The Life Read Online Free PDF

were whispered under the old shopkeeper’s breath too low for Viviana to discern, even if they had been said in English. Removing his touch only long enough to reach up and pat Anton gently on the cheek with two fingers, Gio disappeared back into his shop.
    Viviana allowed Anton to guide her further down the street before she said anything about Gio’s odd gestures.
    “What was that?” she asked softly.
    “Hmm, what, baby?” The amusement in his gaze had her rolling her eyes.
    “That, at the end. When he touched you.”
    Anton shrugged passively. “His way of greeting a Pakhan, I suppose. It doesn’t matter how they do it, so long as it’s respectful. If he was Bratva, it’d be a different story. I would have expected it from the beginning.”
    Sighing, Viviana poked at his side. “That’s not what I meant.”
    “The baby?” Anton mused with a wry smile. She nodded. “Blessing him, and us. He bid him good aspirations for the duration of the pregnancy and beyond, and wished him great things in his life.”
    “And the one for us?”
    Anton smiled softly, his fingers curving her waist tightening gently. While he spoke at a level too low for any of the passersby to hear and he didn’t turn to look at her again, Viviana heard his words and saw his emotions nonetheless. “He was asking for the ones we’ve left behind to keep watch.”
    Viviana’s stare turned down to the lights blinking in the distance. “Do you think they do?”
    Neither of them were religious. They still didn’t go to church, or the temple. They didn’t live a devout life, but that didn’t mean they had no faith.
    Before Viviana realized it, a tear escaped the corner of her eye. She wiped it away before Anton would notice. The question wasn’t meant to affect her or her silenced lover the way it had, but it still hung between them heavily.
    So much blood had already spilled for them to be where they were together, and Viviana sometimes wished that didn’t have to be so. More than anything, she so wanted to share the birth of their son with her dead parents, her brother, and Nicoli.
    “Do you think they watch after us?” she asked again.
    “I hope so.”
    *
    Back at home, Viviana scowled at her blood glucose meter. Scribbling down the number that was too high, she knew her next appointment with the doctor would be filled with another lecture.
    Anton leaned over her shoulder to check the number with a raised brow. “Too high.”
    “Thank you, Captain Obvious.”
    The bite in her tone didn’t escape his notice. Anton backed away, raising his one free hand in surrender. “Hey, I’m not the one who will be needing to take insulin for the remainder of this pregnancy if you can’t get it under control, baby.”
    Yes, because Viviana needed another reminder.
    Willing her raging hormones to simmer for a moment so she could think before biting his head off, Viviana took a deep breath and counted back from ten. She had never been one to let her emotions rule, but sometimes it just took the littlest things with this pregnancy to set her off.
    Viviana didn’t want a repeat of one of those moments, so she forced herself to be calm and talk rationally. “I know my sugars are too high. I follow the diet, exercise, and whatever else. It’s being stubborn.”
    Anton bit the inside of his cheek, glancing up at the ceiling with an amused expression. “I’m sure the xachapuri didn’t help. It is bread and cheese, Vine.”
    Again, thank you, Captain Obvious , Viviana thought. “But I like it.”
    “ Mmhmm. I like strawberries but I’m allergic to the seeds. You don’t see me eating them.”
    “That’s different.”
    “Not really,” he argued, cocking that brow of his again. “You do know if he continues to grow at this rate, you’re going to need a C-section, right?”
    Oh God, that stopped her heart right up. “But—”
    “He’s already hitting the weight of a baby at nearly eight months gestation and you just reached seven