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Galina turns on him. “You should keep your mouth shut.”
“You said she would be alone,” he says. “You said I could have the kid too just to mess with him.”
My stomach drops.
Nikolai’s gaze doesn’t leave Galina. “What did you tell him?”
She looks at him for a long moment. The garden is quiet except for Evan’s uneven breathing and the sound of men moving through the house behind us.
Then Galina’s face folds in on itself. “Nikolai,” she says, and for the first time she sounds frightened. “Please. You know me. You know what I have done for this family. I raised you. I raised Anya after Sofia died. I have kept this house standing while everyone else made messes that I had to clean up.”
“You sent a man to kill my daughter.”
“I did what I had to do.”
“No,” he says. “You did what you wanted.”
“I did it for the Volkovs,” she yells out in frustration. A stifling silence follows. Galina looks at Nikolai as if she expects him to understand. “I could not let a bastard carry the Volkov name.”
For a second, I don’t understand what she means.
Then Nikolai goes completely still.
“What?” I ask.
Galina looks at him, not me. “You knew Sofia’s family lied. You knew before the wedding that she’d been with someone else. You knew the dates didn’t make sense.”
The words bring back pieces of things Nikolai has said to me over the past few weeks. The marriage arranged around families and obligations. Sofia’s parents hiding things. The way he spoke about honoring a marriage even when it had already gone wrong.
My eyes move to Nikolai.
He’s staring at Galina with an expression I’ve never seen on him before.
“She gave you another man’s child,” Galina says. “And you accepted it because you could not bear to disgrace the family.”
“Anya is my daughter,” Nikolai says. His voice is rough now.
“She is not your blood.”
“She is my daughter in every way that matters.”
Galina’s mouth twists. “You let Sofia’s family take advantage of you.”
“I trusted you,” he says. “You’re the only person you knew.”
She hesitates.
“I trusted you with my home, my child, and every part of my life you were never entitled to touch.” He takes another step toward her. “Letting you take advantage of that trust again? Never.”
Galina looks at me then. “And this one is doing the same thing.”
She points at my stomach. I cover it before I can stop myself.
“A bastard in her belly,” Galina says. “Another child you will accept because she knows exactly what kind of man you are.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Nikolai says.
“Why do this now?” The question comes out before I can stop it. Maybe I’m still in shock.
