Liliana
I couldn't sleep. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Anastasia's fake motherly smile and heard her gentle voice delivering my death sentence. The silk curtains fluttered in the night breeze, casting dancing shadows across the bedroom walls like ghostly fingers reaching out to grab me.
My hand rested on my stomach, still flat but somehow different now. There was life growing inside me. A tiny heart beating somewhere deep within my body. A soul that had no choice in how it came to exist, innocent of the sins of its father.
The grandfather clock in the corner chimed three in the morning.
"You're awake again," Mikhail's voice came from behind me, rough with exhaustion and worry.
I didn't turn around from where I sat curled in the window seat, my knees drawn up to my chest. "I can'
