Page 45 of Secret Baby of the Bratva
Because I know the truth. The ache won’t fade because Dimitri carved himself into me. His presence filled every breath, every thought, until there wasn’t space for anything else. And now he’s gone, I am a hollow thing, scraped out and left unfinished. I tell myself I’m angry, that I hate him for what he did—for casting me out like I meant nothing.
When the nights stretch long and the silence grows unbearable, I know it isn’t the whole truth.
One night I scroll through my phone, thumb hovering over his number. My chest aches, my body remembering him inways I don’t want it to. I could call. Just one word from him and everything might shift.
I lock the screen before I can do something stupid. He made his decision. He chose exile. Calling him isn’t an option. I have to live with it.
Weeks drag on. I become more adept at hiding it. I mask grief behind sarcasm, behind rolled eyes and long workdays. To most, I look busy, capable, too focused to fall apart. But mirrors don’t lie.
Each time I catch my reflection—tired skin, pale lips, eyes shadowed and too old for my years—I hardly recognize myself.
The woman staring back isn’t the one who walked into that gallery months ago. She isn’t even the woman who defied a Bratva enforcer and lived to tell it.
She’s someone emptied. Someone waiting for something she can’t name.
***
It starts small. At first, I tell myself it’s nothing—too many late nights, too many hours worked back-to-back, exhaustion finally catching up to me. I silence my alarm three mornings in a row, dragging myself out of bed later than I should. At work, I yawn through entire shifts, my head heavy, limbs sluggish.
When the nausea comes, sharp and sudden, I brush it off as flu. Stress. Bad food. Anything but what it really might be.
The sickness doesn’t stop. Days later, it’s still there—coiled in my stomach when I wake, striking without warning halfway through my day. A quiet dread takes root in my chest. I don’t want to name it. I don’t want to give it shape.
One morning, with trembling hands, I drag myself to the pharmacy. I keep my eyes low as I pluck the test from the shelf, as though the act brands me guilty.
At the register I can’t meet the cashier’s gaze. The box disappears into my bag, hidden under receipts and gum wrappers like contraband. My pulse doesn’t steady until I’m back home, the door bolted behind me.
In the cramped bathroom, I set it down on the counter. The box stares at me, small and ordinary, but it feels heavier than any weight I’ve carried. I pace. I tell myself I’ll wait. But waiting won’t change the answer.
When the two pink lines bloom across the test, my heart stops.
I sit on the edge of the tub, staring, unable to look away. My hands shake. My throat tightens. But my eyes remain dry. I don’t cry. Deep down, I already knew. The nausea, the exhaustion, the way my body felt… different. I’ve just been avoiding the truth.
Dimitri’s face flashes in my mind—his eyes burning into mine, the way his touch claimed me, the way his body pressed into mine like nothing in the world could stop him. This is his. Undeniably his.
Panic rises sharp in my throat. What does it mean? What will happen if he ever finds out? The thought threatens to unravel me. I clamp it down hard, force my breathing steady.
I shove the test into the bin, burying it under tissues until it’s hidden from sight. I scrub my hands under scalding water until the skin is red and raw, as if I can erase the truth clinging to me.
In the mirror, a pale, shaking stranger stares back. My lips are bloodless, my eyes hollow, but I whisper anyway, forcing the words out past the lump in my throat.
“This changes nothing.”
I don’t need him. I can’t. I’ll handle it on my own.
I have no other choice.
Mia notices almost immediately. She always does. I skip meals, push plates around until she gives up, take more sick days than I can justify. Conversations slide past me, her words bouncing off the wall I’ve built. When she finally presses, concern lacing her voice, I smile, brittle and thin.
“I’m fine,” I tell her. The lie is flimsy, transparent, but I hold her gaze until she lets it go. She knows I won’t open up. Not about this.
At home, the secret coils tighter around me. I avoid mirrors, avoid catching the faintest glimpse of the changes in my body. The way my jeans strain at the waist. The way my breasts ache in ways they never did before.
I can’t bring myself to say the word aloud—pregnant. It feels too dangerous, too final. If I speak it, it will be real.
At night, I lie awake, the silence pressing in. Without meaning to, my hand drifts to my stomach. Protective. Tender. The touch makes my throat tighten. I try to fight it, but the pull is stronger than me. A connection I swore I’d bury stretches across the miles and walls between us. Dimitri.
He doesn’t deserve to know. I repeat it in my head like prayer. He cast me out without hesitation, without mercy, as though I was nothing more than a nuisance. Why should I give him this piece of me, the one thing that still ties us together?
