Page 25 of Pregnant with Bratva Twins
Still, as I step out into the corridor, the manor’s old stones echoing beneath my shoes, I find myself hesitating. The air smells faintly of rain and something sweeter, something like her. For a second, I almost turn around. I almost give in to the pull that’s been gnawing at me since the moment I first saw her, small and lost in the garden, pretending not to be afraid.
Instead, I take the stairs down to the garage, forcing my mind back to the business at hand. Lui will watch her. She’ll be safe. She’d better be.
When this is over—when Chris is gone and the Bratva is mine without question—Jessa will be next. There’s no more running. No more pretending she’s just another complication. She’s mine.
As I climb into the back of the waiting car, I let myself imagine her for a moment longer: hair spread over my pillow, skin flushed and marked by my hands, eyes wild and wanting. I wonder if she’s thinking of me, if she’s touching herself again with my name on her lips. The thought almost makes me turn the car around and abandon everything.
My phone buzzes as the engine roars to life. Alexei’s text:Everything’s in place. Jenkins leaves his club at 10.
I type back:Clean. No witnesses.
I tuck the phone away, flexing my hand, feeling the itch of unfinished business beneath my skin. It’s almost over. One more night, one more broken body on the streets, and then I can have what I want. Then I can have her fully, without anything or anyone between us.
I watch the city slide past the windows as we drive, every streetlight a blur. The rain has started again, drumming on the roof of the car. It’s a good night for endings. For erasing threats.
I know the truth, even if I won’t say it aloud. Jessa isn’t the threat. She’s the reason I want this war to end, the reason I want to live through it, the reason I want to walk back into that manor and make her scream my name until there’s nothing left of her but the memory of my touch.
The city rushes by in streaks of wet neon, tires hissing over rain-soaked asphalt. My mind is already locked on the night’s work: Chris, his route, the timing, the cold satisfaction of tying off another loose end. I’m silent in the back seat, every muscle braced for action.
We turn down Forty-Fifth, the street usually quiet at this hour. Tonight, blue and red lights flicker against the brick. Police cars clog the intersection… at least four.
I lean forward, frowning. Lui glances at me in the rearview, waiting for instructions.
Up ahead, a line of patrol cars blocks our route to Chris’s club. I spot uniformed officers moving between the cars, their radios crackling, one waving traffic away. More than a checkpoint. Something’s happened. Something big.
I curse under my breath. “What the fuck is this?”
Lui kills the headlights and eases the car into a side street, out of sight. “Want me to go around?” he asks, voice tense.
I watch the chaos, adrenaline rising. No way through tonight. Not without drawing attention. Not with this many eyes.
“Abort,” I snap. “Circle back. We wait.”
As we turn away, frustration coils tight inside me. Chris lives one more night—not by my choice, but by fate’s. I clench my fists, gaze drifting to the rain-streaked window. Everything’s on hold.
Hopefully not for long.
Chapter Thirteen - Jessa
It’s been weeks since Markian first forced himself into every corner of my life, weeks of pacing these gilded halls and pretending not to care who comes and goes from the house. But now something else gnaws at me: a quiet, insistent dread that has nothing to do with the Bratva, and everything to do with my own body.
I can’t remember the last time my period was late. At first, I chalked it up to stress, fear, a body in survival mode.
The days tick by, each morning a battle against nausea, my energy sucked dry by something I can’t name. Every time my hand brushes my belly, a shiver runs through me—a mixture of denial and a fear that feels bottomless.
It’s one of the younger maids, the shy one with the braid—Alina, I think—who finally slips something into my palm as she turns down my bed.
“For you,” she whispers, barely meeting my eyes. When I open my hand, I find a pregnancy test, hastily wrapped in a clean white towel.
My mouth goes dry. I thank her, voice barely audible, and tuck it into my robe, heart pounding so hard it makes me dizzy.
In the marble bathroom, I lock the door behind me, hands shaking so badly I nearly drop the box. I pace in front of the mirror, barely recognizing the pale, frightened girl in the glass. I fumble with the packaging, read the instructions twice, then three times. Then, breath caught in my throat, I finally take the test.
Minutes pass, slow and cruel. I press a hand to my mouth, fighting nausea, the world tilting and spinning. When I finallylook down, it’s not just one line. It’s two. Two lines. My vision goes white at the edges, a wave of cold panic sweeping through me so violently I have to sit on the cool floor just to keep from collapsing.
I can’t think. I can barely breathe. Pregnant. I’m pregnant.With his child.
The knowledge changes everything. Suddenly the room feels smaller, the air tighter, the house itself an elaborate, inescapable trap. My hands shake so badly I nearly drop the test. I wrap it in a tissue, slip it into my coat pocket, and stumble out into the corridor, needing to find Markian. I need him to know. I need someone—anyone—to tell me what the hell I’m supposed to do now.
