Page 87 of The Breath Before Forever

That should have been Vaslav’s first clue.

Vaslav had known who it was before Mira announced it because of Marrow’s sharp barks of warning from the rear of the house when he heard the vehicle rumbling up the winding drive. Had it been an unknown vehicle, the dog would have made a beeline for the front and kept barking all the while. Instead, his noise remained at the rear.

He didn’t expect to see the infant car seat hanging from his wife’s elbow, but that worried, tired smile of hers never faltered as she walked closer to the steps. Vaslav couldn’t see what waited beyond the black shade pulled high on the car seat, but the bundle of pink blankets were more than visible.

“Hannah’s mother is flying in,” Vera said, breaking the silence between them first.

Vaslav blinked, and forced his gaze up to meet hers, and she climbed the steps toward him. “I tried to warn you.”

Or maybe prepare would be a better word for the caution tape Vaslav had needed to proverbially put between Vera and her still comatose friend in the recent weeks since the cesarian birth of Hannah’s infant. He thought it unfortunate that Vera didn’t have the extra months with Hannah pregnant to keep her safe from her mother’s melding and control in her medical care, but they had already walked on very thin ice doing what they had.

It was time to step back.

“Once the baby was born, Igor had practically no control over how Hannah’s medical care would be handled. Her mother can—”

Vera’s furious gaze darted from him and down to the bundle in the car seat. “The baby’s been born for three weeks, and she never even asked about her!”

Vera’s sudden rise in tone earned a tiny squall from the car seat. Like the jaws of a dog had snapped at his ass, Vaslav jumped at the new noise, not even trying to hide the glare he shot in the general direction of the dangling car seat.

“Stop it,” Vera scolded him. “Don’t you want to look at her?”

A part of him did.

Another part of him wanted to drive across Moscow where he would find Igor—well-protected, sure, but what did that matter—and drag him to Dubna so he could take care of his child. No sacrifice could be made without some caveats, of course.

This was certainly one of those.

“They’re very small,” he told Vera.

She blinked up at him. “What?”

“Babies,” Vaslav explained. “And this one is extra small, no? She was born early, they gave her those steroids for her lungs, and—”

“Vaslav, what is the problem? We talked about this. Igor goes nowhere without his security. He doesn’t even sleep in the same place for more than a week. And wasn’t it you that told me he wasn’t in any shape to be caring for a newborn last week?”

They had talked about this.

This very, exact thing.

Many times.

The entire damn situation was so inevitable, in fact, that Vaslav didn’t think there was any way around Vera caring for Hannah’s child. The woman’s mother wanted nothing to do with the baby; the father wasn’t in any shape to be one; and Vera couldn’t help but martyr herself every goddamn chance she could.

Inevitable.

“Fine,” Vaslav muttered as he heard the footsteps approaching the front door.

Kiril and Mira, likely.

Coming to greet the baby.

When did Vaslav ask for a full house?

“Fine, what?” Vera asked him.

“Let me see her.”

The demand made his wife beam. She didn’t wait for him to say it a second time before spinning the car seat around and pushing back the rounded shade. He kneeled as Vera placed the car seat to the stone, getting a better look at the hazy, blinking eyes of the wrinkly baby snuggled under a pink blanket. The cotton cap with a big bow in the front fell over the baby’s eyes when she yawned.