Chapter 433

[ 1,000 words ]

Katia’s POV

His arms tightened.

“Yours,” he said simply.

I smiled against his skin and closed my eyes. Tonight I had taken my husband apart and put him back together with my hands and my cunt and my voice. And he had begged for every second of it.

Julian found me in the kitchen the next morning, my laptop open on the counter, a headline already glowing on the screen that I had been staring at for the better part of ten minutes.

TESSA STERLING ISSUES PUBLIC CHALLENGE TO CATWOMAN AND JULES. WHERE DID THE CITY’S MOST ELUSIVE RACERS DISAPPEAR TO?

“You have seen it,” Julian said, reading my face rather than the screen.

“I have seen it,” I said.

He came to stand beside me, reading the article over my shoulder, his jaw tightening as he scrolled through Tessa’s public statement, half accusation and half taunt, wondering aloud whether the city’s two most notorious underground racers had simply grown too comfortable to defend the reputations they had once fought so hard to build.

“You are not doing this,” Julian said once he finished reading.

I looked at him.

“I did not ask permission,” I answered.

“Katia,” he said, his voice carrying the calm he used when he was trying very hard not to raise it, “you are three months pregnant p>

“I am aware of that,” I said. “I am the one carrying the baby p>

“Then you understand why racing at speeds that put your own body at risk is not something we should be discussing as though it is a reasonable option p>

I set my coffee down and turned to face him fully.

“I am pregnant,” I said, “not sick. Not fragile. Not suddenly incapable of making decisions about my own life because there is a baby involved. I told Sam this exact thing seven years ago when I was pregnant with Aiden, and I am telling you now. Pregnancy does not turn me into someone who needs to be managed p>

“This is not about managing you,” Julian said. “This is about risk. Real, physical risk, to you and to our child p>

“I built IG Technologies from nothing,” I said. “Do you understand that? Every dollar of seed money came from races I won underground, driving through circuits most people would never survive, while pregnant with Aiden, because it was the only way I knew how to keep us both alive. I have done this before, Julian. I know exactly what my body can handle, and I know exactly how careful I intend to be behind that wheel p>

Julian was quiet for a moment, something working behind his eyes that I recognized as him searching for an argument he had not already lost.

“Tessa does not know who Catwoman is,” he said finally. “If you disappear from public life entirely, if you simply let the challenge go unanswered, she has nothing. No proof, no confirmation, nothing but speculation that eventually dies down the way it always has before p>

“And if I disappear,” I said, “she keeps looking. She keeps circling closer, because a woman who vanishes the moment she is challenged looks exactly like a woman with something to hide. I would rather answer this on my own terms than spend the next six months wondering what she might stumble onto while I sit at home being careful p>

“There is a difference between careful and reckless, my love,” Julian said.

“I know the difference,” I said. “I have spent years learning exactly where that line sits. I am not asking you to approve of this. I am telling you it is happening p>

Julian ran a hand through his hair, frustration and something closer to fear moving across his face in equal measure.

“If something happened to you on that track,” he said quietly, “I do not know how I would survive it. I do not know how Aiden would survive it. I am not trying to control you, baby, please. I am trying to imagine a version of my life where I lose you to something I could have stopped, and I cannot make my chest stop hurting just thinking about it p>

Something in me softened at that, the fear underneath his frustration finally visible in a way I could actually respond to rather than argue against.

“I hear you,” I said, reaching for his hand. “I do. But you race too, Julian. You always have. You do not stop living your life the moment something becomes precious enough to lose. You find a way to be careful with it instead p>

“That is different,” he said.

“It is not,” I said. “You do not get to have your thrill on the track while asking me to give mine up simply because I happen to be the one carrying our child right now. We both race. We both understand the risk better than anyone else in this city. I am not asking you to be comfortable with this decision. I am asking you to trust that I know my own limits p>

Julian looked at me for a long moment, the fight slowly draining out of his shoulders, replaced by something heavier and more resigned.

“I hate this,” he said finally.

“I know,” I said.

“If you feel anything wrong, anything at all, you pull over. Immediately. No finishing the race, no proving a point. You stop. Katia, do you understand p>

“I will,” I said.

He pulled me into him then, his arms wrapping around me carefully, his hand resting against the small curve of my stomach for a long moment before he spoke again, his voice quieter now.

“Tell me when,” he said. “I will be there. Every second of it p>

“I would not do it any other way,” I said.

Outside, the city carried on beneath a sky already beginning to shift toward afternoon, indifferent to the challenge waiting to be answered, indifferent to the risk I had already decided, quietly and completely, that I was willing to take.

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