Page 71 of The Mafia's Quintuplets
"You've checked it?" asks Zina, suddenly alert beside me.
Leonid nods. "No chemical traces, and no suspicious materials." He hands it to me with uncharacteristic hesitation. "It was hand-delivered to our mail drop."
My fingers tremble slightly as I tear open the envelope, uncertain what additional grief could possibly await me inside. Two items slide out onto my lap—a copy of my very first ultrasound from when I discovered the quintuplets, and a plain sheet of paper bearing a brief message written in elegant, precise handwriting.
The ultrasound image is unmistakable, but it's the handwriting on the note that stops my breath entirely. I've seen this penmanship before, on documents in Mak's study, in notes he left for staff, and in the margins of books in his private collection.
The message is simple but devastating: "Wait for me."
The paper slips from my suddenly nerveless fingers, floating to the floor as recognition jolts through me like an electric current. Zina notices my reaction instantly, crossing the room to retrieve the fallen note. She reads it over my shoulder, and her sharp intake of breath confirms I'm not hallucinating.
"It's his handwriting," she whispers, voice tight with emotion. "It's Mak's."
We stare at each other, absorbing what it means. Mak is alive. His death was elaborately staged for purposes at which we can only guess. I've been grieving a man who never died at all, crying myself to sleep night after night, only to discover it was all part of some grand strategy he hadn't trusted me enough to share.
Relief wars with fury in my heart, emotional whiplash leaving me dizzy and nauseated. The babies respond to my surging hormones with increased activity, unleashing a chorus of kicks and rolls that physically manifest my internal chaos.
"He's alive," I manage to whisper, still struggling to process this seismic shift in reality. "He's been alive this whole time."
Zina's expression cycles through the same emotions churning within me—shock, relief, anger, and confusion—before settling into something more calculated. She exchanges a meaningful glance with Leonid, whose carefully neutral expression suddenly seems suspicious.
"You knew," I accuse, studying his face for confirmation. "You delivered news of his death knowing it wasn't true."
He doesn't flinch under my glare, but something shifts in his stoic demeanor—not guilt exactly, but acknowledgment. "I followed my orders, as I always have."
"Orders to lie to me? To let me believe the father of my children was dead while I grieved him for weeks?" My voice rises with each question, anger providing temporary strength. "To watch me cry myself to sleep while knowing the truth?"
"To protect you," he corrects, his tone remaining flat despite my bubbling anger. "Both of you. What you didn't know couldn't be forced from you."
"Forced?" The word hangs ominously between us.
"If Fedor suspected Mak survived, you would become targets again—this time for information rather than elimination." His bluntness is somehow more frightening than evasion. "Your grief had to be genuine."
The clinical assessment of my emotional suffering as a tactical necessity sends a cold shiver through me. This is the world Mak inhabits, where even love and grief become strategic considerations, where human emotions are weaponized or neutralized according to operational requirements.
"Did you know too?" I turn to Zina, whose expression reflects genuine conflict.
She shakes her head, tears gathering in her eyes. "No. I mourned him truly." She examines the note again, tracing her brother's handwriting with trembling fingers. "But I suspected something wasn't right when Leonid was too accepting of certain reports and too calm about Fedor's takeover."
For several moments, I can't breathe properly as my mind struggles to reorganize everything I've believed for the past months. The babies respond to my emotional turmoil with increased movement, as if they too sense the seismic shift in our reality. I press the ultrasound photo to my chest and cry again, but these tears are different—confused, hopeful, and angry all at once.
"Why now?" I finally ask, addressing Leonid directly. "Why tell me now that he's alive?"
"Because the danger is nearly past." His typical economy of words reveals little, but the implication is clear—whatever Mak has been doing during his supposed death is approaching completion.
"What's he been doing all this time?" Zina asks the question before I can form it.
Leonid's expression closes further. "That's for him to explain when he returns."
When, not if. The simple word choice confirms what the note already suggested. Mak intends to come back to us. The realization brings a complex wave of emotions I'm too exhausted to untangle. The father of my children is alive, but he deliberately put me through weeks of grief. He's coming back, but he didn't trust me enough to include me in his plans. He wants me to wait for him, but he gave me no choice in whether to participate in his deception.
"How could he do this to us?" I whisper, not really expecting an answer. "How could he let us believe he was dead?"
"Because my brother has only ever known one way to solve problems," Zina says, her voice gentle but unflinching in its honesty. "Completely and alone."
The assessment strikes me as painfully accurate. For all his complexity, for all the glimpses of tenderness and vulnerability I witnessed in our brief time together, Mak remains fundamentally a man shaped by violence and isolation. His solution to threats against his family wasn't to collaborate or communicate but to fabricate his own death, severing all connections to protect us through deception rather than partnership.
Exhaustion crashes over me suddenly, the emotional upheaval draining what little energy my pregnancy-taxed body contains. Leonid retreats tactfully as Zina helps me to bed, arranging pillows to support my unwieldy form. The day's revelations press against me as heavily as the babies themselves.
