Page 14 of Forced Pregnant Prisoner of the Bratva
Ivan exhales sharply, almost a laugh, almost disbelief. “You’d make her your wife, this girl who tried to tear into your empire?”
“That’s exactly why!” I snap, eyes flicking to him. “She wanted to cross me. Now she’ll live in my shadow as proof of what crossing me costs. Every glare she throws, every ounce of her defiance will remind her that she’s chained; and those chains are mine.”
Silence stretches, taut and humming. Miron studies me the way he always does—calculating, detached, like he’s already running the angles three steps ahead. Finally, he nods once.
“Itispractical,” he admits. “The elders cannot object to a betrothal if one already exists. The Sokolovs lose their leash. You gain… something more.”
Something more.I like the sound of it.
Ivan shakes his head slowly, though the fight in him is half-hearted. “You’ll make a wife out of a prisoner?”
“She won’t be the first,” I say, voice dropping to a dangerous calm. “Or the last. Us Sharovs have done it before.”
Twisted satisfaction curls inside me, slow and heavy. This isn’t just practical. It’s retribution. She thought she could touch my world, play with my empire as though it were another puzzle.
Now she’ll live branded by me, her freedom gone, her fire smothered under vows she never chose. Marriage as punishment. Marriage as control. Marriage as leverage.
I can already see it: her hand gripped in mine at the long table, her name spoken alongside mine until it loses all meaning. Her glare burning holes into me, her spirit clawing against invisible walls, and none of it mattering.
She won’t escape. Not in this lifetime.
I reach for the glass at last. The vodka catches the pale light from the monitors, gleaming like liquid fire. I raise it, a silent toast cutting through the smoke.
The cruelest kind of solution—marriage, not execution.
Once an idea takes root, it’s already decided.
Chapter Seven - Karmia
The guards haul me from the cell with rough hands at my elbows, their boots thudding against the stone as they lead me through a corridor that climbs upward.
The air changes gradually—the damp chill of the underground giving way to something warmer, perfumed faintly with polish and flowers. It’s almost enough to make me stumble; the abrupt shift feels unreal, like stepping out of a nightmare only to fall into another dream I don’t trust.
They push open a pair of double doors and usher me inside. The shock almost knocks me flat.
Velvet drapes hang heavy at the windows, bloodred and gold trimmed. Chandeliers glitter above, crystal droplets scattering warm light across polished wood floors and plush carpets so soft my bare feet sink into them.
The furniture gleams with gilded accents, intricate carvings crawling across tables and chairs like vines frozen mid-climb. It’s opulence I’ve only ever seen in magazines, the kind of wealth meant to dazzle and intimidate in the same breath.
My breath catches. After the freezing dark of the cell, the room feels too warm, too soft. The contrast is dizzying, mocking. It makes my head spin.
I drift forward a few steps, dazed, fingertips brushing the edge of a velvet chair. The fabric is thick, decadent. My skin half expects it to vanish under my touch, dissolve like an illusion. What is this? A reprieve? A manipulation? Am I being released, or toyed with before something worse?
The click of heels breaks the silence. I jerk toward the sound.
A woman enters, her posture straight, her expression unreadable. She carries a clipboard in one hand, papers clipped neat and precise. Her dark hair is pinned back, her uniform immaculate, every gesture efficient. She looks like she could have walked out of an executive boardroom rather than a Bratva mansion.
“Miss Karmia,” she says, tone flat as stone. “You are to prepare for a wedding.”
The words leave me choking in disbelief.
My stomach hollows. My throat locks. For a second I think I’ve misheard, but she continues, her voice as calm as if she were reading off an agenda.
“You will need to select a dress. The ceremony is being arranged. Preparations begin immediately.”
I can’t breathe. Wedding. Ceremony. The syllables slam against my skull like fists. My chest seizes, panic rising so fast it steals my voice. A wedding?
I shake my head violently, stumbling backward. “No,” I whisper, the word ragged and broken. Then louder, desperate. “No. No, no—”
