Page 26 of Forced & Knocked-Up Bratva Bride

All of this was the first surprise, considering that she’d managed to unlock something in me, something I hadn’t even known existed.

The biggest surprise was finding her pregnant with my child.Mychild. This revelation had yet to settle in my head, and I still hadn’t come to terms with it. Alessia, daughter of the enemy, was carrying the Tarasov legacy in her womb, heir to the empire that I’d built. Could this get any more complicated?

Exerting my rage was now almost impossible, given the condition she was in. It made sense now why, during the car chase, she kept shielding her belly with her hands. I had no idea that she was with child, lest I’d never have given the signal to shoot at her. The crash was mild, but what if, for some reason, it had affected the pregnancy? Would I have been able to live with myself?

It was a dangerous game she played with me on that highway. And if anything had happened to that child in her womb, it would have been a different story altogether. A really messy one, perhaps. Luckily, neither she nor the baby was hurt—I had a doctor check her out.

Quietly, I walked into the room, my movements slow and deliberate. She sensed my presence and must have heard the door open, but she didn’t turn to face me. Her fear was palpable; I could smell it in the air. I strolled over to her front, watching her sit in the oversized couch, her shaky hands around her belly as if she could shield the child from me.

She pursed her lips, her chest rising and falling with slow breaths as she managed to hold my intense gaze. It wasalmost laughable that she thought the baby was safe behind her protective hands. A smile nearly broke across my face, but she maintained a flat expression, blank and unreadable.

Alessia thought the worst of me; she saw me as a mindless beast, a demon who’d do anything just to get what he wanted. However, as true as that was, she was also wrong to think that I would ever harm my own flesh and blood. The child in her womb was mine, my legacy, my most prized possession. It was sickening to even conceive the possibility of me hurting what belonged to me. That included her.

She was mine, just as much as the baby in her womb. Therefore, harming her was almost next to impossible. She was never supposed to slither into my heart, never supposed to have carried my child, let alone even matter to me. Yet, she did. And now, that was the problem.

I drew closer, reveling in the fear in her eyes despite her attempt to mask it. The silence between us dragged on for a while before she broke it, asking, “What’re you going to do to me?”

In silence, I stared at her, deepening the scowl on her face, not in contempt but to accentuate her terror.

“You’ve already taken everything from me. You’ve scattered my family and burned my father’s empire to the ground,” she continued, her voice faint and shaky. “What more do you want from me?”

“To see you suffer,” I replied, taking slow steps closer, my eyes burning with anger—or at least that was what I wanted her to see. “I warned you that there would be consequences should you defy me. Yet, you went ahead and disobeyed me…after seducing me.” My brows furrowed, a pang of real annoyance swelling within me.

“Haven’t you done enough?” She swallowed hard, blinking back the tears that filled her eyes. “You've destroyed everything my father worked so hard to build—”

“And whose fault is that?” I cut her off immediately.

Her breath ceased, hands trembling over her belly.

“You’re responsible for what happened to your family, Alessia.You,” I said, guilt-tripping her. “Your father might have begun this game, but you….” I clicked my tongue in contempt. “…you ended it. So, don’t sit there and act like you had no hand in this.”

She sniffled and wiped her tears, her lips quivering. “What’s gonna happen to me?”

My lips twisted into a mysterious smirk as I leaned in closer to her face, placing both my hands on the headrest. “You…are going to deliver this baby right here, in this house, undermywatch.” My eyes dropped to the gentle swells nestled behind the fabric of her woolen coat. “The child will stay with me. He’ll grow up with his father and learn the ways of the Bratva. And as for you…you will not be in the picture.”

She shook her head, tears streaming down her cheeks. “You can’t do that. You can’t take him away from me. He has the Romano blood coursing through his veins,” she said, her voice breaking as she sniffled intermittently. “He’s part Italian, Nik.” Her grip tightened around her belly.

An evil smirk tugged at the corner of my mouth as I stroked the loose strands that framed her face. “I thought you knew better,” I said softly, basking in the scent of her fear. “I always get what I want. Always.”

She broke down, sobbing with hatred in her eyes. “The boy will need his mother in his life.”

“Hewillhave a mother. It just won't be you,” I declared, my words cutting through her heart like a knife. “I’ll get married soon, and my new wife will raise my child.”

Her eyes widened, a spark of pain, fury, and desperation flickering in their depths. She glared at me, her face contorted into a frown, a testament to her displeasure.

I’d struck a nerve. Good. Now, we were getting somewhere.

Chapter 21 – Alessia

I glared at him, seething in silence, unsure of how to react. The hatred in my bones was equivalent to the pain in my heart. My lips trembled as tears trickled down my cheeks. I felt trapped, frozen in place, unable to think or move or even find the right words to say.

Nik hated me, and I could see it in his eyes—in the way he reveled in my pain. But taking my son away from me was a punishment too extreme to bear. I knew he was going to make me suffer, but in all honesty, I hadn’t seen this coming. I hadn’t anticipated being pushed out of my son’s life once he was born.

To make matters worse, he was going to let another woman raise my son—another woman! Fuck, no! But what could I do about it? Did I have a say in this? What power did I possess to put an end to this madness?

I could feel my heart breaking, shattering into a million tiny pieces. My body was shaking, my lips were quivering, and the tears rolling down my cheeks wouldn’t stop flowing like a fucking river. A mix of pain, anger, and resentment flooded my mind, and despite all of these emotions coursing through my blood, there still wasn’t a damn thing that I could do about this.

The world was spinning, and the walls were starting to close in on me. I was stuck in the oversized couch that seemed to be sinking with each passing second. I couldn’t move my hands, let alone stand on my feet. In my heaving chest, my heart was hammering, pounding incessantly. It was starting to get really hot in here, and I was suffocating. Every breath felt like drowning, every second a slow, agonizing death.

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