“What fortune cookie did you steal that from?” I taunt.
My cousin throws back his drink and immediately refills it. “Marriage made a poet of me,” he says with a wink. “Do you really think I’d have moved to goddamn Moscow for anyone else? Dagmara changed my whole world, my whole perspective on life. Our fathers liked to take the credit, but she made a man out of me.”
I roll my untouched drink between my fingers thoughtfully. “I used to think you were insane. Leaving the States, moving to Russia, all for a woman.”
Dimiv smirks. “And now?”
I pretend to consider it. “And now… I still think the exact same thing.”
He snorts with laughter. “Take it from a man who’s got nearly a decade of marriage under his belt: keep her happy. She’s always right and you’re always wrong. Happy wife; happy life. You remember that and you’ll stay married a long, long time.”
It’s not bad advice per se; it’s just not for me. Fighting is the slippery slope that led me to this day, to this woman.
“Thanks, cousin. I’m glad you could be here for this.”
“I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.” He beams and rips back the second shot. “Now, I believe it is time for the groom to get ready.” He points toward the back pew. “Suit’s in the bag there. Private room is just a little ways down the hall. Go get pretty—but take it easy on the lipstick this time.”
Chuckling, I pat Dimiv on the shoulder, grab my suit, and duck into the private room that overlooks the hospital’s manicured gardens. I stare out the window as I get dressed, trying to wrap my head around the surrealness of this moment. I’m getting dressed for my wedding. I’m going to get married. An hour from now, I’m going to have a wife.
It’s not something I ever thought I wanted before Alyssa.
When I step back into the chapel, I see Dimiv at the pulpit chatting animatedly with the officiant who’s going to marry us. I swear my cousin could talk the ear off a statue. I leave him to the schmoozing and turn to Nikolai, who’s just appeared in the doorway of the chapel.
“Took you long enough,” I say when I walk up to him. “Where were you?”
“Just checking on the bride. She looks phenomenal.”
He’d seen her already? In her dress? That irks me. But I’m willing to be charitable today. After all, it is my wedding day.
“Is everything good to go?”
Nikolai nods. “Yeah. Got the papers right here. We’re going legal with this shit.”
I smile. “By the way—you’re my best man.”
“Yeah?”
I slap him on the arm. “Who else?”
We embrace, clapping each other on the back at the same time. Nikolai even looks a little teary-eyed as he turns towards the pulpit, that sentimental bastard. “I’ll send Polly a text, tell her that we’re—”
Before he can finish his sentence, the doors burst open and Polly appears. Problem is, she’s out of breath and wide-eyed. I’m on edge immediately.
“Pol! What’s wrong? Is it Alyssa? The babies?”
“Um, I don’t know exactly. Alyssa wants to speak to you.”
“Is something wrong?”
Her eyebrows pull together tightly. “Yes. No. I-I’m not sure. Just go and talk to her.”
I race out of the chapel without waiting for more half-answers. I’m hurtling around the corridor when I almost run face-first into Dr. Grigory.
“Uri!” He looks shaken as he steps in my path. “I was just coming to find you. There’s something important I need to tell you.”
I frown. “Can it wait? Alyssa needs me.”
I might have just walked away at this point. But there’s something on the doctor’s face that stops me.
Something that reads trouble.
“Okay, go ahead. Tell me.”
Grigory’s eyes flicker past me. I glance over my shoulder to find Nikolai and Polly are standing a few feet behind me. He fidgets in place, looking desperately uncomfortable. “What I have to say is best said… in private.”
Yup.
Fucking trouble.
Even after the door shuts behind us in the little adjoining room we’ve stepped into, he does an awkward shuffling dance with his feet.
“Grigory,” I snap impatiently, “get the fuck on with it.”
The doctor’s cheeks flush red. His eyes snap to my face and then away again. He keeps twisting the file in his hands over and over again like he thinks he can wring the words right off the page. I notice the name stamped on the front of it. Alyssa Walsh.
I feel this unexpected combination of possessiveness and urgency. She won’t be Alyssa Walsh for very much longer. A short walk down the aisle and I’ll make her Alyssa Bugrov. She’s going to be mine.
One family; one name. One future.
“For fuck’s sake, Grigory,” I snarl. “I don’t have all day. I need to—”
“We did a test,” he blurts out. He does that weird shuffling thing with his feet again. “I-it’s a non-invasive test we do for all women who might have to undergo preterm deliveries. It’s to check the genetic makeup of the child, but mostly, it’s to check for the baby’s blood type in case of a transfusion.”
“I fail to see the problem here, Doctor.”
His whole face is blotchy, sweat beading at his temples and above his upper lip. “I’ve been the doctor for the Bugrov Bratva for a long time now,” he whispers in a choked, formal tone. “And my loyalty at the end of the day is to you. Please don’t forget that.”
I frown. “What are you trying to tell me?”
“I’ve treated you many times. I know all your scars and surgeries, your medical history, your genetic makeup, your blood type. And… the result of the tests that I conducted on Alyssa’s babies suggests… that you… are not their father.” He lifts his eyes to mine and gulps, the only sound audible in this claustrophobic, damp little room. “I-I’m sorry, I really am. But I ran the test twice just to be sure.”
I take an instinctive step forward and Grigory steps back, raising the file as some sort of literal paper shield between us. Her name stares back at me, the letters bold and unrelenting. Alyssa Walsh. The imaginary Bugrov that I could see at the end of her name just a moment ago seems to fade away.
Pulse pounding, I turn my back to the doctor. How can this be? She has been under my roof, under my eye, for months. Apart from my people, she hasn’t had contact with the outside world. Other than the days she was forced to spend under Sobakin’s— I freeze. My body goes cold and immediately, I remember the way I had found her when I’d broken into Sobakin’s safe house. She was lying chained to a bed, her clothes in disarray, that fucking monster leering over her ready to pounce. I thought I arrived in time to save her—but what if she lied to protect me from the truth? What if the worst had already happened? What if that was the second time he had visited her? Or the third? Or the fourth?
My mind is grappling with that possibility when reason starts to kick in. No—she told me that she already suspected she was pregnant by then. She’d said as much to Polly while they were hostages together.