Page 14 of Secret Baby of the Bratva
I shrink back against the headboard, clutching the blanket like armor. My mouth is dry, but words push up anyway, ragged and desperate. “Why am I here?”
Chapter Six - Dimitri
I push the door open with the calm precision of a man who’s already decided how this will end. There’s no hesitation in my stride, no wasted movement, no room for doubt. I planned this moment before my men even dragged her from that cramped apartment, before the needle of chemicals made her body sag and the city swallowed her absence without notice.
Annie Vale was a witness, and witnesses don’t walk away.
The bedroom is dim, warm lamplight softening the carved wood and heavy drapes. I step inside and let the door close behind me with a muted click. My eyes adjust quickly, taking in details like I always do. The untouched water glass on the bedside table. The window she tested and found locked. The way the blanket is bunched in her fists, pulled tight against her chest as if the weight of it can keep her steady.
Then my gaze lands on her.
She’s upright on the bed, pale from fear but not collapsed beneath it. Her chin tilts, not high, but enough to mark the difference between terror and surrender. Fear is there—I can see it in the rigid line of her shoulders, in the way her pulse hammers at her throat—but something sharper lives under it. Calculation. She’s thinking. Measuring.
Interesting.
I take a step closer. Her eyes hold mine, steady enough that most men in her position would already be begging. She doesn’t. She waits.
“You saw something you shouldn’t have,” I say. My voice is quiet, stripped of heat or cruelty, but absolute in its finality. “For that, you were supposed to die.”
The words hang heavy between us, settling on her like a closing door. She doesn’t flinch. She doesn’t cry or shake her head or whisper apologies. I expected any of those. Instead, she surprises me.
“Then don’t waste the bullet,” she says. Her voice is low, roughened by fear but carried by something else. Strategy. “Use me. Keep me close if you have to. I can work for you. Don’t waste a tool when you could sharpen it instead.”
The blanket trembles in her grip, but her eyes don’t look away. She offers not a plea, but a proposal.
I pause.
It’s not desperation in her tone. Not the frantic begging of someone who’ll promise anything to save their skin. She knows her chances are thin, and yet she chooses to negotiate.
She frames herself as an asset, not a liability. That isn’t the instinct of a coward. That’s someone who’s spent her life questioning rules, pushing boundaries, looking for ways to twist them.
Silence stretches. I let it. I study her, each breath she takes, the way she holds herself as though still trying to maintain a fraction of control. She thinks she understands the danger, but she doesn’t. Not yet.
Still, I feel something stir that I hadn’t expected: anticipation.
Finally, I move closer, until I stand at the edge of the bed. She leans back slightly, but doesn’t break eye contact. I let the weight of my presence fill the space before I speak again.
“You’ll have a role,” I say at last. My voice is steady, deliberate. “But not an easy one. You’ll work inside my organization. You’ll answer directly to me, and you’ll earn your life one task at a time.”
Her lips part, a quick inhale, but she doesn’t speak. She listens.
I hold her gaze for one more beat, then finish it. “You’re not safe. You’re just useful for now.”
Annie doesn’t argue. Her chin dips in the smallest nod, her jaw set so tightly I can see the muscle twitch. She understands what I’ve said—what it means for her, what it means for the fragile thread of life she’s clinging to.
There’s no victory in her silence, but there’s no surrender either. She accepts the terms, not because she wants to, but because she sees no other choice.
I step back from the bed, never letting my gaze leave hers until I’m at the door. The guard waits in the hall, a shadow filling the threshold. I don’t raise my voice when I speak. I don’t need to.
“She doesn’t leave this room. No visitors and no calls. No one touches her. She answers to me alone.”
The guard nods, stone-faced. His presence is the lock she can’t pick, the bars she can’t see. Her cage just has a different shape now. Gilded walls, soft sheets, expensive curtains; but a cage nonetheless.
I don’t give her another glance as I step into the hall. The door shuts behind me with a clean click, the kind that finalizes everything. I expect to feel the kind of relief I always do after tying off a loose end. Witness neutralized, operation secure, no leaks to spill.
Relief doesn’t come.
Instead, something curls low in my chest. Something I don’t like. Anticipation.
