Page 17 of Forced Pregnant Prisoner of the Bratva
There is no escape from it.
After, the maids deliver her like an offering, slipping into my room with careful steps, their hands guiding her forward. They don’t linger. They bow their heads, place her on the edge of the bed like a fragile parcel, and leave. The doors shut behind them with a heavy finality, sealing her inside my space.
She looks absurdly small against the vastness of the room. The mahogany bedframe towers over her, velvet curtains spilling shadows across the floor. Gold glints from the edges of the mirror, silk and velvet everywhere, but there is no warmth in any of it.
My room was never built for comfort. It was built to remind anyone who entered that I hold power they can’t touch.
She perches on the mattress as though it might swallow her whole. Her back is ramrod straight, her hands fisted tight in the fabric of her skirt. Her eyes flick toward the door, then away. She is still thinking of escape, even here.
The handle turns under my hand. I don’t rush. I never rush. The sound of my steps against polished wood echoes into the silence, deliberate, steady. With each stride I take, the room bends tighter around us until there’s nothing but her breathing and the weight of me approaching.
She doesn’t lift her gaze immediately, but she feels me. I see the shiver across her shoulders, the way her breath stalls when my shadow cuts across her body. I stop in front of her, close enough that the warmth of me brushes against her skin.
“Comfortable?” My voice comes low, almost casual, but the chain is in the question.
Her head jerks up, chin lifting like she’s holding it against a storm. “This doesn’t feel like comfort,” she answers. Her voice is brittle, ready to crack, but defiance shapes it all the same.
A flicker of amusement stirs in me, faint and cold. Even now, bruises still fresh at her throat, she tries to sharpen herself against me. She doesn’t see that the edge only makes her more interesting.
I let my eyes roam, cataloging every piece of her. The spill of hair loose over her shoulder. The angle of her jaw, tight with resistance. The way her hand rests in her lap, pale knuckles pinched around the ring I forced there hours ago. That ring gleams against her skin like a brand.
I raise my hand slowly, purposefully. My fingers hover inches from her cheek, close enough to feel the heat rising fromher skin. Her breath catches, betrays her. The smallest tell, but I take it. I could touch her now, claim the last barrier she’s trying to hold between us.
Instead, I withdraw.
The air cools in the space I leave behind, colder than any touch I could have given. I see the flicker of confusion in her eyes, the flush creeping into her cheeks. Scorn tastes better than contact. I could, but I won’t. She needs to understand that even my restraint is another kind of control.
Her lips press together, strangling words she won’t give voice to. She doesn’t realize silence betrays as much as sound.
I let the moment stretch, heavy as smoke, before I break it with one word. “Rest.”
It’s not an invitation, but an order.
I stand over her a beat longer, watching her stiff shoulders, her fists clenching tighter around the fabric, the tremor in her body she can’t control. She sits like prey caught in a hunter’s snare, too afraid to move, too proud to collapse.
Satisfied, I step back, but the air between us still burns with the echo of what I didn’t do. I leave her with that—the weight of my presence, the sting of my absence, and the knowledge that comfort will never exist in my world.
The silence of the room stretches until it feels like velvet pulled tight across steel. She sits perched on the edge of the bed, small and stiff, eyes downcast but shoulders braced as if the weight of the estate itself presses on her. I let it hang for a moment longer, let the cold settle heavy in her chest before I speak.
My voice cuts through, flat, commanding, deliberate. “Do not expect affection from me. This isn’t that kind of union. Youare here because appearances demand it. A puppet, nothing more. Don’t mistake your position for anything greater.”
The words are stripped bare, not a thread of warmth in them. They’re meant to crush whatever hope she’s foolish enough to carry, to bury it before it can take root. Better she knows now than cling to illusions.
Her head snaps up. She rolls her eyes, sharp and scornful, and the sound she makes is closer to a laugh than I expect. Her muttered words slip out like a knife’s edge. “Thank God. I don’t wanna do anything with you.”
The sarcasm slices the air, sharp enough that even the heavy drapes seem to shiver.
The moment freezes. My chest stills.
I study her face, waiting for the inevitable collapse, for the tears that should follow, the trembling apologies, the submission that always comes when someone dares to spit at me and realizes the cost. There are no tears. Her jaw is set, her gaze steady despite the faint tremor in her hands.
Instead of breaking, she burns.
A stubborn fire glows beneath her defiance, brittle but real. I feel the heat of it across the space between us, see it spark in her eyes where fear should have drowned everything.
It unsettles me. It irritates me. It draws me in.
For a long moment neither of us moves. The silence thickens, stretching taut, a battlefield without weapons. Pride and scorn clash in the air, two blades grinding sparks. She doesn’t shrink back. She lifts her chin, straightens her spine, a trembling soldier daring to face the firing line.
