Page 31 of A Secretary for the Bratva Boss
"Why did you leave?" I whisper. The words are torn from me, raw and broken. "You told me... everyone leaves. But then you... You left me."
"I… I was just checking my mail," she says. It's a lie. An excuse. She left. She was safe, and sheleft.
"You left." I'm backing away from her, toward the door, my hands held up. Bloody. "I can't… I can't have you leaving. I can't."
Alex stirs, groaning. He's… dragging himself out the door. Daniil will get him. I don't see him. My eyes are only on her.
"Anton…" She's crying, but she's moving. A steptowardme.
"I know it's quick," I say. The confession bursts out, a desperate, last-ditch attempt tomake her stay. To anchor her. "I know you believe it's random. But it's not. It's… It's you. You're the gift… the gift I've been waiting for. To make Christmas right."
"What…?" Her brows pinch. She doesn't understand. She thinks I'm insane.
"It hasn't been right… not since I was thirteen." I'm rambling, my eyes wild, the words a flood I can't control. The dam is broken. "My parents... they were killed. Two days before. Ripped away. Christmas... it's always been... empty. A reminder of whatI lost. Of notbelonging. But then I met you… and I just… Iknew. You. And…"
My eyes drop. My hand—my bloody, trembling hand—reaches out. Not for her face. Not to hold her.
For her stomach.
I press my palm flat against her belly. A new, different,primalcertainty floods me. This is therealreason. This is the anchor.
"You… and my child," I whisper. "You're my family. You're my everything. You're not walking away from that. And neither am I."
"Anton, we don't even know if I'm pregnant," she whispers, her hand covering mine. She doesn't pull it away. Shecoversit.
"Doesn't matter." My eyes snap to hers. She has to see this. She has to know this isn't a game. "You're mine. And if you're not… if you're not…" The next words tear my soul from my body. "You have to tell me now. Because I can't… I can't have another person I love ripped away from me."
Love.
The word hangs in the bloody air.
Her. Heart. Stops. I see it. Her eyes go wider. Her lips part on a single, silent breath.
"...love me?" she whispers. She sounds... broken. Like my words, not my fists, are the things that finally shattered her.
My face crumples. It's the only word for it. The great, terrifying Anton Ismailov… I… I break. "Since the first moment I saw you," I confess, my voice a guttural rasp. "In your stupid, broken boot. I wasn't… I wasn't going to tell you that for months. Because you already think I'm insane."
A harsh, broken laugh rips from my chest. "And I fucking am. I am… crazy as hell over you, Talia."
I stare at her, exposed. The killer. The monster. The broken, terrified man. I've put all my cards on the table. The past. The violence. And my heart.
She can pick any of them up.
She just stares at me. She's not running. She's... breathing.
"Then I'm just as crazy," she whispers.
She takes my bloody hand in hers. She laces her clean, warm fingers with mine. She doesn't flinch from the blood. She doesn't flinch fromme.
"I… I came here not to leave you. I just… I came to check on… on… nothing." Her gaze sweeps the dusty, sour-smelling foyer of her old life. "I don't need to check on anything. I don't need my mail. My plants… they can die. I don't… I don't need anything here."
She turns back to me, and the terror in her eyes is gone. It's replaced by a fierce, terrifying certainty that mirrors my own.
"My world shifted, Anton. The second I walked into your office. It's yours now."
She lifts my hand. My bloody knuckles. The hand that just destroyed a man.
And she presses her lips to them.
