I open my mouth to ask what will happen if it’s a girl, but I close it again, realizing I don’t really want to know.
They might kill her.
They might let her live and kill me.
They might raise her as one of them.
They might sell her for profit.
My fingers tear open the envelope before I even make a conscious decision to do it. I can’t bear not knowing. The baby has to be a boy and I need to prove it now. I need to know right now that he’s a boy and that he’ll be okay.
I need to know we’ll be alive in three months to escape with Ezra.
I tug the single sheet of white paper free from the envelope and unfold it with trembling fingers. But before I can read what it says, I squeeze my eyes shut.
I can’t bring myself to look.
I place it on the table and push it toward Kostya.
“What does it say?” I ask him.
I suck in a breath and hold it through a pause, a painful beat of not knowing. I hear the quiet rush of air as he sighs…a sound of relief.
“Boy,” Kostya says, angling the paper toward me to see it before sliding it back across the table to Murphy.
I struggle to hold my cold, regal expression when I feel the rush of relief wash over my body.
I knew it.
I knew he was a boy.
My baby has always been precious to me, but because he’s a boy, he’s now precious to the four families as well—a direct heir of the Mikhailov or Vittori Head of House. Both my hands cover my belly as an instinctive urge to protect him takes hold of me.
They’ll want him to become one of them. They’ll raise him to be the next Head of House. They’ll groom him for the role the same way they groomed Nikolai and Vigo. They’ll prime him for violence and brutality. They’ll strip him of his empathy and compassion.
Over my dead fucking body—and I will be dead if the results show he belongs to neither of them.
I inhale slowly and look at Murphy.
“Alright,” he says, glancing over the paper before slapping it on the table in front of him. “Well done, lass. You’ve created the next Head of House.” He flips through his pages and produces another white envelope, the sight of which makes my heart flip. “Now to find out if he’s a Vittori or a Mikhailov.”
Oh, God.
I feel sick.
He waves the envelope at me, but then he sets it on the table and pushes it to Renata on the opposite side. My mouth drops open in surprise that he’s letting her open it. Those paternity results have nothing to do with her. I don’t care if one of the fathers in question is her brother.
She tears into it and pulls the page out of the envelope, her eyes scanning it quickly to find the information she’s seeking. Her face falls and my heart beats harder. I don’t know which would upset her more—if my baby is her nephew or if he’s not. I don’t know if she’s hopeful that he will be the last bit of Vigo she might find to hang onto now that he’s gone, or if the idea of her nephew belonging to me makes her cry into her pillow at night.
She forces out a heavy breath and her nostrils flare as she pushes the paper back to Murphy. “He’s not a Vittori.”
He’s not a Vittori.
I want to leap on the table and cheer.
The four most beautiful words I never thought I’d be so happy to hear.
He’s not a Vittori.
But is he a Mikhailov?
“Hmm.” Murphy’s brow furrows as he looks over the page and I sit up a little higher. “Apparently, the DNA result from Nikolai was inconclusive.”
Inconclusive?
Perhaps it was because they took his blood sample after he’d already been dead for hours. I don’t know. I have no idea how DNA testing works or what would make it inconclusive. I’m not even sure I understand what inconclusive means.
But I don’t feel upset.
In my heart, I know the truth. I know that this baby boy is Ezra’s and I convince myself that’s the reason why the results were inconclusive. Really, it’s the best result I could’ve asked for. If they’d determined with certainty that the baby wasn’t Nikolai’s, then they might work out that it’s Ezra’s. But only Leo Leblanc knows that Ezra and I were left alone in his dungeon the night I would’ve fallen pregnant. And thank God, he hasn’t said a word about it.
I look expectantly at Murphy. “So, what does this mean for me?”
His eyes narrow and his jaw sets as he runs a hand over his beard. “Leo?”
All eyes turn toward Leo at the other head of the table. He’s the only other Head of House, but he’s young and new. I remember thinking how out of place he seemed the first time I met him. But now he looks almost cold, like he’s been hardened by the business in such a short time. His face holds an expression of indifference and apathy.
“So, we assume the child is a Mikhailov since we know it isn’t a Vittori.” His eyes dare a quick glance in my direction and my heart hammers an extra beat at his secretive look. “I say, let her remain in the care of the Vittoris. She seems to be doing well there now and it makes sense for her to stay given that the Mikhailovs and Vittoris are making joint business decisions. Let her stay for a year and if she proves herself trustworthy,” Leo leans back in his chair crossing his arms over his chest, “then she and Kostya can move back to Mikhailov Manor to run the business.”
Murphy leans forward on his elbows, his eyes narrowed in consideration as he nods.
I swallow. “What about the next quarterly meeting? It’s the Mikhailovs—it’s our turn to host.” We have to host at Mikhailov Manor. We can only escape from there with Kostya’s help, and I can’t wait another year for that to happen. “I’d like to host it in my home.”
“No,” Murphy says plainly. “It’s too close to your due date in January.”
“But I’m due a week before the meeting—”
“And will be in no condition to travel to Russia with a newborn,” he says with his eyebrows knitting together. “You’ll host from the Vittoris’ home. That’s final.”
I stare at him, willing him with my eyes to change his answer, but after several beats of stone-cold silence and his stubbornly powerful glare, I can see that he’s not changing his mind. Not right now. But I know I have to host the next quarterly meeting at the manor, so I’ll find a way to get a yes from Murphy. I just need to wait for the right time.
Cordelia suddenly leans forward. “Why do we need to give her any time with the baby at all?” she asks. “I would gladly take over care of the child after Anya gives birth. We won’t need her after that. She can be decommissioned like the slave whore she’s proven to be.”