Babies Of The Don+18

Chapter 11

•|• Elera's POV •|•

The apartment felt warm the second we stepped inside, carrying the scent of vanilla from the candle I had forgotten to blow out earlier that morning. It wrapped around us softly, domestic and safe, so different from the chaos of the world outside that sometimes it didn’t even feel real.

The boys rushed in ahead of us immediately.

“Mama! Mama! Look!” Mikhail shouted as he kicked off his sneakers carelessly near the couch.

Nikolai laughed behind him, already dragging the basket of toys from beside the television onto the rug. Within seconds both of them were sprawled across the floor, arguing over toy cars and building blocks as if they hadn’t been playing with them every single day of their lives.

I shook my head softly, toeing off my shoes near the door.

“Slow down before one of you breaks something,” I warned.

“We won’t!” they chorused together without even looking at me.

Typical.

Behind me, Elijah closed the door quietly.

The click of the lock somehow sounded louder than usual.

I turned slightly and found him watching the boys with a look I couldn’t fully read. Something soft sat in his expression whenever he looked at them. Something careful. It made my chest ache in ways I tried not to examine too closely.

“You want something to drink?” I asked, mostly because I needed something normal to say.

“Water’s fine.”

I nodded and moved toward the kitchen while he walked into the living room. The apartment suddenly felt too small for my thoughts. Too small for him.

I handed him a glass a minute later and sat down on the couch across from where he leaned back into the armchair near the window. The boys continued playing loudly in the corner, their laughter filling every quiet space before silence could settle too deeply.

For a while, things were easy.

Simple.

Elijah asked about work. I complained about my boss Nathan asking me for way too many files. He told me about traffic and a business meeting that sounded exhausting. We laughed about Mikhail trying to convince a grocery store cashier that he deserved free candy because he was “cute.”

“I was cute,” Mikhail defended from the floor without missing a beat.

Elijah chuckled. “You were committing fraud.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“Good,” I muttered under my breath.

The conversation drifted naturally after that, moving between nonsense and comfort so smoothly that I almost forgot how complicated everything actually was.

Almost.

Because eventually Elijah got quieter.

I noticed it immediately.

He leaned forward slightly in his seat, elbows resting on his knees as his eyes settled on me with a kind of focus that made my stomach tighten.

“So,” he said carefully, “are you ever going to talk about him?”

There it was.

I should have known we would circle back to this eventually.

My fingers stilled around the mug in my hands.

The room suddenly felt warmer.

“I don’t know what you mean,” I said softly.

Elijah gave me a look that made it clear he wasn’t buying that for a second.

“The father of your kids,” he said gently. “The man you never talk about.”

I looked away immediately.

"Is it Alexsander?" he breathes like he's holding his breath.

Toward the boys.

Toward anything else.

Five years.

Five years and I still couldn’t say his name out loud without feeling like I was reopening a wound I had barely survived the first time.

“It’s complicated,” I murmured.

“When has life ever not been complicated?”

“That doesn’t mean I want to talk about it.”

He was quiet for a moment.

I expected him to push harder, but he didn’t.

That was Elijah. Patient in ways that made him dangerous.

“Alright,” he said finally. “Then I won’t ask.”

Relief loosened something in my chest so suddenly I almost hated myself for it.

But guilt followed right behind it.

Because Elijah had been around for years now. Around me. Around my boys. Around all the broken parts of my life I tried to keep balanced with shaking hands.

And still, there were doors inside me I refused to open for him.

The boys burst into laughter again, interrupting the heaviness before it could settle fully.

“Mama!” Nikolai called suddenly. “Look at Mikhail’s tower!”

I looked over just in time to see an unstable stack of blocks leaning dangerously sideways.

“It’s not leaning,” Mikhail argued immediately.

“It literally is,” Elijah deadpanned.

“It’s artistic.”

I laughed despite myself.

God.

It felt good to laugh.

Elijah looked at me then, and for a second the entire room shifted.

His eyes softened in a way that made my breath catch unexpectedly.

I looked away first.

Hours slipped by without me noticing.

The sky outside darkened slowly, streetlights glowing gold through the curtains while the boys continued to play themselves into exhaustion. Eventually I glanced at the clock and realized how late it had gotten.

“Oh no,” I muttered, standing quickly. “You two should’ve been asleep an hour ago.”

Both boys groaned dramatically.

“Mamaaa.”

“No,” I said firmly, though I was smiling. “Bed. Now.”

Nikolai collapsed face-first onto the rug in protest.

“I can’t walk.”

Elijah snorted softly.

“Tragic.”

Mikhail pointed accusingly at his brother. “He’s being dramatic again.”

“I’m tired,” Nikolai complained.

“You were just jumping on the couch.”

“That was before.”

I shook my head and started herding them toward their room.

“Come on.”

I held my two worlds.