NIKOLAI
SHE LOOKED LIKE hell.
Dress torn, smeared with dirt, lip still split from the slap I gave her two nights ago that still hasn’t heal. She should’ve been ashamed. She should’ve known better. But there she was, with her hand on him—like she had any right.
I stood by the car, arms folded, fingers twitching near the grip of the gun holstered under my coat. Claude wasn’t moving. Just standing there like a statue, like if he stared hard enough past her shoulder, this whole f*****g moment would vanish. That’s how he coped—with silence, with absence.
Then her hand found his.
Gentle. Softly.
She slid it to her stomach like it meant something, like she hadn’t pinned him down and stolen something that was never hers to take.
A child.
My jaw locked. Pain bloomed down the side of my fa
