Page 77 of Scarlet Chains
She turns to face me fully then, shifting on the couch so her body is angled toward mine. Takes a deep breath that makesher chest rise and fall beneath the silk robe she’s still wearing. When she speaks, her voice is steady but quiet, like she’s sharing a secret with the walls themselves.
“I’m pregnant.”
I stare at her like an idiot, blinking stupidly while my brain tries to piece together what she’s just said. For a moment, I wonder if something’s gone wrong with my hearing, if the stress of confession has finally driven me completely insane.
“What?”
“I’m pregnant,” she repeats, and this time there’s no mistaking it. No room for misinterpretation or wishful thinking. “About ten weeks by now, according to the doctor.”
I stop breathing. Everything I thought I knew about my life, about our situation, about what’s possible between us, suddenly rearranges itself into something entirely new. Dangerous.
Beautiful.
A baby. Our baby.
The child I never thought I’d have, growing inside the woman I killed for, carried by the daughter of the man whose death haunts my dreams.
I open my mouth to respond, but no words come.
Just the sound of my own breathing, harsh and uneven in the suddenly quiet room.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Ilona
“I’m pregnant.”
The words hang in the air between us like something tangible, reshaping the very molecules of Room Five around their weight. I watch Osip’s face— no longer hidden behind black leather, no longer the mysterious stranger who held me while I grieved— as every trace of color drains from his features.
He stares at me like I’ve spoken in a language he doesn’t understand, his eyes wide with shock. The same eyes that watched me break apart night after night in this very room, that looked at me with such gentle intensity from behind a mask.
“What?” The word comes out strangled, broken.
“I’m pregnant,” I repeat, and this time my voice carries a strength I didn’t know I possessed. “Over ten weeks.”
The silence that follows is deafening. Somewhere in the distance, I’m sure I can hear the muffled sounds of The Scarlet Fox continuing its elegant existence— glasses clinking, soft music, the gentle hum of lives proceeding normally while mine explodes into fragments I’m not sure can ever be reassembled.
Ten weeks. The timeline aligns perfectly with our contract, with those early nights when he’d come to me desperate and hungry, when we’d lose ourselves in each other with an intensity that felt like drowning and salvation all at once. Before I learned the truth about who he was.
Osip opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again like a fish gasping for air. His powerful frame, usually so controlled and commanding, seems to fold in on itself as the revelation hits him.
“But you said… the miscarriage,” he whispers, and I can hear the old grief threading through his voice. The memory of Galina, of the child he lost before. The child we lost together. And it occurs to me that this man knows the pain I’ve felt too.
“I did have a miscarriage.” The words burn my throat, but they need to be said. “Dr. Varga called me just before I left for Boston. I was carrying twins.”
His entire body goes rigid, every muscle locking into place like he’s been flash-frozen. “Twins.”
“One of them didn’t make it.” My hand drifts unconsciously to my stomach, a protective gesture that feels both familiar and strange. It’s still flat now but there’s a firmness to it that wasn’t there before. “But the other one… the other baby is fighting. Surviving.”
Like Mom,I think suddenly, the comparison catching me off guard. Mom, fighting her own battle with a strength that amazes me daily. Mom, who deserves to meet her grandchild.
The lamp beside the burgundy chaise casts warm light across the Persian rug, illuminating the crystal decanter that sits untouched on the side table. This room— where we found solace in darkness, where I poured out my pain to a stranger I thought I could trust, where he held me while knowing exactly why I needed holding— suddenly feels too small to contain the magnitude of what’s happening between us.
Osip pushes himself up from the chair with movements that seem disconnected, mechanical. He runs both hands through his dark hair, destroying its usual perfect order, and I’m struck by how raw he looks without the mask. How vulnerable.
“Are you…?” He stops, his throat working as he swallows hard. “Are you keeping it?”
The question should offend me. Should make me angry that he’d even think I wouldn’t want this child. But there’s something in his voice— a desperate hope he’s trying to hide, afear so deep it makes my chest ache— that tells me this question comes from a place of old wounds and shattered dreams.
