Page 15 of Secret Baby of the Bratva
The woman didn’t plead. She didn’t cry, or beg, or crumble the way most do when they feel death sitting inthe room with them. She didn’t ask for mercy, didn’t throw words like promises into the air, hoping one might stick. She negotiated. With me. As if she had the right.
Worse than that, she made me listen.
My footsteps echo down the long corridor as I move deeper into the estate, the weight of silence settling on my shoulders. I should be planning the next steps with Milan, sorting through the intelligence extracted from tonight’s corpse, directing my men where to strike next. That’s what matters. Not a girl with too much fire in her eyes and too little sense to bow when she should.
Yet my thoughts return to her.
The way her voice didn’t break when she made her offer. The way her fear was obvious—she couldn’t hide the tremor in her hands, the whiteness of her knuckles on that blanket—but she didn’t let it rule her. She calculated. She adapted. She tried to make herself useful to me before I could decide she wasn’t.
That isn’t cowardice. That’s instinct, and instincts like that are dangerous.
I pass two guards at the landing. They straighten, but I don’t break stride. The air carries the faint burn of cedar from the fire lit downstairs.
Outside, rain beats against the windows, steady and relentless, a storm with no end in sight.
I know better than anyone that people like her can’t be trusted. Annie will test every boundary I set. She’ll look for cracks, ways out, ways to turn advantage into escape.
My men will have to watch her constantly, and even then, she’ll find ways to push. I should have ended it in that corridor, left her body on the concrete beside the man who betrayed us. Clean, final, efficient.
I didn’t, because she asked me not to waste the bullet. Because she offered herself up as a tool to sharpen. Because in that single act, she turned the night into something more complicated than it should’ve been.
I reach my study and close the door behind me, the scent of leather and old paper wrapping around me. Maps and files litter the desk, threads of operations waiting for my attention. I pour a glass of vodka, the clear liquid catching the lamplight, and take a slow sip. It burns down my throat, clean and sharp.
The relief I expected still doesn’t come.
Instead, I see her again—sitting on that bed with fear in her eyes but fire under it, forcing herself to meet me like she had some say in whether she lived or died. I feel the echo of her words: Don’t waste a tool when you could sharpen it instead.
A part of me wants to believe she’s foolish. That she thinks she can survive in my world without consequence. Another part—quieter, more dangerous—knows better.
She didn’t plead. She negotiated. In doing so, she may have invited something worse than death.
My attention.
I set the glass down and lean back in my chair, the storm rattling faintly against the windowpanes. For the first time in a long time, I feel the edge of a game beginning, one I didn’t choose but one I’ll play anyway.
The storm outside grumbles low, a steady pulse against the estate’s thick windows. I sit with the untouched glass of vodka, staring at the files spread across my desk but seeing none of them. Her voice lingers, threaded through every thought.
A knock breaks the quiet. One of the guards steps inside, posture stiff. “She hasn’t moved from the bed. Asked for water.”
“Give it to her,” I say.
The guard nods and turns to leave. I stop him. “Oh, tell her something.”
He waits.
“Tell her she isn’t a guest here. She works for me now. Every move she makes is mine to decide.”
The guard hesitates, then clears his throat. “Do you want me to use those exact words?”
I lean back in the chair, a faint smirk tugging at my mouth. “Yes. I want her to know I said it.”
When the door clicks shut again, I lift the glass at last and take a swallow. The vodka is ice in my chest, but it doesn’t quiet the curl of anticipation. She thinks she can play games. Let her. I’ll enjoy watching how far she’s willing to go before she breaks.
Chapter Seven - Annie
I fall into the rhythm of my new life with the same precision I used to catalog art shipments—except now the inventory is guards, doors, codes, and routines. On the surface, I play the part Dimitri wants: compliant, efficient, quiet. I shadow his men, I take notes on logistics, I follow orders.
They think I’m adapting. What I’m really doing is memorizing every crack in the walls around me.
