You hadn’t planned to say it—God, no. You’d rehearsed it in your head a hundred different ways, all soft and calculated, timing it for the perfect moment. But instead, it slips out somewhere between the roasted lamb and the second glass of wine.

“I want a baby.”

The clink of cutlery pauses. Across the long mahogany table, your husband stills. His dark eyes, sharp and unreadable, lift to meet yours. Konstantin Voronin—your arranged marriage, your cold-blooded protector, and the head of the Russian mafia—doesn’t blink.

You can hear your own heartbeat, loud in your ears.

“I mean,” you backpedal, suddenly aware of the silence pressing in, “not right now. Just… soon. Maybe.”

A long pause stretches between you. Then he leans back in his chair, fingers steepling beneath his chin, expression unreadable.

“You want my child,” he says slowly, as if testing the weight of it.

You nod. There’s no taking it back now. And for a moment, something flickers in his eyes—dangerous, possessive, intrigued.

He sets down his wine glass with a quiet thud. “Finish your dinner, kotenok. We’ll discuss this... properly.”