Chapter 54

When we finally pull into the clinic parking lot, he sighs. “I’ll help you find a job that’s better than that. Somewhere where they respect you.”

“That’s not the fucking point.”

I didn’t mean to snap at him. Not really. But now that it’s out, I can’t feel a reason to stop.

“That may not have been an ideal job, but it was the first and only one that I chose for myself. That I won for myself, on my own terms and my own credit.” I sigh. “And then you had to barge in and take it all away. Just like how you took my home away from me. My ability to drive myself literally anywhere. Shit, I can’t remember the last time I even got to decide where we go out to eat. Newsflash, Pasha: this is the twenty-first century. I happen to have just as many rights as you.”

Something in the back of my mind whispers for me to give him a chance to explain himself.

The rest of me doesn’t have the time or patience to wait for some gaslit, testosterone-filled justification of his behavior.

I storm out of the car. At least he gives me a few paces of space ahead of him as we go into the clinic. We’re cordial enough to the receptionist on check-in, and we sit next to each other in the waiting area until my name is called.

But Pasha doesn’t say anything.

I’m left to handle the doctor’s questions and answers on my own, and when our daughter appears on the ultrasound screen, I’m the only one who sniffles with happiness at our growing baby.

We don’t drive through our usual smoothie place like we always do after each appointment. He doesn’t ask me if I want to go back to work—I don’t, actually, so that’s just peachy—and he doesn’t ask me how I’m feeling.

By the time we park in the penthouse garage, I’m choking back tears.

A few of them fall when Pasha leaves the car and beelines to the elevator, leaving me behind without a single glance.

He does wait for me. There’s that much. I wipe my tears away and do my best to pretend like I’m not internally ripping apart at the seams when I exit the car and stride to the elevator. He holds the door open for me, then stabs the floor button as the doors slide shut.

I want to say something. But I’m too afraid that if I try, I’ll only end up sobbing into his shirt.

I have to be strong.

I have to be resilient.

What I don’t have to do is hold it in for very long. The second we’re in the penthouse, Pasha heads to his “home office” and slams the door shut.

The sound echoes through every nerve in my body. I know that sound all too well. It was the soundtrack of life growing up in the Hamish household. Easier to slam a door than solve a problem.

This problem would be so easy for Pasha to solve, though, wouldn’t it? Albeit in his own way.

We’re not married. It would be easy for him to send me back to my old apartment—or maybe just straight to Siberia, Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect Two Hundred Dollars. He might decide it’s better to just mail a child support check each month rather than deal with my drama. Rather than raise a crying, screaming, snot-nosed kid in his perfect world of marble and mafia.

Or Bratva. Whatever. Call it any name, it’s no place for a sweet little girl.

I feel myself slowly sit down on the couch. I feel the tears streaming down my face.

But for the most part, I’m completely separated from my body. I’m floating, drifting, severing myself from any situation where Pasha can hurt me in ways he has no right to.

He never said he loves me.

He never promised me anything.

I have no right to feel so heartbroken.

I have no right to feel so afraid.

Maybe that’s what the slammed door really means: he’s just reminding me I have no right to anything in his world.

I don’t know what time it is. Truth be told, I didn’t even notice the windows in the room grow dark.

It’s Sofi shaking me by the arm that snaps me back to reality. That pulls me from that shut-it-all-out coma I learned to self-induce years ago.

“Daph? Daphne!” Sofi shakes my arm with one hand and cups my face with the other, turning me to look at her. “What’s wrong? Who hurt you?”

I try to say his name. I try to say anything at all.

All that comes out, though, is a choking sob. And then another. And another.

Sofi wraps me up in her arms. “Seriously, Daph, you’re freaking me out. What happened? Is anyone hurt?”

“P-P-Pash… Pasha…” I hiccup between sobs. It’s difficult to breathe; my lungs feel too tight.

Holy shit, am I having a panic attack? I haven’t had one of these in years.

Sofi makes me look her in the eyes; her own are wide with worry. “Tell me everything.”

So I do.

It takes a lot of hiccupping and sobbing and her guidance to breathe through it, but I manage to choke out everything that happened. My struggle with the Tweedles and how Pasha just outed my pregnancy without my consent and probably cost me my job. How he takes and takes and takes and never recognizes that his attempts to give only rob me of my freedom, my power of choice, my independence as a person.

But the worst part—instead of talking about it, instead of discussing our difficulties, he just shut me out.

And according to the clock on Sofi’s phone resting on the coffee table, he’s been shutting me out for several hours.

“I can’t… I can’t…” I try to take a deep breath so I can force the words out. “I can handle a lot of things, Sofi. I really can. You’ve seen it.”

“Yeah, I have.” She offers me a small smile and rubs my arm. “You’re one tough cookie, that’s for sure.”

“I want to be. But I can’t handle the cold shoulder. The silent treatment. My… my parents pulled that. My whole life. Sometimes, they’d just shut me in my room and lock the door so they wouldn’t have to deal with me. It never mattered how much I cried and banged on the door for someone to just… just…” I hiccup again, but take another deep breath to steady myself. I’ve got this. I’m not going to fall apart. “Even Conrad. He pulled this shit all the time. God, I’d rather scream it out than face a silent, closed door.”

Sofi pulls me into a hug. She doesn’t ask for details, doesn’t press me to let anything else out.

But she holds me. Rubs my back. Waits for me to finish crying it out into her shoulder.

When I’ve finally drained myself of tears, she eases me back and wipes them away with her thumbs. “Look at you,” she whispers. “You absolute queen. No one can make you feel less than who and what you are, not even my idiot brother. Never give anyone that power. Okay?”

I’m not exactly sure what she means, but it still feels inspiring. So I nod. “Okay.”

“Perfect.” She takes my hand in hers and pulls us both to our feet. “Come with me.”

I don’t know if she realizes she’s a lot like her brother in so many ways—mainly in how she doesn’t actually give me an option to decline with the way her iron grip tugs me through the penthouse…

To his office door.

“Oh, no. No, no, no⁠—”

Sofi shushes my new panic with a finger to her lips. “Queen, remember?”

I suck in the deepest breath of the day. Then I nod.

I am a queen. I control my own life, no matter who tries to rule it.

Mischief fills her eyes. And before I can stop her, Sofi throws the office door open.

“Knock-knock, asshole!”