Eleni

I wave goodbye to Kaley and turn away from her after yet another class. We're...two weeks into the semester now? Three? No, Professor Villanueva was talking about midterms. How could so much time have passed already?

Amando walks up beside me. "Headed home?"

I shake my head. "Tony needs a little birdie, and it's easier to hide my traffic under the other students here." "But-"

I put my hand up to silence him. "Just... let me have this, okay?"

Amando stuffs his hands in his pockets and nods. I veer away from the hall that takes us to the back elevators and toward one of the many computer labs. Not that I'd actually use a school machine. That's insane. But if I work on my laptop in the seating area right outside, it's easy to spoof one of the IPs in there and disappear into the flow.

That's really how these last god-knows-how-many weeks have felt. Disappearing into the flow. I bounce between Tandon and the apartment, juggling school work and Saints' work and morning sickness that shows no sign of abating. Every night, Dante or no, I drop into bed and fall right to sleep. If someone broke in, I'd be dead. Nothing wakes me up anymore.

As I set up in the armchair, a pang of guilt shoots through me. I should really try to be better about that. If I die, the baby dies. It just...still doesn't feel real. The pregnancy. Wearing sweatshirts and sweatpants to class makes it easier to blend in, and it's not like I'm the only sophomore running to the bathroom between classes to puke. I'm just not doing it because I spent my weekend at Rikki's kegger in SoHo.

Maybe that's why I still haven't called Mama. I know Chloe was right. I need her, and in the end, she's going to be so thrilled about a grandchild that everything else will fade away. But I don't feel like I need her for the pregnancy. I need her to hold me and tell me everything's all right, that I'm making the right choices. Whatever those are.

I push all the other concerns aside and log in. The Saints, together with the Kings and the triads, have been eliminating a string of Russian safehouses and warehouses one by one. My job is to bug and track Russian devices, everything from doorbells to tablets. Today, Tony gave me the chip from a car they're going to dump bodies in tonight, and he wants me to plant a listening device and tracker-something he's started calling little birdies, as in, a little birdie told me on it before the Russians pick it back up. I slot the chip into my laptop and scan for viruses.

The work is easy at this point, nearly habitual. I crack the encryption, plant the bug, add a few flourishes I learned in another class to cover my tracks, and frown. The professor taught them to us in case we need to edit code we've already turned over to a client, said they were for emergencies only. This doesn't feel like an emergency.

I blink and sit back. Who have I become that a car with four bodies in the middle of a gang war isn't an emergency?

Before I can answer that question, my phone rings. Dante. I pick it up.

"Hello?"

"El?" His voice sounds tight. "Where are you? Are you okay?"

I close up my code editor and eject the chip. "Uh, I'm at school. Totally fine."

"Still?" he asks. "We have an appointment with Dr. Hanna in fifteen minutes."

"Shit." I completely forgot. Chloe slipped me the card for an ob-gyn, and when Dante learned most women have their first appointment between eight and ten weeks, he insisted on making it for me. "Are we just fucked?"

"No, because I drove here when you didn't return to the apartment on time." Dante sighs. "We can make it if Amando drives."

I look at the notoriously insane driver sitting across from me. "Can you drive to the doctor?"

He nods. "That's what I was trying to warn you about. The appointment."

Damn it. My head's been fuzzy since the funeral.

"He'll do it." I hang up before Dante can reply and gather my things quickly. Before we leave, I walk up to Sal and hand him the chip. "Tony needs this before sundown. Tell him to put it in while the car's off, restart it, and do a basic set-up. He'll understand."

Sal nods. I gesture to Amando, and we rush off through the halls.

Dante sits at the curb, idling in a plain black sedan that I know has an engine to make drag racers weep under the hood. He thought he was going to have to chase me somewhere. When I meet his gaze, I see the fear painted there. "Sorry." I slide into the backseat. "Tony-"

Dante waves my words away as he joins me in the back, leaving Amando to crack his knuckles before taking the wheel.

"I'm just happy you're okay." Dante kisses my knuckles. "I have a surprise for you later."

I nod. I'm already worrying about the midterms I'm going to have to work on when I get home. Hopefully, the surprise won't take too long.

Amando screams through the New York City streets. He grew up here, so he knows every road like the back of his hand, but he spent a decade in Italy after high school, so he still drives like he's on one of those tiny little vespas. I've never met

a man with a better sense of where his car ends, the exact moment at which he has to slam the brakes. I've also never ridden with him without a few new bruises and the overwhelming urge to dry-heave. Still, we pull up in front of Dr. Hanna's office with three minutes to spare.

"Thanks," Dante says weakly.

Amando shoots us a thumbs-up. "I'll park and wait."

I rub my elbow and climb out of the car, my head still ringing with blaring horns. The office is light and airy, and a pleasant-faced assistant ushers us back into a room quickly.

"Okay, we've got a gown for Mommy." She places a folded piece of fabric on the table next to me. "Take off everything-or everything below the waist. Dr. Hanna will be along shortly. Anything for Daddy?"

"Uh." Dante seems as caught off guard as I am by the titles. "No, thanks."

She nods with another brilliant smile, then bounces out the door. I stare at the gown.

"Need help, Mommy?" Dante asks.

I grimace. "Not if you're going to call me that."

He laughs. "Come on, I think it's cute."

"No way." I shake my head. "Mommy' always sounded gross to me. I'll be Mama when the time comes."

When. Somehow, that sounds weird. I begin stripping off my sweatpants.

"Mama." Dante wanders away to futz with a model of a uterus. "I can get on board with that. Would I be Baba?"

Abruptly, the scent-memory of Baba's blood on the carpet turns my stomach. I shake my head. "Whatever you want. Not that."novelbin

"Okay." Dante rushes back to my side and takes my hand like I'm not naked from the waist down in the middle of a doctor's office. "I can be Dad, or Dada, or anything else."

I force a smile. Somehow, parental titles make even less sense attached to him. Someone knocks on the door.

"One second!" I scramble onto the table and place the gown on my lap. "Okay."

A woman in a white coat opens the door with a much less toothpaste-commercial-y smile. "Hi, I'm Dr. Hanna. You're Eleni?"

I nod. "And this is Dante. He's my fiancé."

"Wonderful." She steps in and closes the door. "Since we've got a lot to go through today, I don't want to take too much of your time, but I like to tell new patients a little about myself. For one, I'm going to be with you from this first ultrasound to your due date. I think being able to trust your ob-gyn is the most important thing during a pregnancy. And with that"-she sits in a chair in front of me "I also believe what you think is the most important. A doctor is a lot of different things to different people, especially for something as complicated as this. So, do you want me to be a friend? A comfort? A professional? You come first in here, Eleni."

That actually knocks me for a loop. I just kind of assumed she'd be...whatever she was going to be. The woman who sticks needles and wands into me to check on the baby. Dante takes my hand and squeezes it.

"Um," I say. "How about you do... maternal?"

She grins. "Awesome."