Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 67534 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 338(@200wpm)___ 270(@250wpm)___ 225(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 67534 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 338(@200wpm)___ 270(@250wpm)___ 225(@300wpm)
“Don’t spiral about this,” Sergei replies. “It was a tough situation. Anyone could have gotten hit.”
I nod, but it doesn’t matter. I’m already at my wit’s end. The doctor steps out of the room and asks if he can speak to me for a moment. Sergei makes his excuses and promises to check on how the others are doing.
“We’ve just gotten some labs back from pathology. We should have waited to get them until we did the scan, but time was of the essence.”
“Okay,” I say, feeling instantly worried. “Is there something wrong?”
“No, not wrong. Not exactly,” he looks nervous, and probably for good reason. If he’s done something that’ll leave Anya hurt or permanently injured, there’s not a good enough malpractice lawyer in all five boroughs to protect him.
“Just spit it out,” I say, annoyed.
“She’s pregnant,” he answers quietly.
His words don’t register immediately. They sound like a foreign language, and for a moment, I have to catalog my entire brain to determine if that’s a word I’ve ever heard in my life. It takes me so much by surprise.
“That’s not possible,” I say before I manage to land on the word in my lexicon.
“I’m afraid it is,” he says slowly. “We did an MRI, so there shouldn’t be any complications, but I wanted to make sure you were aware in case—”
“How far along is she?” I ask, cutting off.
“It’s very early,” the doctor says. “Hard to say exactly without an ultrasound but just based on her labs and the look of her, I’d say about six weeks.”
The room tilts, and it isn’t from shock. It’s from the fact that every detail suddenly rearranges itself in my head. Her quiet. Her distance. She shut down. She stopped fighting me, as if she was resigned to her fate.
She knew or at least suspected. How could she know for sure? It’s not like I kept the bathroom stocked with pregnancy tests.
The doctor keeps talking, saying words like risk and stress and rest. I barely hear him. All I hear is that there’s more to lose now. Because it has to be mine, right? The timing makes sense, doesn’t it? Then again, she could have been with Mikhail right before I took her. No, I don’t even let myself think about the two of them together.
It’s got to be my child. She’s carrying my child and she’s been keeping it a secret for me for at least a couple of weeks. I try to think back to when she stopped being so argumentative. My mind is racing, trying to pinpoint an exact date.
“You’re sure?” I ask, because I just can’t make myself believe it.
The doctor nods. “Yes. One hundred percent. That’s why I had to give her a mild pain reliever. Anything stronger might harm the baby.”
“Is it enough?” I ask. “Is she going to be hurting when she wakes up?”
“We’ll help her manage the pain the best we can,” he confirms. “Don’t worry, Mr. Kovalev, she’s in the best possible hands.”
“I want you to give her the strongest pain reliever she can safely have,” I tell him. “Make her as comfortable as she can be. And I want to be the first person to know when she wakes up.”
“You can wait with her, if you’d like,” he says, gesturing into the room.
“I need to clear my head,” I tell him, pushing past and heading toward the exit.
None of this makes sense, and yet, it all falls into place perfectly. She kept this from me. She knew she was pregnant and she never said anything. What the fuck am I supposed to do with that?
16
ANYA
Waking up hurts. I can handle the pain. It’s a language I’ve been speaking my entire life. This is worse than just pain. It’s like my body is refusing to cooperate with my brain, and nothing irritates me more than feeling weak.
I try to sit up, but the movement triggers a sharp, terrible stab under my ribs that steals my breath and turns everything into a tight blur for a second. The bed creaks. My shoulder tenses. My vision darkens, warning me that unconsciousness is imminent if I don’t do something different.
I force myself to stop moving. I take short, shallow breaths because deep ones make me feel like I’m being stabbed in the lungs. I force myself to take in the room instead, hoping that taking my mind off the pain will make it stop.
I stare up at white ceiling tiles. The lighting is fluorescent and harsh. It’s not like any hospital room I’ve been in before. For one, there are no windows. An IV line runs from my arm to a bag hanging beside the bed.
That should be reassuring. It’s not. The IV means blood was taken. Labs were probably done. Shit. The pain under my ribs pulses again when I swallow.