Page 59 of Secret Baby of the Bratva
The question lands like a blow. My throat tightens, and for a heartbeat I think I can hold the silence, but his eyes pin me where I stand. Quiet, steady, merciless. He isn’t going to let it go. He never was.
My chest rises and falls too fast. I could lie, but he’d hear it in a second. I could refuse, but he’d never let me walk away from this moment. No, the only way forward is through. Even if it rips me open.
I swallow hard, tasting metal. “It wasn’t about you,” I say finally, my voice thinner than I want it to be. “Not at first.”
His gaze doesn’t soften, not even a fraction. He waits, patient, demanding without a word.
“My father,” I continue, and my voice almost cracks on the word. I steady it, force it back into something strong. “He died when I was a teenager. I never got any answers for what happened.” My hands curl at my sides, nails biting into mypalms. “I’ve spent years haunted by questions no one wanted to answer. I couldn’t let it go.”
The memory burns through me—late nights with empty files, the dead ends, the whispers that trailed through my childhood like ghosts. I lift my chin, meeting his fire with what strength I have left. “I knew he had… connections. I knew his life had brushed against the shadows of men like you, but no one ever told me how or why.”
Dimitri doesn’t move. He stands like stone, but his eyes sharpen, narrowing, cutting deeper than any blade. They track every word, every twitch of my face, every tremor in my tone. He wants the full confession. He won’t stop until I bleed it out.
I draw a breath and push forward, brittle but unflinching. “That night in your office… I wasn’t looking for your empire, Dimitri. I wasn’t trying to betray you. I was looking for him. For answers. For anything that could tell me why he died the way he did.”
The air between us thickens, heavy with all the truths I’ve hidden. My heart slams against my ribs, but I don’t falter. I can’t. Not now.
Slowly, I reach into my pocket. The paper is there, worn soft from the number of times I’ve unfolded it in secret, stared at it in the dark. My fingers tremble as I pull it free.
The CCTV still catches the light between us: my father, younger, his face wary, his eyes sharp with fear he tried to hide. The background is unmistakable—Dimitri’s study.
I hold it out with shaking hands, the paper trembling like a confession between us.
“I wanted the truth,” I whisper, my voice raw. “Not your empire. Not your secrets. I just wanted this.”
For a moment, the storm in his eyes flickers again. Not softer. Never soft. Darker, pulled into depths I can’t reach. His gaze drops to the photo, then rises back to me, unreadable, consuming.
The silence stretches, suffocating, until the only sound left is the storm outside and the thundering of my own heart.
He takes the photograph from my hand without asking. His fingers brush mine for a second, the briefest scrape of skin against skin, but the heat of it burns. He studies the image in silence, gaze raking over every line, every shadow.
His hand tightens until the paper creases, a sharp crackle that cuts through the storm outside. By the time he lowers it, the edges are crumpled, like even the photograph can’t survive his grip.
The silence between us swells, heavy and merciless. I can feel every breath drag through my lungs, measured, careful, as if one slip of sound could set him off. My chest rises and falls too fast, the stillness suffocating.
When he finally speaks, his voice is low, controlled, each syllable vibrating with fury he barely reins in. “You had no right to be there.” His eyes cut into mine, cold and relentless. “You trespassed into a world you don’t understand. Into matters that don’t forgive curiosity. You crossed lines that can’t be uncrossed.”
The words hit like bullets, each one sharp enough to wound. My back stiffens, my chin rising even as my stomach twists. I know what he’s capable of, and what his silence usually means. Still, I force my voice to hold steady.
“I had every right,” I snap, though the tremor in my throat betrays me. “It’s my father. My blood. You think I was supposed to keep living blind while everyone else buried thetruth? While you and your men kept secrets carved out of bodies?” My hands curl into fists at my sides. “I had a right to know. If no one else would give me answers, then I would find them myself.”
His jaw clenches, teeth grinding so hard I can almost hear it. “What then?” His words slice the air. “What did you plan to do with what you found? March into the fire and demand justice? You would’ve signed your own death sentence. And his.” His chin tips toward the ceiling, toward the room where my son sleeps. The unspoken hangs there, sharp as glass:you risked him too.
The accusation cuts deep, but I don’t back down. “Don’t you dare,” I breathe, my voice sharp enough to draw blood. “Don’t you put this on me. I didn’t know I was pregnant! I kept him safe by staying away. By keeping him out of your reach.” My pulse thunders in my ears, hot and furious. “If I went digging, it’s because your world stole everything from me once already. I wasn’t about to let it do the same without knowing why.”
Our words clash, fire against steel, filling the space with heat. His fury collides with mine, neither of us yielding, neither of us willing to look away. Beneath it, though, I feel it—the current that binds us tighter than anger ever could. Upstairs, a child sleeps.Ourchild. The truth neither of us dares say aloud, but both of us feel thrumming in our veins.
Dimitri steps closer, his shadow swallowing me whole. The heat of him suffocates, each breath harder to draw as his presence bears down. His eyes bore into mine, rage and something darker twisting in their depths. Something I can’t name. Something I might fear more than his fury.
My back presses harder to the wall, but I don’t flinch. I can’t. His breath ghosts against my skin, close enough that the air itself trembles between us.
“This conversation isn’t finished,” he says at last, voice like a vow, a threat, and a promise all at once. The words hang heavy, branding the space between us.
I know he’s right. The reckoning has only begun.
Chapter Twenty-Six - Dimitri
I don’t leave anything to chance.
