Page 57 of Bratva Bidder
His knuckles graze my cheek, soft as breath. It’s the gentlest he’s touched me all night, and somehow that makes it worse. More dangerous.
I can feel the words forming in my throat like a bruise—too deep to ignore, too painful to say. I swallow them down, then taste blood and betrayal and every lie I’ve told to survive this place.
He’s so close. His body radiates heat. His voice is still low, still calm. Still pretending like he knows me. But he doesn’t.
He never did.
“You really don’t remember, do you?” I whisper.
The words slip out before I can stop them—soft, bitter, laced with something that tastes too much like heartbreak.
His hand stills against my jaw. He frowns. “What?”
I shake my head slightly, eyes falling to his chest, because I can’t bear to look at him. “Nothing,” I lie, but the silence has already stretched too long.
His fingers drop from my skin, slow and searching, as if trying to trace the meaning of what I just said.
But he won’t find it.
The irony carves itself deep into my ribs.
Because the man standing in front of me, breathing hard and claiming he doesn’t care if I am “untouched,” is the very same man who touched me first.
And then forgot me.
I can’t look at him this morning.
Not because I’m angry—though I am. Not because I’m ashamed—though I feel that too.
But because if I do, I know I’ll break.
The quiet tension from last night still clings to my skin like sweat. His touch. His voice. The way he stared at me, confusedand hungry, asking questions with his hands that he couldn’t answer with his memory.
He doesn’t remember me. Not even a flicker.
And somehow, that’s the most humiliating part of all.
I sit by the window in my room, knees pulled to my chest, staring out over the estate grounds. The curtains are open, the sky a bleached gray, and the world outside feels just as heavy as the one inside me.
My phone lies beside me on the armrest. I haven’t touched it since last night.
But my mind can’t stop replaying it—the moment I pushed through the hospital doors, breathless, my heels abandoned, my lungs aching from the sprint.
I lean back against the wall.
The hospital was quiet but cold in that particular way children’s hospitals always are—too bright, too clean, trying too hard to be cheerful. I ran past the front desk, straight toward the pediatric ICU. And when I finally saw Nikolai, I collapsed.
Nikolai, my brave little boy, hooked up to wires and tubes, so small on the massive hospital bed. His chest rose too fast, his face too pale, and for a terrifying second, I couldn’t breathe.
I staggered forward, then sank into the chair beside him, curling over the edge of the mattress as if I could shield him with my body.
His lips were pale. One arm was taped with an IV, and his chest rose and fell in shallow, uneven breaths.
Something in me cracked open.
I sank to my knees beside the bed, reaching for his hand. It was warm, too warm. My fingers closed around his tiny ones, and I lowered my head, pressing a kiss to the soft skin of his wrist.
“Mommy’s here,” I whispered. “I’m here, baby.”
