Page 56 of The Russian's Innocent Prey
“My phone,” I said, looking around frantically.
“Right here.” Erin appeared beside the bed like she’d been waiting for me to wake up. How long had she been sitting there? “The doctor asked that you rest. No stress, no excitement. This is a delicate time.”
My heart skipped—not in joy, not in fear, but suspended somewhere in between. Pregnant. I was pregnant while myhusband lay injured in a hospital bed forty miles away, while assassins stalked our family, while everything in our world balanced on a knife’s edge.
Erin smiled, and there was something in that expression that made my skin crawl. “You’re glowing already. This is the best news, don’t you think?”
“I need to see Eleanor,” I said, ignoring her comment. “Or Irene. I need—”
“They’ll join you at your penthouse,” Erin interrupted smoothly. “I’ve already called them. They’re so excited for you.”
Something cold settled in my stomach—something that had nothing to do with morning sickness. No one had come to see me? Not Eleanor, who’d been like a sister? Not Irene, who’d been my best friend since childhood? They’d gotten news this huge and decided to wait until I got home?
It didn’t make sense.
But I didn’t have the strength to argue, didn’t have the energy to celebrate what should have been one of the happiest moments of my life. My thoughts kept drifting back to Lev lying in that hospital bed—the bandages, the machines, the quiet pain in his eyes when he tried to smile.
I wanted to be happy. I really did. But how could I be, when the man I loved was still fighting to heal? When every heartbeat of this tiny new life reminded me how close I’d come to losing him?
Erin helped me walk slowly to her car, one hand supporting my elbow like I was made of glass. The world felt fragile, like someone had turned down the saturation and everything existed in watercolors instead of reality.
“You need rest,” she said as she guided me toward the penthouse elevator. “I’ll fix something to eat.”
My legs felt like they belonged to someone else, each step requiring conscious effort. When we reached the bedroom,I sank onto the mattress gratefully, the familiar smell of home—Lev’s cologne, my vanilla perfume, the faint scent of the lavender sachets I kept in our dresser—wrapping around me like a security blanket.
But even here, surrounded by everything that should have felt safe, I couldn’t shake the wrongness of it all.
I looked at my empty hands, at the space where my phone should have been. “Can I have my phone now?”
Erin nodded, already moving toward the kitchen. “It’s in my purse. Let me put something in the oven first, then I’ll grab it for you.”
The logical part of my brain accepted this. I was weak, probably dehydrated, definitely in shock. Food first, then communication. It made perfect sense.
But the part of my brain that had kept me alive through years in the Bratva’s shadow—the part that had learned to read danger in the tilt of a head or the pause before an answer—that part was screaming warnings I was too exhausted to heed.
I leaned back against the pillows, and my body finally gave up the fight it had been waging for weeks. Exhaustion hit like a physical weight, dragging my eyelids down despite my mind’s protests.
“Okay,” I murmured, and let my eyes drift closed.
Just for a moment. Just until she brought my phone.
Just until I could call Lev’s room and make sure he was still breathing.
But sleep, when it came, brought no peace. My dreams were fragmented, filled with hospital corridors that stretched into infinity and the sound of Lev’s voice calling my name from somewhere I couldn’t reach. I dreamed of babies with steel-gray eyes and tiny hands that gripped my fingers like anchors.
I dreamed of Sasha’s face, pale and frightened, her mouth moving in words I couldn’t hear.
I dreamed of white lilies and the smell of something medicinal, something wrong.
***
When I stirred again, the room was darker. Shadows stretched across the walls, and I could hear movement in the kitchen—the soft clink of dishes, the whisper of footsteps on tile.
My hand moved to my stomach again, still trying to process the reality growing there. Six weeks. A life created in grief and desperation, now existing in a world of violence and uncertainty.
What kind of mother brought a child into this? What kind of future was I offering someone so innocent, so unaware of the blood that stained their family name?
But then I thought of Lev’s hands—scarred but gentle when they touched me. I thought of his voice in the dark, promising me things neither of us believed but both of us needed to hear.
