His hand slides lower after a moment and comes to rest over my belly.
The room is quiet except for our breathing, still a little rough, and the muffled sounds of the house beyond the door. I let my eyes close for a second. I could almost pretend the rest of the world doesn’t exist.
Then his palm moves once over the curve of me, slow and thoughtful, and he says, “Is the father of the baby in the picture?”
I open my eyes.
He’s looking at my stomach, not at me.
For a second, I think about lying again. About keeping the whole thing suspended a little longer. But I’m too wrung out for lies to come easily now, and the question isn’t what it was before. There’s no accusation in it. Just something quieter. Something that matters more.
“I’m not married or engaged,” I say. “If that’s what you’re asking.”
His hand stays where it is. “That’s not exactly what I asked.”
“I know.”
He lifts his eyes to mine then, and the look in them makes my chest tighten all over again. Not because I understand it completely. Because I don’t.
He’s quiet for a while. One arm is still under my head, the other draped over my stomach in a way that should feel far too intimate and somehow doesn’t. Outside the windows, the light has gone softer, late enough that the room feels cut off from the rest of the house. Warm. Private. Dangerous.
I trace one fingertip over the skin of his chest and say, “Tell me something real.”
His mouth shifts. “You’ve learned by now that’s a dangerous request.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
I lift my head and look at him. “Then tell me anyway.”
For a moment I think he’ll refuse. He has that look about him, the one that says he’s measuring what something will cost before he gives it away. Then he looks past me toward the darkening windows and says, “I was not raised to be safe.”
It isn’t a full answer, but it’s more than he has given me before, so I stay quiet.
“My father believed fear was useful,” he says. “He was right about that. He was wrong about almost everything else.”
His hand moves once over the curve of my belly, absent, thoughtful. “By the time I was old enough to understand what our family was, I was old enough to be of use to it.”
“And what was it?” I ask softly.
His eyes come back to mine. “You already know the word.”
“Mafia?” I say.
He shakes his head. “We’re the Bratva. There were years when I thought I would leave. Then years when I was too far in to pretend that was still an option. Men died. Deals were made. Other men took my place at tables and did it badly enough that eventually I stopped letting them.” His voice stays even, almost gentle, which somehow makes what he’s saying worse.
He watches me absorb it.
“There are parts of my life you would not like,” he says.
I let out a breath that catches halfway. “That’s a terrifying way to phrase that.”
“It’s also an honest one.”
I sit up a little, needing the room back around me. The bed. The lamp. The door. Anything ordinary.
He notices at once. “You’re frightened.”