Page 51 of Secret Baby of the Bratva
I tell myself I can handle it, that I’ve survived worse, but my body betrays me. Sweat soaks through my clothes, my breath shudders, my knees buckle. Somehow, through the blur, I pull on my coat and stumble into the storm. The wind whips at my face, icy rain stinging, every step a battle. The clinic waits on the edge of town, its windows glowing faint and yellow against the dark.
The nurses don’t ask questions. They see me, pale and shaking, and usher me inside with firm, steady hands. The heat of the building wraps around me, but the pain doesn’t relent. Hours blur together—gasps and screams, my body tearing itself apart, voices coaxing me to breathe, to push, to keep going.
Fear roots deep in my chest. I am alone, utterly alone, and for a fleeting, terrible moment I wonder if I’ll survive long enough to meet the life I’ve carried for months. If this is where it ends—not in Dimitri’s world, not by his hand, but in this small, anonymous room.
Then it happens.
A cry cuts through everything—high, thin, desperate. It pierces the storm outside, slices through the haze clouding my mind. My head falls back against the pillow, relief crashing overme so fast I tremble with it. Exhaustion swallows me whole, my limbs limp, my body emptied. Tears don’t come; I’m too far gone for them.
A nurse leans close, her face blurred by my exhaustion. She sets a small, swaddled form against my chest. Warmth floods me instantly, fragile and new, heavier in meaning than weight.
I look down and see him. Tiny. Perfect. His face creased, his cry tapering into hiccupped breaths. One hand wriggles free of the blanket, fingers impossibly small, impossibly strong as they curl around one of mine.
Something shifts in me—sharp, irrevocable.
It isn’t a thought, isn’t a prayer. It’s a vow, carved into my bones without words. Whatever comes, whatever shadows still reach for me, he is mine. I will protect him.
His breath evens against my skin, his body curling closer. The storm rages outside, but inside the clinic, in this small room, everything narrows to him.
***
By morning the storm has eased. The world beyond the clinic window lies blanketed in snow, the roofs heavy with white, the air sharp with salt and cold. Inside, the room is hushed, the only sound the soft rhythm of my son’s breathing against my skin.
I sit propped against thin pillows, exhaustion still tugging at my limbs, but I can’t stop watching him. Every detail feels miraculous: the fan of dark lashes against his cheeks, the tiny fists clenched tight, the fragile rise and fall of his chest as he drifts in and out of sleep. His warmth sinks into me, an anchor I didn’t know I was waiting for.
A nurse comes in, her voice gentle. “Do you want to register the birth formally?”
The question freezes me. Fear twists in my chest, sharp and immediate. Records. Paper trails. Threads leading straight back to the world I ran from. To him. I shake my head quickly, clutching my son closer. “No. No records. Please.”
The nurse studies me for a moment, then nods without pushing. She leaves me in silence, the snow-reflected light spilling pale across the sheets.
Later, back in my apartment above the bakery, the air feels different. The walls are still cracked, the radiator still groans, but the space is no longer empty. I sit in the rocking chair by the window, my son bundled in blankets against my chest. For the first time, I whisper the name I’ve chosen.
It feels like a secret spell, spoken softly into the dim air. The syllables taste sacred on my tongue, binding us together in a way nothing else can. I don’t write it down. I don’t share it. It lives only between us, in my heart and in the sound of my voice when I speak it into the quiet.
I rock him slowly, back and forth, murmuring soft promises into the crown of his tiny head. Promises of protection, of love, of survival. “It’s just us now,” I whisper, and I force myself to believe it. My voice wavers, but the vow doesn’t.
Yet beneath the warmth of my words, fear lingers. What if he finds out? What if Dimitri’s world, ruthless and unrelenting, comes crashing into mine again? The thought makes my stomach twist. I shove it away, tightening my hold around my son as though sheer will could keep the danger at bay.
I can’t afford to think about him. Not anymore.
All that matters is the child in my arms and the fragile life I’ve built here, in the shadows.
The snow continues to fall outside, the sea wind pressing against the glass, but in this room, in this moment, the world feels small and sacred. Just me. Just him.
Chapter Twenty-Two - Dimitri
I bury myself in Bratva affairs, the kind of work that demands every ounce of precision—shipments timed to the minute, negotiations balanced on the edge of a knife, power plays where hesitation can kill. My men see me sharp, focused, steady as stone. To them, I am as I have always been.
Even after months, Annie’s absence lingers. A wound that refuses to close.
I tell myself I’m fine, that I’ve burned her out of me, that my nights are empty by choice. The lie holds until her name resurfaces.
At first, it’s nothing. A whisper from an associate, half a sentence in a report, the suggestion of a woman matching her description. I ignore it. The world is full of whispers.
Then another mention. A different source, the same vague direction: the coast. A small town. A diner. Too many coincidences.
By the third report, it gnaws at me.
