Chapter 19 #2
“Make sure everyone’s safe!” I scream. “Your mother, your sister!”
“Where is everyone?” Lev yells.
“Harper!”
“Here!”
“Lydia!”
“Here!”
I breathe out a sigh of relief.
“Mom?” Lev shouts.
“Here!”
“Polina?” No answer. “Polina!”
Shit.
I crawl around us, looking for anything that will give me a clue when I see through the fog and smoke a pair of guy’s legs and a woman clad in workout leggings.
“Let her go, or I’ll shoot!” I scream. I barrel-roll through the fog and slide right into his legs. He falls on top of me and elbows my neck. I scream when he grabs my wrist but quickly out-maneuver him so he cannot hold me down.
There’s a sudden scream and thud, and my husband appears as if transported magically, the look on his face through the cloud of smoke terrifying.
“That’s my wife,” he says before he cocks his gun, points it at our assailant’s head, and pulls the trigger.
“Um, and sister,” Polina mutters as we stare down at the dead body of her would-be kidnapper.
“Sorry,” I tell her, my hand on her shoulder.
“Meh, you can keep him,” she says with a wink, but Lev doesn’t hear us. He’s already on to the next one.
We work as a team. I shoot down a man in a tactical vest while Lev slices his knife through a man who goes after his mother.
I watch with pride as Aria perfectly orchestrates sliding out of a chokehold before she draws her gun and pulls the trigger.
Ekaterina holds her own, sliding her wrist out of a grab before she slips a knife out of a boot holster and slices him.
Lev screams for backup into his phone, and the Romanov men pour into the backyard.
For long moments, there’s nothing but the deafening sound of gunshots, terrified screams, the clash of weapons, and the moans and pleas of our assailants.
I’m panting over the body of a man who’s vaguely familiar—my brother’s friend, I’d guess—when the dust begins to settle.
Mikhail glares into the crowd. “Is everyone accounted for?” I see the shadow of someone behind him.
He doesn’t see, and there’s no time to warn him.
I roll onto my right shoulder, take my position, and pull the trigger, but when my bullet hits its mark, another shot rings out, followed by another and another.
Jesus. Harper’s fucking amazing with a gun. She’s at the other end of the patio and still hit him straight between the eyes.
“Jesus,” Mikhail mutters.
We gather everyone up. “You’re injured,” I say to Lev. He has a gash across his cheek, and there’s blood dripping from a cut on his forehead.
“I’m fine,” he snaps. “Are you?”
No, I’m not fine. I’m nauseous and feel weird, and we were just attacked, and were you with another woman?
I shake my head. We’re wounded and reeling after this attack. The Romanov men are yelling at each other in Russian. Lev curses.
“Fuck,” he mutters. “What do you know about Javier’s tactics?”
“He’s a sneaky motherfucker,” I snap. “Renata told me this morning that his men were here. An outright attack like this is consistent with his usual, but…” My voice trails off.
“But what?” Lev is growing impatient.
“He’ll be sneakier.” I turn to Mikhail. “Is everyone accounted for?”
“Yes.” He blows out a breath. “But Javier’s not finished, is he?”
I shake my head. “Not a chance. That was a warning. He wants to keep us guessing.”
“Son of a bitch,” Lev growls.
“We could send them to a safe house,” Ollie says quietly, his arms crossed over his chest behind Mikhail. “I had them prepared.”
“I am not going...” a powerful wave of nausea suddenly washes over me, unbalancing me abruptly, I almost pass out. With sheer willpower alone, I force myself to regain my composure, stand straight and start again, “I am not going to the safe house,” I snap.
Lev’s jaw clenches.
“Polina.” He jerks his head at his sister.
“Mmm?”
“Test her.”
Polina stares. “Lev, I—”
“Do it,” he snaps.
I stare at him, my jaw unhinged. “Test me for… what?” The others are staring at us. Lev doesn’t meet my eyes. Heat flares across my chest as they begin to disperse.
“Everyone in the dining room,” Mikhail orders. He lowers his voice. “We’ll leave you two alone.”
What the hell is going on here?
Lev’s jaw clenches and unclenches. The smoke from the bomb has dissipated, and we’re left reeling, covered in blood but otherwise unharmed. I stare at him.
“Talk to me.”
He rifles a hand through his hair. Why does he look so guilty?
“I took it every day on the island.”
He swallows hard. “You didn’t, though.”
“Yes, I did. You said I wouldn’t need it anymore, but I still took it, because—”
My voice trails off when his face grows grim.
“It wasn’t birth control. I got rid of that shit. You haven’t been on birth control since then.”
I stare at him, hardly believing what he’s telling me. “You fucked around with my birth control?” My voice is a low whisper. I feel like I’m choking. I shake my head from side to side, not believing he’d stoop so low. “And I know what you did behind my back, too.”
I watch his brow furrow. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“You left in the middle of the night. You think I don’t have spies, too? How did I know anything about Javier, hmm? What the fuck, Lev? I thought you liked being with me.”
He walks over to me and brushes his hand across his face as a medic rushes over to us. “Sir, sit, please. We’ll tend to you both.”
Lev has a hushed conversation with them.
“Excuse me! I’m sitting right here. What the hell?”
But they don’t respond.
I watch as they clean Lev. I watch as Polina leaves and comes back a few moments later, her eyes wide and her face pale.
“You need to pee in this,” she says in my ear, handing me a small paper bag with a cup in it. Thank God she’s got a medical background because I would literally die.
This can’t be happening.
“I’ve got this.” I take the bag from her. I’ve never taken one of these tests before, but I need to know.
First.
Lev pulls me aside and runs a hand through his hair. He’s paled, and his eyes look haunted. “You need to know. I fucked around with your birth control. Now that I know you… now that I know who you are, I wouldn’t do something like that. Now that I… know that I love you.”
I stare at him. He’s speaking a language I know yet it seems like I can’t understand. I blink.
“I told you I would find a way to shackle you to me. The vows were only the beginning.”
“And yet you cheated on me,” I whisper, shaking my head.
His face contorts, and he shakes his head. “Never, Isabella. That’s utter bullshit. I never cheated on you! I wouldn’t. I fucked with your birth control because I wanted you to have my baby. I wanted to bind you to me in a way you couldn’t dissolve.” He shakes his head.
“How did you fuck with it?”
He looks away. “I replaced your pills.”
He…what?
I glare and narrow my eyes at him. “Your brother put you up to this, didn’t he?” When he doesn’t respond, I have my answer. I stare in disbelief, too stunned even to be angry.
Yet.
“I told you I didn’t want a baby. You said you agreed that children weren’t commodities.”
And he told me how important it was to him to have children, to be a father. If he wants them, are they really commodities?
But it’s my body.
I push past him and make my way to a bathroom. I do the whole pee-on-a-stick thing.
I watch the two pink lines show up.
I stare, disbelieving.
Pregnant.