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Seamus stops by August first, clasping his shoulder with both hands and shaking slightly. They’ve definitely become firm friends now, which can only work in my favor. Seamus then takes the last empty seat and props his ankles up on the base of a nearby plant pot.
“Sorry about your hand, friend. That’s rough.”
“I don’t care about my fucking hand,” I snap, growing irritated that Seamus’s arrival appears to be a precursor to more sitting around and talking rather than doing. “I want Alena. We can’t wait any longer. With how long I was out, Alena’s got to be so far along now. All it takes is one wrong move, and Mara will cut my baby out of her, and I?—”
“Woah, Son.” August holds up one hand. “I understand your desire for revenge and your need to protect, but we need to plan this carefully to ensure no harm comes to Alena or your baby. You’re right, one wrong move and God knows what could happen, so we need to do this properly. Especially since Mara will be aware of your escape.”
Fuck.
In all the flurry, I hadn’t even considered that. What if she decides to move Alena? Take her even further away and leave me here? What if the blades are already sharpened?
“Trust me,” Seamus says, leaning forward. “Things are already in motion. We’re putting intense pressure on the Kuznetsovs as payback for every time they’ve tried to kill us. Right now, Mara thinks she’s untouchable because she has attack dogs like them at her heel. So, we need to take them out if we have any chance of getting anywhere near her.”
“Alexei is certain Alena is in the house because ever since they got back from Russia, no one has been allowed on the third floor except her and whoever she escorts there personally,” Andrev says. “It’s been a few weeks since we were last able to make contact with him, so that’s the best we have to go on.”
“We need to kill the Kuznetsovs, cut the head off the snake, as it were.” Seamus’s eyes glint in the light. “We take them out, and Mara will be right there. Alena will be the crown jewel.”
They speak sense. I know this, and it irritates me more than anything. For too long, the woman I love has been in the hands of the devil. I want to free her, but acting recklessly will result in something worse than just a missing hand.
“Fine.” I stand slowly, and Andrev rushes to my side. “You do what you want, but I’m not waiting. I’m going to get Alena. I don’t give a shit about anything else.”
33
ALENA
This late in the pregnancy, things are supposed to be fun. Months ago, when considering these very moments, I dreamed of Kristof at my beck and call, massaging my feet and my lower back. The fun of being able to eat all the strange cravings I read about and adding a few finishing touches to the nursery.
Maybe we would even have picked out a house in America and remotely decorated that too.
My reality is chillingly different. Staring at myself in the mirror, I still appear in good health. Mara’s been anal about that, and it may be the most care she’s ever shown me in my entire life. Countless vitamins and teas to help secure my health and boost the health of my baby. Even jellies to try and counter the stress I feel. There’s a small part of me that’s grateful my baby is still getting the best care possible, even as the due date trickles down from months to weeks and now mere days.
The grateful part of me was also the part that got in the way of my escape attempt a few weeks ago. It was easy to fake issues with the baby, and I’d cut my own leg for the blood needed to send Mara into a panic. But when they started talking about how if there was something wrong with my baby, then they’d cut her out of me and care for her via an incubator, I wavered.
The hope of rescue was nonexistent. I was merely clinging to spending as long with my baby as I could. So, the escape hadn’t gone as planned. That night, Mara had presented me with a severed hand for dinner. Never had I seen something so grotesque, and when she laughed and told me that the hand was carved from Kristof’s corpse, my last trickles of hope dried up.
I had nothing to escape to. No one was waiting for me. No one left.
Just me and my baby.
Sometimes, I tried to tell myself that the hand looked fresh, but I knew nothing about decomposition. At this point, the hope that Kristof would come for me was nothing more than false, but I clung to it in the back of my mind. I couldn’t let go.
Couldn’t really believe he was dead. It felt so impossible.
I still contemplated ending things together so that my baby and I could join Kristof in heaven, but Mara has since wised up and stopped bringing sleeping pills each night. Now, there isn’t even the darkness to distract me.
Sighing, I splash water on my face and turn to the toilet for the umpteenth time. My little egg seems to be resting her entire weight on my bladder, making bathroom trips nearly constant. Most of the time, I need to pee again by the time I’m secured back in bed, and the whole thing starts all over again.
“Hurry up!” Sharp knuckles rap against the door, and the impatient maid charged with watching over me sighs dramatically.
I do my business and wash my hands, then approach the door. Just as I reach for the handle, the maid shoves it open and fixes me with a sharp look.
“What?”
“Making sure you’re not up to anything suspicious.”
I scoff as she roughly takes my elbow and drags me back to bed. “What could I do? Look at me. I’m the size of a whale. The most I can do is fall over and flop about like a dead fish.”
“I don’t care,” she replies. “Mara says we take no chances, so we take no chances.”
