Page 48 of Pregnant with Bratva Twins
Chapter Twenty-Three - Jessa
I press a kiss to Sofia’s forehead, then to Liana’s, lingering just a heartbeat longer with each. They smell of soap and the salty tang of our little world by the sea.
Liana sighs in her sleep, rolling closer to her sister beneath their faded quilt. I tuck the blanket around them, fingers gentle, then ease the bedroom door closed behind me, muffling the soft rhythm of their breaths.
The house is finally quiet, the kind of silence that feels earned—just the low hum of the fridge and the gentle hiss of ocean breeze through the cracked kitchen window.
I stand in the hall for a moment, pressing my palm to the door, whispering a promise I’ve made a thousand times: “You’re safe. Mama’s right here.” Usually, I’d curl up on the couch now, a book in my lap, letting the day fall away.
Something shifts in the air as I step into the narrow hallway. I catch the scent of cold outside air, a chill that has nothing to do with the sea. I turn toward the living room, toward the entrance, and my breath catches in my throat.
He’s there. Leaning in the shadows beside the front door, motionless, as if he’s always belonged to this darkness. Markian. His silhouette is so familiar and so impossible, I almost believe I’m dreaming.
My body knows better. My pulse slams into my throat, hot and wild. Every muscle freezes. My mind races, scanning for the girls, for the nearest phone, for an escape I know isn’t there.
I try not to look back at the closed bedroom door, but my eyes flicker toward it anyway. It’s an instinct I can’t control. He sees it, of course. His gaze slides past me, locking onto that doorwith a cold certainty. He knows. Not everything, but enough. Enough to turn my carefully built life into splinters.
He moves away from the wall with the easy grace of someone who has always been a predator, who never doubts his control of a room. His coat is open, shirt crisp, but there’s nothing civilized in his eyes. He stalks me, slow and certain, crossing the cramped space until he’s close enough that I have to tilt my chin to meet his gaze.
The lamp’s glow catches in his hair, silvering the edges, but his eyes are all steel.
“So,” Markian murmurs, voice quiet and sharp as broken glass, “I have a daughter?” He smiles, but there’s nothing kind in it, just teeth and threat, the same smile I remember from every dream and every nightmare.
Before I can answer, his hand shoots out, cold fingers closing around my arm. I gasp, but the sound dies in my throat as he presses something hard and cold—steel, a pistol—just under my ribs. I feel the burn of it through my shirt, the way his thumb settles over my wrist, pinning me in place.
I want to scream. Want to wrench free, run to the girls, throw myself out the window if I have to.
I don’t move. I don’t plead. I just stand there, shaking from the inside out, breath shallow. My mind spins through every story, every lie, every line of defense I practiced for this moment. None of them matter now.
He leans close, his voice low. “Who touched you? Who helped you hide?”
I try to swallow, but my mouth is dry as sand. The urge to scream back, to tell him how wrong he is, flares and dies in mychest. Not when his eyes promise that he will burn this house, this life, this whole world if my answer doesn’t please him.
“I—” I start, but my voice fails me. All the fire I felt the night I ran, all the steel I used to keep going, it’s nothing now. I meet his gaze, determined not to let him see me beg, but he’s already reading me, reading the terror that I can’t hide.
He tightens his grip just enough to make me wince. “Was he kind to you?” he asks, voice almost conversational, but I hear the threat beneath. “Did he play daddy? Did my daughter call someone else her father?”
My hands are shaking. “There’s no one else,” I whisper. “There never was.”
He studies me, searching for a lie. I feel the weight of the years in his silence—years of anger, of loss, of wanting what he could not have. For a second, his mask almost slips, grief flashing in his eyes before the fury returns.
He glances at the bedroom door again, his whole body tense. “You kept her from me.”
I flinch, biting my lip so I won’t cry. “I kept them safe.”
He laughs. It’s a short, joyless sound. “From me?”
“From everything,” I say, the words trembling in the air between us. “From the world you dragged me into. From the war that follows you everywhere.”
He lets the gun drop, just a little, but doesn’t let go of my arm. “I’m not leaving without her. Without you.” His voice is a promise and a threat at once.
I shake my head, fighting tears. “You can’t just take us. You can’t just walk in here and—”
He cuts me off with a look that stills the air. “I can, and I will.” His voice is iron. “She’s mine. You are mine. That never changed.”
For a moment, the only sound is the distant crash of waves, the girls’ soft breathing just out of reach, and my own heart pounding out the truth: he has found us. There’s no running left.
I close my eyes, holding on to the only thing I have left: my love for the girls, the years I kept them safe, the hope that I can still protect them, even from him. I stand as tall as I can, refusing to let fear have the last word.
