“Neither do I. Not yet.”
“Did Dmitri kill her?”
“We don’t know.”
“But Yaromir thinks I’m dead, Katya is dead, and he’s going after his father’s house.”
“Yes.”
The word settles over the room like smoke.
I grip the blanket. “He’ll kill Dmitri.”
“That is almost certainly the plan.”
“And Kirill?”
“If Kirill is protecting Dmitri, yes.”
My side throbs. My head swims. The nurse’s words come back to me.You were extremely lucky. The baby is okay. You can’t leave this hospital.
But Yaromir doesn’t know that. He doesn’t know I’m alive. He doesn’t know about the baby. He doesn’t know Dmitri kissed me, that I pushed him away, that I ran, that I tried to get back to him.
He’s walking into that house carrying my death inside him.
I try to pull the blanket off.
Viktor stops me. “Anya.”
“I have to go.”
“I know.”
I look up at him. For a moment, I forget the pain.
“You know?”
“Yes. That’s why I came.”
The door opens, and the nurse from earlier steps inside.
She takes one look at Viktor, then at me trying to sit up, and her face hardens. “Absolutely not.”
“I have to leave,” I say.
“You were shot.”
“I know.”
“You nearly drowned.”
“I know.”
“You’re pregnant.”
Viktor goes still beside me.
Hearing it aloud makes the truth feel larger.