Page 84 of The Bratva's Captive

I shook my head. “No, but she was on the floor when we found her.” They had to check on her, not me.

“Do you hear me?” Anastasia asked, determined to get my acquiescence.

I looked her dead in the eye and didn’t cower one bit. Nor did I reply.

“You are not family. You are not an Ivanov.” Even though she should’ve looked vulnerable and weaker, being tended to for a cut on her head, she made sure her queenly smirk stayed in place. “You are not the kind of woman we want to contaminate our family lines. You have no pedigree. No family. No background. Nothing. You arenothingto this family.” With a disapproving glower over my skimpy, short dress that I’d chosen for a private dance and striptease for Maxim, she huffed as if the idea of my staying here and fitting in was too ridiculous to entertain at all.

“Sooner or later, Maxim will tire of you as he sees how unworthy you are among his family members who need him.”

I kept my lips shut, holding in all the comebacks I wanted to shout at her.

“You are not family, Miss Black. And no part of you ever will be.”

Is that so?

I hadn’t come here and entered her grandson’s life with any goal to become a member of the Ivanov family. But I had to imagine that many had done just that, and I disliked the concept of it.

Oh, God.Was I becoming possessive of Maxim now? My kidnapper and lover and secret baby daddy?

I watched her glare at me, keeping my thoughts to myself.

She was wrong, of course. Her predictions of how long I’d stay here were incorrect. Maxim decreed that I wouldn’t leave.

And Iwasfamily, or I was carrying one of their own.

How ironic.

I’d come so close to telling Maxim tonight. I’d finally sought the courage and prepared to share the news with him that I was already pregnant with his heir. Tonight was supposed to be the time to shed this secret that ate at me and gnawed on my nerves the longer I hid it.

And here was his grandmother, claiming the opposite, that I’d never have a bloodline tie to the Ivanovs.

I already do.

It was far past time to tell Maxim.

34

MAXIM

“Maxim?”

I turned, facing the soldier who approached us in the hallway. Nik waited as well, paying attention to another report. The entire house was on alert tonight, and I doubted we’d be relaxing any time soon.

“Miss Black has been escorted back to your apartment,” he reported. “Anastasia asked to return to her room.”

Nik frowned, glancing at me. “Was Grandmother badly hurt?”

I shook my head. “It didn’t seem like it.”

The soldier also shook his head. “No. We’ve tended to her injury and the doctor stepped out of your father’s room to check on her, too. He saw no lingering concerns, and she insisted on having privacy to rest for the remainder of the night.”

That sounded like her. Whenever she felt vulnerable, she wanted space and time to get back to her usual cool self. She was a loner like that—or that intimidated about ever seeming weak.

So long as there weren’t any medical worries, I would leave her to it. I didn’t need her to be a distraction while my brothers and I investigated this matter. And it would take significant time to question everyone, go through all the security footage, and figure out how in the hell this could have happened with the increase of surveillance since Father was poisoned the first time.

“Thank you.” I resumed following the guards who’d led us to the man who’d shot himself, taking the easy way out of an interrogation and torture session. It was a well-known fact that we Ivanovs showed no mercy to those who trespassed or tried to harm us. In that regard, I wasn’t surprised that the man had killed himself to avoid facing our brand of justice. But it pissed me off, nonetheless.

“Damon is downstairs with the other man,” another guard said once Nik and I headed to the stairwell where blood and brain matter were splattered on the wall. The gory mess didn’t bother me. I’d seen worse. I’d caused worse. And I knew that as soon as we gave the men the all-clear, it would be cleaned and spotless once again.

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