Pregnant For the Mafia Boss

Chapter 8

ISABELLA POV

The pharmacist was an older woman with kind eyes who didn't ask questions when I placed three different pregnancy tests on the counter. She just rang them up, took my euros, and sent me on my way with a gentle "Good luck, dear."

I didn't feel lucky.

I felt terrified.

The walk back to my apartment felt like walking to my execution. Every step I take is heavier than the last. Tourists wandered the cobblestone streets, snapping photos of the old town's medieval architecture, completely oblivious to the girl passing them whose entire life might be about to change.

I climbed the narrow stairs to my flat, locked the door behind me, and stood in the tiny bathroom with three pregnancy tests lined up on the sink.

My hands shook as I opened the first box. Read the instructions three times even though they were simple: pee on stick, wait three minutes, one line means not pregnant, two lines means pregnant.

Such a simple instruction but very terrifying and life-changing.

I took a deep breath and did what the instructions said. Set the test on the counter. Opened the second box and repeated the process. Then the third.

I go three tests. At least I have three chances to know the truth.

I set a timer on my phone for three minutes and sat on the edge of the bathtub, I pulled my knees to my chest,and try not to look at the tests lined up on the sink like little white soldiers.

What if they were positive?

What if I am carrying Viktor's baby?

What if I am pregnant with the child of a man who'd used me and thrown me away like garbage?

But he's also the man who made love to you like you were the only thing in his world, a traitorous voice whispered in my head. He held you so tenderly after and whispered that he loved you in Russian.

"He didn't mean it," I said out loud. "He said what I wanted to hear. He told me that himself."

But what if he had meant it? What if he'd pushed me away out of fear, just like I'd accused him of? What if...

No. I couldn't think like that. I can't let myself hope that Viktor's rejection had been anything other than what he'd said it was: the cold, hard truth that I meant nothing to him.

The timer went off, shrill and insistent in the small bathroom.

The three minutes are up.

I stood on my legs that felt like water and approached the sink like it was a bomb that might explode.

Well you won't blame me these three white sticks would tell me if my life was about to get infinitely more complicated or not.

I looked at the first one and see two lines. That is clear and unmistakable this means its positive.

My heart stopped. I grabbed the second test with trembling hands. Still two lines indicating positive.

"No," I whispered. "Please, no."

The third test. Still two lines.

Positive. Positive. Positive.

All three tests are all positive.

I am pregnant.

I am carrying Viktor Konstantin's baby.

The tests clattered into the sink as my legs gave out. I sank to the bathroom floor for the second time that morning, but this time I wasn't sick. This time I was just... frozen.

Pregnant.

There is a baby growing inside me. Viktor's baby. A tiny life that we'd created during that one night when I'd thought I was finally getting everything I'd ever wanted.

My hand goes to my stomach, pressing flat against the cotton of my nightshirt.

"Hi," I whispered to the baby growing inside my womb that couldn't possibly hear me. "I don't know what the f**k I'm supposed to do with you."

Tears slid down my cheeks, but they weren't the same devastated sobs that had wracked me for the past three weeks. These were different.

I am terrified. Absolutely terrified. I am a nineteen years old, alone in a foreign country, living off stolen money, while hiding from the most powerful man in the Russian mafia. I had no job, no support system, no f*****g clue how to be a mother.

But I am also... something else. Something I didn't have a name for yet.

I'm not happy, excited or ready.

But I'm not empty anymore, either.

For three weeks, I'd felt like Viktor had carved out my insides and left me hollow. Like I was just going through the motions of being alive without actually living.

But now there was something inside me. Someone. A tiny life that was mine in a way nothing else had ever been.

"I don't know if I can do this," I told my stomach. "I don't know if I'm strong enough."

But even as I said it, I knew I'd try. Because this baby...Viktor's baby, my baby...was all I had left.

The only good thing that had come from that terrible, beautiful, devastating night.

I stayed on the bathroom floor for a long time, with one hand on my stomach, and tears drying on my cheeks, thinking about the impossible future stretching ahead of me.

Single mother. Hiding from the mafia. Pregnant with the child of a man who'd broken my heart so thoroughly I wasn't sure it would ever heal.

But alive.

And not alone. Not anymore.

By the time the sun set over Kotor Bay, I'd made a plan.

Or at least the beginning of one.

I couldn't go back to Viktor. That was non-negotiable. He'd made it clear that I meant nothing to him, and I have too much pride to crawl back begging, especially not now. He'd probably think I was trying to trap him, using the pregnancy to manipulate him into... what? Loving me? Marrying me?

No. I wouldn't give him that satisfaction.

But I also couldn't keep living off stolen money in a tiny apartment above a bakery. I needed a job. A real identity. A way to support myself and this baby that didn't involve Viktor's euros or Viktor's world.