Page 125 of Untamed Beast
“We don’t know how long I’ll be gone.”
I point to my belly. “This baby is not yours unless you prove you can look after the one you already have.”
He looks sheepish, raking a hand through his dark hair. “But I’ll miss you,” he protests.
“So either take me with you or face the consequences.”
His face darkens. Leks has steadfastly refused to take me to Russia on this trip. He doesn’t want to associate me with his memories of the Ivanov Center.
“I can’t,” his throat bobs. “I’m sorry. I just can’t.”
“Then it looks like your mind is made up.”
“Fine, but I’m not leaving you here alone.”
That’s how I end up with Yuri as a live-in bodyguard while Leks is away.
I throw open the door before they even knock. It only took five days for Leks to find his son and return to me.
Thank God. I missed him so much.
I’ve had Yuri watch the CCTV all day so he can tell me the second that Leks’s car pulls up outside.
A five-year-old version of Leks walks through the door and launches into a formal introduction in Russian.
I pull him into a hug before he can finish and he freezes up like he’s never had a hug before.
“It’s so lovely to meet you, Leonid.” I press a kiss to his cheek.
I don’t care if I’m being too American and effusive right now. This boy deserves love.
“And is it lovely to see me, too?” Leks asks.
I narrow my eyes at him, straightening to my full height. “I guess you can be trusted to look after children,” I tell him as he pulls me into a kiss.
Later that night, Leks explains what happened. Leonid’s mother, Yulia, died in the fire at the asylum. The one that Leks started.
I’d expected him to look regretful at this, but he only looks relieved. I imagine it is something like the way I felt when my father died. The demon is dead, even if her spirit will haunt him forever.
Leonid has spent the last three months being looked after by the cook from Yulia’s household, a kind but poor Russian woman who’s told him a lot of scary Siberian folk tales.
“He was lucky,” Leks says. “It could have been so much worse than a few nightmares.”
I don’t think I would describe Leonid as lucky. Every night he wakes up screaming in his sleep.
We pull him into our bed to read him less terrifying bedtime stories.
The poor kid has been through more than any five-year-old should. Three months without either of his parents, knowing that his mother was dead and not knowing where his father was.
Utterly abandoned and alone.
I don’t hug Leonid again, understanding that he might need his space.
One night, of his own accord, he snuggles himself against me while we’re reading him a bedtime story. I wrap my arm over him and try to hold back my tears. I’ve always cried easily, but now that I’m pregnant I may as well be the waterworks.
“I like you better than my other Mommy,” he whispers and my heart breaks for him.
If anyone knows what it’s like to have a cruel parent, it’s me. I only hope that I can be enough for him.
