He smirks on a shrug. “I had Tommy get the papers last night. He wasn’t the most imaginative with the surname.”
“Why not Ivanov?”
“Because it’s clearly not American, and it’s an American passport.”
“And Verdi is?”
His smirk turns into a full grin. “You needed a passport, you have one.”
“Fine. Thank you.”
Una steps into the kitchen, dressed in a tight blue dress. I almost do a double take. She looks at Nero, and he holds her gaze for a moment, some silent conversation passing between them before he silently collects Dante and leaves the room. That was weird.
“What was that?” I ask with a frown.
“Anna, I need to talk to you.”
“Una, I’m not changing my mind. I’m going to New Zealand.”
She shakes her head. “Sasha has been in Russia for the last few days.”
“Okay.”
“He’s found something. I had to wait for him to be one hundred percent sure to tell you…” My mind works at warp speed trying to think what could possibly have my sister looking so on edge. “You…have a child.”
I laugh. “No, I don’t. I think I’d remember that.”
“Sasha said that the mother is a surrogate, but the egg was yours. Taken at some time while you were at the facility.” My blood runs cold, and the possibilities start flying through my mind at a hundred miles an hour. Nicholai wanted to get me pregnant, but I’m sterile. Could he have taken eggs from me? There were multiple times where I was drugged.
“That’s not possible,” I whisper.
“I don’t know what to tell you, Anna.”
“Nicholai is dead.”
“Yes, but he’s been replaced, and the Elite breeding program is now in full swing.”
I don’t know what to say. I don’t even know what to think. “I can’t have children.”
“I know,” she whispers.
Turning away from her, I walk out of the kitchen. I need a second to process this. I move over to the huge windows and look out over the city below. Morning light creeps through the tall buildings, bathing half the city in shadows. And that’s how I feel. Like I’m standing right on that cusp between the light and the dark, unsure which way I’m about to fall. I can sense Una lingering behind me, hovering.
Questions start burning away at me as I truly process the reality of this. “Is it a girl or a boy?” A pointless question, because what does it matter?
“A little girl.”
I swallow around the lump in my throat as my chest clenches painfully. “How old?”
“Just two weeks.”
Squeezing my eyes shut, I imagine her, a tiny baby, in that place, without anyone to show her kindness. I’ve been a captive for half my life, but this is so much worse because she’ll never know freedom. She won’t even know that she’s missing a mother, a father…a life.
“Can Sasha get her out?” I ask tentatively, the faintest trace of hope trying to take hold. Silence. I turn to face my sister and find her gaze fixed on the floor. “Una?”
“You have to understand, you can’t just walk out of that facility with a child.”
“You got Dante out.”
“That was different. Sasha was trusted then. I was on the inside. And Dante was a one-off child at the time. They didn’t have the security fully in place to guard him.”
“So, you’re saying you can’t save her?”
I’m not sure what to feel. Hope? Despair? My life has never been my own, and I’ve never really had the luxury of being able to even think about or consider the fact that I can’t have children. It was never something that was a possibility or consideration, and therefore I never mourned what I would surely never have anyway.
But now I think about it, about my child out there somewhere…all I want is to protect her. It’s a need so fierce, I can think of nothing else.
“That’s not good enough. You can’t just tell me I have a daughter and follow it with the fact that I can’t get to her or save her from that place. Why even tell me if that’s the case?”
“I’m working on it, okay? It just takes time. Nero is trying to negotiate through the political stuff.”
“Political stuff?” My temper spikes and my fists clench. “She’s not a business deal, Una.” My sister actually looks sad for a moment. “To them, you know she is.”
I move past her. She goes to follow me, but I hold my hand up. “Stop.”
I make my way upstairs and into my room. With each step I take, I can feel myself sinking further and further into this panic. All the time I’ve spent trying to be strong, but right now I feel so weak and helpless. All this time, I’ve listened to my sister, but where is she now? She can’t help me. Slamming the bedroom door, I rush to the bedside table and pick up my phone, hysteria creeping up on me. My chest feels tight, and my hands tremble as I pick the device up and dial a number.