Page 87 of Bratva Boss's Secret Baby

His fist connects with my cheekbone, splitting the skin and filling my vision with stars. I taste blood in my mouth as I swing wildly, catching him with a solid right cross that staggers him backward into the wall. The concrete makes a hollow sound as his body hits it, and I follow up immediately with a knee to his solar plexus that doubles him over.

He recovers quickly, grabbing a handful of my shirt and using my momentum to throw me sideways into the concrete wall. Stars explode across my vision as my head connects with the rough surface, and the taste of blood in my mouth becomes stronger. My legs feel unsteady, and for a moment, the room spins around me like I’m drunk.

Vadim presses his advantage, landing a series of punches to my kidneys that make my legs weak and my balance uncertain. Each blow sends lightning through my lower back, and my strength starts to ebb as the damage accumulates.

I’ve been in enough fights to know desperation can overcome technique, and I have more to lose than he does. I drive my elbow backward into his ribs, feeling something crack under the impact. It’s either cartilage or bone, but I can’t tell which. He grunts with pain and his grip loosens just enough for me to pivot and grab him by the throat.

We crash to the floor together, rolling and grappling for position while trying to land devastating blows. He’s stronger than his age would suggest, but I’m fighting for my family’s future while he’s only fighting for revenge that won’t bring back the dead.

I manage to get on top of him and wrap my hands around his throat, squeezing with everything I have while he claws at my wrists and tries to buck me off. He rakes his fingernails across my skin, drawing blood, but I maintain my grip as his face turnsred, then purple, as I cut off his air supply and watch the life start to fade from his eyes.

His struggles become weaker, more desperate, and for a second, I think it’s over. Just as his eyes start to roll back, I see movement from the corner of my eye that makes my blood freeze.

Irina has produced a small pistol from somewhere in her clothes and is raising it toward me with obvious intent to kill. Her hands are steady despite everything that’s happened, and there’s cold determination in her expression that tells me she won’t miss from this range.

Sabrina moves faster than I would have thought possible. She lunges forward, the metal legs scraping against concrete as she propels herself into motion, knocking over the chair as she reaches behind her back.

A second later, she also has a gun that she aims at Irina with shaking hands. Her face is pale with concentration as she tries to line up the shot, but her whole body is trembling from adrenaline and fear.

The sound of her pulling the trigger fills the small room, but nothing happens. The safety is still on, but the distraction is enough for me to roll away from Vadim and out of Irina’s line of fire just as she pulls her own trigger. The bullet gouges concrete where my head was a second before, sending chips of stone flying through the air and filling the room with the acrid smell of gunpowder.

Irina jerks her weapon toward Sabrina with predatory focus, clearly intending to eliminate the threat before returning herattention to me, but as she adjusts her aim, I hear the distinctive click of a safety being disengaged.

Sabrina’s voice is steady and cold as ice. “Don’t.”

This time, when Sabrina fires, the gun functions exactly as designed. The bullet catches Irina center mass, spinning her around and slamming her back against the wall with enough force to crack the concrete. She slides down to the floor, leaving a trail of blood on the rough surface, her expensive clothes now ruined, and her perfectly styled hair matted with sweat and gore. Her eyes are already glassy with approaching death, and the small pistol falls from her nerveless fingers to clatter on the floor.

Vadim tries to take advantage of my distraction, his survival instincts overriding the oxygen deprivation that was about to kill him. He reaches for the knife on his belt with desperate fingers, managing to get it partially free before I’m on him again. The blade is military issue, serrated on one edge, and designed to do maximum damage.

We struggle for control of the weapon, rolling across the floor while he tries to drive it into my chest, and I fight to turn it back on him. His strength is returning as oxygen flows back to his brain, and for a terrifying instant, I worry he might actually overpower me, but rage at nearly losing everything that matters to me because of this man’s obsession with revenge gives me the edge I need.

The knife goes into his torso just below the ribcage, sliding between bones to find his heart. The blade penetrates with surprising ease, parting flesh and muscle like they’re made of paper. His eyes widen with shock and pain as blood begins tobubble from his lips, but he’s not dead yet. He’s just wounded and growing weaker by the second.

I pull myself to my feet, breathing hard and tasting blood in my mouth. Looking down at him bleeding on the concrete floor, the same floor where my brother died ten years ago, there’s poetic justice in the symmetry. More importantly, there’s finally an end to the violence.

He tries to speak, and blood froths at the corners of his mouth, but whatever he wants to say is lost in the gurgling sound of damaged lungs.

His death is taking too long, even now, so I step hard on the knife blade, driving it deeper into his chest and severing whatever vital structures were still keeping him alive. The metal grinds against bone as it penetrates deeper, and he convulses once, his mouth opening as if to speak, then goes still.

Vadim Morozov is dead. The man who killed my brother, terrorized the woman I love, and turned my life into a constant battle for survival, is finally gone.

I turn away from his corpse and rush to Sabrina, dropping to my knees beside her chair. She’s still holding the gun, her knuckles white with tension, but her hands have stopped shaking. There’s something different in her eyes now. It’s a hardness that wasn’t there before, and I hope it will soon fade. I don’t want this to scar her for life, though it will inevitably change her.

I pull her into my arms and hold her like I’ll never let her go again, feeling the solid warmth of her body against mine and the gentle movement of our daughter between us. I whisper into her hair, breathing in the familiar scent that means home and safety and everything worth fighting for. “It’s over. It’s finally over.”

32

Sabrina

The silence after the gunshots feels deafening. My ears ring from the sound of my own weapon firing, and the acrid smell of gunpowder burns my nostrils. Irina’s body lies crumpled against the wall, blood pooling beneath her in a dark stain that spreads across the concrete floor. I killed her. I actually pulled the trigger and ended another human being’s life.

My hands shake as I lower the gun, the weight of it suddenly feeling impossible to bear. Nikandr kneels beside me, wrapping his arms around my shoulders with gentle pressure. His face is battered and bloody from the fight with Vadim, with cuts across his cheek and forehead that will need medical attention.

“You did what you had to do.” His voice is rough, hoarse from the violence, though his touch remains impossibly gentle. “She would have killed me.”

He’s right. Irina raised her weapon with clear intent to murder the man I love, and I stopped her the only way I could. The logical part of my mind understands the necessity of what I did,recognizes it as self-defense and protection of the people I care about.

The rest of me feels like I’m drowning.

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