“So am I.”
I blink and a tear falls. It feels cool against my hot cheek. “We need to go to the cops.”
“No.”
“Anton—”
“We don’t involve the cops in Bratva business. I will resolve this all soon enough.”
I can see it in his eyes: the promise of murder. Maybe I’ll see him kill her, maybe I won’t. But I get the feeling that I’ll sense it when it happens. One nasty, twisted soul snuffed out of existence.
Can I handle that? It feels like too many shocks to the system in too short a span of time. My hand lands on my belly.
“Is something wrong? Are you having pain?” Anton asks urgently.
I shake my head. “The baby is fine.”
He takes a step forward and places his hand on mine over my stomach. “I will keep you both safe, do you hear me?”
I nod. “I hear you.”
“The more important question is, do you believe me?”
I really think about my answer, taking my time answering. Finally, I nod again. “I believe you.”
He presses a kiss to my forehead, and I feel a pleasant warmth flood through me. Anton has never been so shamelessly affectionate before. The doubt in my chest turns slightly towards hope.
Maybe he’ll really take care of everything.
Maybe I’ll be alright.
Maybe we all will.
My phone rings, startling me out of my reverie. I almost drop it trying to pick up the call. “Hello?”
Before I even get the word out, a fire truck roars down the street and stops in front of my building. I can barely hear over the fire truck’s siren.
“Jessa! Jessa?” Chris’s voice comes through. “What’s going on? I got an alert on my phone. There was an accident on your street?”
“In my building,” I say, raising my voice so he can hear me.
“Where are you now?”
“Right out front.”
The line cuts out abruptly. I’m not sure if he hung up on me or our connection dropped. But it’s not like I can explain things to him over the phone, what with people gathering on the street now. So I choose not to call back.
Anton wraps his arm around my shoulders. “Jessa, we should go.”
I shake my head. “I want to stay. They’ll have questions for me.”
He turns to face me, his eyes hard and serious. “They will. And your answers have to be confident and convincing.”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t mention Marina. Feign ignorance. You don’t know what happened today.”
“But—”