Page 92 of The Bratva's Captive

“What did you say?” I repeated as anger started to simmer and burn hotter in my blood. My heart raced faster as I stared into her eyes.

“I told them that I… didn’t want them to hurt the baby,” she confessed quietly, almost meek about it.

“What baby?” I asked hotly. It came out as a furious whisper.

“Ours. I… I’m pregnant.”

This was supposed to be good news. The precise announcement I’d been praying to hear from her. She was in my life to give me an heir, but the anxious expression she still wore gnawed at me.

“You knew?” I stepped toward her.

She flinched, retreating a step as she nodded.

How could she keep this from me?

37

SLOANE

This wasnothow I wanted to tell him.

I swallowed hard, hating the clench of my stomach as dread and anxiety mixed within me.

I stared at Maxim and willed him not to be mad. Not to get angry at the fact that I’d known I was carrying his baby and hadn’t told him. Not to be furious that I had kept anything from him at all.

Trust was an issue for him.

He’d been upfront about not wanting to trust me and being unable to commit to me. It had started to feel like he’d already been committing to me and caring aboutus, and I had to be the one to unravel and ruin that illusion.

Instead of reacting, he turned to stone. Not flinching, no budging at all, he adapted a stony mask. That blankness startled me, and I realized I’d never feared a man more than I did in this moment.

It was as though he’d dropped into himself, walling me out, and it wasn’t somewhere I wanted to be.

“Get in the car.” He bit it out in a stern order, using enough rage in his icy tone that I wasn’t going to dupe myself into thinking he was merely shocked about this. He was livid, so furious that something sinister might have snapped in him.

I didn’t try to argue. I could’ve run when that fight started, but escaping hadn’t even crossed my mind.

The last time I was removed from the world like this, he’d taken me when I had fainted from exhaustion.

This time? I willingly obeyed, belatedly proving I really could be his good girl and listen to his orders. There was no need for him to capture me and force me back under his control. I was already under it. I was willing to stay with him regardless of the fact that he’d kidnapped me in the beginning.

Deep in my heart, I knew that I would always gravitate toward him like this. I would alwayschooseto stay with him because when I’d least expected it, he’d prompted me to want him. To need him.

And to love him.

I blinked, holding back the tears that threatened at the idea of his being so furious with me. The thought that he could hate that I’d hidden such a big thing from him.

He spoke to his men after I climbed into the backseat, but his words were muffled with the door closed after me. I doubted I’d hear them anyway. The buzzing in my ears accompanied my panic and dread. Guilt swamped me so severely that my chest felt tight and my skin tingled with a sensation of being too taut.

When he got into the car, he didn’t speak. He didn’t look at me. Glaring straight ahead, he kept a distance between us and didn’t reach out to me.

Of course, he wouldn’t hold my hand now. That illusive companionship we’d shared before that moment was shattered and lost.

Tense on the ride back to his house, I did my best not to drown under the fearful what-ifs. I tried to dispel the anxiety of the unknowns. And I attempted to swallow down every impulse to blurt out an apology for not telling him sooner.

You should have.

You knew you should’ve told him.

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