Hunter’s Trial – Extended Epilogue
Nikolai
One month later
It will never cease to feel strange to me how quickly I’ve adapted to a routine. A real one. Not the fast-paced night life or the constant espionage and games. It’s all so suburban. Breakfast. Taking Liz to school. Picking her up from school. Even more strange to me is just how comfortable it all feels. Liz doesn’t seem scared of me anymore, even if all of her friends do.
Henry tends to avoid me when I pick Liz up from school. I can’t say that I blame him for it either. He’s starting to look more like me as he grows older. Taller, but not the athletic type. Maybe someday, if Liz stays as interested in him as she is now, I will get the chance to get to know him a little better. I know through Daniel that he’s super into reading and music, things I don’t know anything about. We have nothing in common. It’s really for the best that he wound up where he is, with people who understand him in the right way.
I still don’t know if I’ve got the right stuff in me to be a father of my own, but I’m trying the best that I can.
I hold the door open for Liz to get into my car. A truck. I’m really embracing the whole Texas thing. I figured if I was going to fully turn the page over that I need to be as removed from my old self as I could get. No more temptations.
Apart from the hitman, assassin thing.
It’s still strange to me that I have chosen to live so close to my enemies-turned-employers-turned-somewhat-cordial-not-quite-acquaintances. It’s all around strange. Helena and Daniel have been so absorbed in the bliss of their newborn child that work has been slow.
Kate and I finished the renovation of our own house just a week ago. Extra bedrooms and an office added onto a house that is modest. For me. I’m used to mansions, after all. I offered to build something similar to what I had built in the past, but Kate insisted that she didn’t want to have to call me from across the house anytime she wanted to talk to me. She chose a six bedroom, two story house with a finished attic. Office for her, office for me, guest bedroom and then Liz’s room. Full master suite with properly soundproofed walls. She swears that she’s going to come up with something to do with the extra bedroom.
Now that the kitchen renovations and landscaping are the way that she wanted them she’s thrown herself into wedding planning. How she’s doing that while running her new firm, I have no idea. All I know is that she unofficially asked both Anya and Helena to be her bridesmaids. She suggested that I should ask Alek and Daniel to stand by me as groomsmen, but it doesn’t feel right. Horus perhaps, but that isn’t a relationship that’s repaired itself yet either. There’s no more bad blood, but it will take time.
I think the best thing about learning to proxy parent with Liz is that she makes everything so easy. She does all of the talking now that she’s decided I’m not scary. She tells me about everything that happens at school and her interests. She speaks at great length about the cartoons that she likes and the cat that she’s planning to ask her mother to get her. She tells me in great detail how I’m supposed to be on her side about it.
As if I could care less about having a cat in the house.
Though, I am turning into a person who lives in a house with a kid, a fiancée and I apparently will soon own a cat. I never would have imagined such a thing.
Letting my anger go is a constant work in progress, but Kate is always only too ready and willing to be the outlet for any physical aggression that might strike me.
“Can we get ice cream on the way home?! I got an ‘A’ on my English test,” Liz calls from the back seat as we pass her favorite ice cream shop. She starts to rummage around in her backpack for the test to prove her score to me. Like I would have said no to her getting ice cream on the way home.
“Of course we can, zayka.” I answer.
“I’m not a bunny!” Liz giggles from the back seat. Her face flushes pink as she laughs. She always protests when I call her by the nickname that I selected for her, but I’m just pleased that she seems to be remembering more and more Russian words every day.
“No? Then tell me you are not, in Russian, or else I cannot understand you, zayka,” I grin right back to her.
She pretends to pout, but I get her the ice cream anyway.
I’m a man who gets his soon to be stepdaughter ice cream after school.
Kate made all of this possible. I have no idea where I would even be without her and Liz. No matter what, I’m going to make this marriage work. Kate is the love of my life.
Her car is in the driveway of our house when Liz and I pull in.
She should be at the firm for another three hours. Said that she was going to pick up Chinese takeout on the way home tonight so that we could watch some movie she wanted to see. Granted, Liz has to finish homework first. She’s been doing so well lately that most of her work has been completed before she ever even gets home with it. I think Henry’s studious influence has a lot to do with that. She had even tried getting bad grades to have him tutor her but it backfired when he found out her plan.
“Mom’s home!” Liz bounces in her seat with excitement. Her hand flies to the car door handle and I have to stop her from hurling herself out of it to get to her favorite person.
“Not until the car’s stopped, zayka!” If I had known that she was going to be home, I would have gotten her some ice cream as well. I check my phone just to make sure that I didn’t miss a text from her saying that she was coming home early before getting out of the car. But there’s nothing there.
The moment the car stops, Liz is running inside to find her mother. I think the fact that both of them have managed to resume normal lives without constantly looking over their shoulders in fear is my greatest accomplishment. I’m glad we will get to spend more time together tonight.
I hang my keys on the post by the front door and kick it shut behind me.
Kate’s standing in the foyer with Liz wrapped around her, telling her about her day. It only takes one look to know that something is wrong. My defenses automatically come up.
“Zayka, isn’t your show coming on right now? The special episode?” I ask Liz.
“Oh yeah!” Liz squeals and runs off without another thought.
“What’s wrong?” I ask when Liz is out of hearing range. Kate seems to pale at the very question. I pull her hand into mine and kiss it softly. “What happened?”
Mentally, I start to check off all of the places that I have guns stashed in this house and how quickly I can get to them. It just depends on the next words that are going to come out of her mouth.
I pull her closer when she doesn’t answer, keeping my eyes locked on hers. I need her to say something soon so that I stop thinking about every possible worst case scenario option.
Over the months that we’ve been together now, I’ve told her a good number of the things that I’ve been accused of. But there are still some rather questionable things about my past that I’m more than a little ashamed of. Things that I would rather her not know. Doors to my past that just need to be kept shut for both of our sanity. If she found out something about them and is starting to look at me differently because of it, I don’t think that I will be able to handle that either.
I can’t stand the idea of Kate, of all people, being afraid of me. If she leaves me I will have nothing. My whole world is now focused on her and that’s the way that I want it. We’re getting married. A real, big ceremony, because that’s what Kate wants. To think that we are so close to all that makes me feel absolutely sick when I think that I could still lose her.
My guilt runs the risk of my sabotaging the best thing that I’ve ever had on a daily basis. I can’t let it.
Kate looks up at me, tears welling in her eyes as she tries to speak and can’t seem to find the words. Her hands slip from mine and she turns, heading into the kitchen and further away from Liz. I’m scared to ask her for a second time what’s wrong. It is bad. It is something terrible.
“If you don’t tell me what’s happened, baby girl, I think that I’m going to go insane.” I say to her, retreating. She doesn’t acknowledge my words at all as she walks behind the kitchen island and reaches into the messy drawer that contains all the spare odds and ends from the various decoration projects that she’s been doing. She places down a bundle of white plastic sticks on the counter. There’s got to be at least a dozen of them. Various shapes and manufacturers.
But all of them have two very distinct pink lines on the result windows.
Time freezes. I feel dizzy and lightheaded as everything snaps into place. For a moment, my mind goes completely and utterly still. I can’t look away from them. Kate’s pregnant. She’s pregnant with a baby, a human baby.
My baby.
My black eyes flick up to hers. She’s nervously chewing on her lip, waiting for my response. She didn’t know how I was going to react, and that’s why she was scared. It’s not like it’s something that we’ve outright spoken or made real plans about. But then again, filling her like I do every chance that I get was only going to end one way.
“Say something.” Kate says finally.
A smile spreads slowly across my face. The glimmer of hope that I never allowed myself to dare to have.
I move to the side of the island that she’s standing on and sink to my knees in front of her. My hands bracket her hips, thumbs sweeping under the bottom of her shirt to graze against her perfect, impossibly soft skin.
“I must have done something right.” I say with reverence. Karma must have started to forgive me if it’s actually going to give me the chance to be the father that I never had.
“You’re not upset?” Kate asks nervously as her hands close over the tops of mine.
“Upset?” I look up at her with furrowed brows. “I’m thrilled.” I lift her shirt just enough to kiss her belly. “Our child is in here.”
Kate giggles, a tear rolling down her face before she sinks to her knees in front of me. Her arms wrap around my shoulders as she pulls herself closer to me and holds me tightly. I kiss her passionately. Every bit of hope that the new promising future holds is poured into that kiss. “No matter what it takes, I’m going to be the loving father that I never had. I swear it on my life.”
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