”
“You changed color.”
“I married a Russian criminal. Changing color is one of my few remaining hobbies.”
I stay on my knees, though my hand returns to her waist.
Katie’s humor fades. “We need to discuss something before you buy the fetus a bulletproof stroller.”
“I haven’t found one with adequate testing.”
“Artur.”
I wait.
“This pregnancy is happening in my body, so the contract doesn’t decide which doctor I see, what tests I take, or any other medical choice. You can give me information and tell me what frightens you, but you don’t get to turn fear into orders.”
Every instinct argues that protection without authority is decoration. Every memory argues that authority used against love becomes a cage.
“Your body,” I say. “Your medical decisions.”
She studies me for hidden conditions. “Even if you disagree?”
“I reserve the right to disagree at exhausting length.”
“Granted.”
“I also reserve the right to remove doctors who sell information.”
“From the clinic, not from life.”
“That depends on the information.”
Her expression sharpens.
“From the clinic,” I amend.
She lifts my face between both hands. “I know agreeing doesn’t feel natural to you.”
“Agreement is natural when everyone recognizes I am correct.”
“That is closer to surrender by exhaustion.”
“A valid diplomatic method.”
Her thumbs pass beneath my eyes. “You didn’t sleep.”
“I had research.”
“You had terror wearing reading glasses.”
The accuracy prevents an answer.
Katie places her hand over mine, our fingers together covering an area no larger than a dinner plate. Buildings, ports, and men whose loyalty was purchased through blood have belonged to me. None of it has ever felt as dangerous as the trust beneath her palm.
The day passes through medical calls, revised schedules, and a breakfast neither of us finishes. By evening, rain has darkened the kitchen windows while Katie manages crackers at the table and I pretend not to count each one.
The security bell sounds before I can speak again, and Boris enters through the kitchen passage with plaster dust on one shoulder. He rarely arrives without warning, so the sight brings me to my feet before he reaches the table.
“Dymov Casino,” he says. “The structural team found wiring beneath the lower west corridor. It may connect to a second device.”
Katie’s fingers close around mine.
“Evacuate the building,” I tell him. “Nobody touches the circuit.”
“The public floors are clear, and the structural crews are moving out now. The bomb unit is approaching through the service entrance. Ivan is on-site.”
I reach for my jacket.
“I’m coming,” Katie says.
“No.”
Her face closes at the order.
I force my next words through the fear behind it. “The lower level still carries smoke residue and insulation dust. If another device exists, the structure may not hold. I need you away from both.”
She looks toward Boris. “Are the fumes dangerous during pregnancy?”
“The medic advised avoiding the entire floor.”
Katie releases a breath. “Then I’ll stay because the building is poisonous and unstable. His rediscovered authority has nothing to do with it.”
“Understood,” I say.
I touch her face before pressing a kiss against her forehead that tastes faintly of salt, and the effort required to leave her tightens every muscle in my back.
“Come home safely,” she says. “To both of us.” After I step outside, my phone vibrates once inside my pocket.
The casino occupies half a city block beneath a sheet of rain, with emergency vehicles crowding the loading street while yellow light revolves across wet brick. Its public floors remain closed after the previous attack, and repairs had barely begun in earnest.
During the drive, Boris reports that the new wiring passed three visual inspections.
The circuit enters through an old conduit omitted from the digital plans, then disappears beneath concrete poured during Misha’s renovation.
Knowledge of the conduit belongs to senior operations, the original contractor, and anyone who handled the archived plans.
The remaining names still give a traitor room to hide.
When I ask Boris whether the inspection team changed after the first attack, he reports that two electricians were replaced, though both came from a contractor we have used for years.
Because the original men were injured, Ivan approved the substitution.
Each fact can be innocent; together, they keep my hand near the gun beneath my coat.
Boris and I enter through the receiving bay wearing protective helmets. Ivan waits beyond the security barrier with dust across his black overcoat.
“The wiring disappears beneath the west foundation,” he says. “The bomb unit believes the visible circuit may be a decoy.”
“Where are the structural workers?”
“Most are counted outside. The last structural group is moving through the north exit with two security men.”
The lower level smells of soaked plaster, burned insulation, and the mineral damp released when concrete breaks; portable lamps throw white pools across stripped walls. Our footsteps return from the empty gaming floor overhead as dull, delayed blows.
We pass the electrical room destroyed in the first blast, and plastic sheeting seals its doorway. Beyond it, the west corridor narrows between reinforced storage vaults built when the casino held private cash cages.
One bomb technician lifts a hand, stopping all three of us before we cross the threshold.