Page 86 of Marrying the Pakhan

“You’ve said it. Maybe not enough. We have time to fix that now.”

“Do we? Really?” He pulls back slightly, searching my face for the truth of it. “Pavel’s gone. Really gone, not just contained. I keep waiting to fully believe it.”

“I know the feeling.” I rest my hand against my stomach, feeling the baby shift beneath my palm, steady and unaware of how much has finally settled around it. “But I think we get to believe it now. Both of us. Together, the way we should have been facing all of this from the very beginning.”

We sit there a while longer on the study floor, the folder closed beside us, months of careful documentation finally allowed to just be history instead of an active, ongoing threat.

“What happens to all of this?” I ask, gesturing at the folder.

“Whatever you want. Burn it, keep it, box it up and never look at it again. It’s served its purpose.”

“Keep it. Somewhere out of sight but keep it.” I press my palm flat against the cover, one last time. “I want proof someday, for whoever asks, that you fought this hard for us.”

“What happens now?” I ask eventually.

“Now we get to just be a family. No more folders staying secret. No more locked studies full of things I’m keeping from you.” He kisses my temple, unhurried, certain. “Now we get to actually enjoy whatever comes next.”

I think about the nursery down the hall, painted pale yellow, waiting. I think about Ginger, already asleep upstairs, safe in a way she hasn’t been safe in months. I think about the baby due in a matter of weeks now, arriving into a family that’s finally, actually whole.

“I’d like that,” I say. “More than I know how to properly explain.”

“Then that’s what we build. Starting today.”

43

HARPER

Three weeks of ordinary life have passed since the study floor, since the folder, since I told Viktor I forgave him and actually meant it. I’ve spent most of that time simply marveling at how quiet a house can be once nothing’s actively trying to kill anyone in it.

We’ve settled into a rhythm that feels almost impossibly normal. Viktor working reasonable hours again, home for dinner every night without exception.

Ginger back to ordinary six-year-old concerns, currently deep in negotiations about what color to paint her half of a shared playroom she’s decided the baby needs.

Me, thirty-nine weeks and counting, waddling through days that finally, blessedly, contain nothing more dramatic than swollen ankles and an inability to see my own feet.

Denise still calls occasionally, less about custody now and more about how I’m holding up, the way a lawyer becomes something closer to a friend once the case that brought you together is fully resolved.

Dimitri drops by most weekends, usually with some excuse about checking security systems that everyone in the house has quietly agreed to stop pretending is his actual reason for visiting.

It’s the closest thing to peace I’ve felt since long before any of this started, and some days I still catch myself waiting for it to be taken away again, old habits refusing to fully release their grip even now.

I’m folding tiny onesies at the kitchen table when the first contraction hits, sharp enough that I have to grip the edge of the table to stay upright.

“Viktor.”

He’s beside me before I’ve even finished saying his name, hand on my back, already reading the situation correctly. “Contraction?”

“I think so. It might be nothing.”

Another one hits four minutes later, harder than the first, and the look on his face tells me he’s already past considering it might be nothing.

“I’m calling the hospital,” he says, already moving. “And Mrs. Bennett, for Ginger.”

Everything happens fast after that, the particular efficient chaos of a household mobilizing for exactly the event we’ve been quietly preparing for over these last few weeks.

Ginger gets scooped up, delighted rather than frightened, thrilled at the prospect of a sleepover with Mrs. Bennett and full permission to stay up late watching whatever she wants.

“Call me the second the baby comes,” she instructs Viktor solemnly, backpack already packed, apparently more organized about this than either of us currently are. “I want to know immediately.”