Page 24 of Forced Pregnant Prisoner of the Bratva
Silence crushes the warehouse in the wake of chaos. Only my own ragged breathing fills my ears, chest heaving, hands shaking so hard I press them flat against my bloody dress to hide it. My ears throb with the ghost of gunfire, each heartbeat another echo. My body feels light, unmoored, the world distant and unreal.
Rostya releases me at last, turning with that predatory grace, blue eyes searing across the darkness. His expression is unreadable, a hard, controlled, mouth set in a line that could crack stone.
For a flicker of a second, I see something else buried in his gaze. A raw urgency, a desperate protectiveness, sharp and bright as a cut. He’s just risked himself to keep me alive, and for that split second, he doesn’t look like the monster I’ve imagined. He looks human. Frightened. Mine.
Then he shutters it away. The mask returns, face carved from ice. He looks through me, not at me, his posture commanding again.
Movement draws my eyes to the wreckage. Miron emerges from the gloom, blood spattered across his shirt, dragging a man by the collar. The man is battered, face streaked with sweat and crimson, but his eyes blaze with hate.
Ilya Volkov.
Even on his knees, hands bound behind his back, he radiates fury and defiance. Miron shoves him forward, and the Bratva men close in, guns leveled, forcing Ilya to bow. He snarls something in Russian, voice thick with venom, never once looking away from Rostya.
Rostya stands over him, impossibly tall, a dark figure backlit by the light spilling from the open warehouse door. His authority rolls through the room like thunder. Unquestioned and absolute.
Ivan moves in to guard, silent and grim. The other Bratva soldiers spread out, keeping eyes on the shadows, but their focus is drawn by the spectacle: the Volkov leader brought to heel, the threat subdued, if only for now.
I feel a chill settle over my skin. This was never just a mission to strike at rivals. It was a trap, a test, and bait, all at once.
Rostya wanted more than to send a message. He wanted a prize.
Now, with Ilya in their hands, the air thrums with new danger, the stakes rising beyond anything I’d imagined. Whatever happens next, the war between these men—between these worlds—is about to explode into something far bloodier, and I am no longer just a spectator.
I am standing in the center of it, bloodstained, shaking, and suddenly far more valuable—and vulnerable—than I’d ever meant to be.
Chapter Twelve - Rostya
Back at the mansion, the adrenaline is still surging in my veins, refusing to let me settle. My hands tremble, fists clenched to keep from betraying just how close it had all come. I can’t shake the image of her caught in the crosshairs, her eyes wide and terrified, the barrel of a gun leveled at her skull.
The echo of bullets is still in my ears, mingled with the memory of her bloodstained dress pressed under my arm as I dragged her through hell.
I don’t let her out of my sight. I drag her down the marble corridor, ignoring the eyes of my men. My grip is hard, angry, all but shoving her through the door of the first private room I find. The door slams behind us, rattling in its frame.
I round on her, my voice a blade. “What the fuck were you thinking? You could have gotten yourself killed. You almost got me killed!” The words are sharp, each one a lash. I need her to feel the edge, need her to see that her recklessness nearly cost us both everything.
She stands her ground, chin lifted, face streaked with dirt and blood. “Maybe next time you’ll leave me behind like you should have!” she spits back, her own fury matching mine. “Why did you even bother to save me if all I am is a liability?”
Her words strike deeper than any bullet. The question punches through the wall I’ve built around my anger. I freeze, breath caught. For a second, I see her not as a pawn or a prisoner, but as something far more dangerous. Someone who has the power to wound me.
I bare my teeth, trying to close that door before she can pry it open further. “You’re missing the point,” I snap. “You’re there because you wear my ring. You walk where I walk, and you follow my orders. That’s the price of survival.”
It sounds hollow even to me.
She shakes her head, eyes burning. “You can’t even admit it, can you? That I matter to you. That you didn’t just save me for the sake of your precious Bratva order.” Her voice is raw, her defiance fierce, and it rattles something loose inside me.
The adrenaline begins to cool, replaced by a hot, unsteady ache in my chest. I don’t want to admit how close I came to losing control tonight. How much it terrified me to see her in the crossfire, how much it matters, more than it ever should.
For a moment, the silence between us is sharper than the gunfire we left behind. I turn away, jaw clenched, unable to look at her and unable to let her go. I realize with a jolt that she’s no longer just a complication.
She’s become the weakness I never wanted, and the one I can’t let go.
I pace the width of the room, the walls too close, the lights too harsh. Fury keeps me upright, but beneath it, memory gnaws—her terrified face, the weight of her body pressed under my arm as gunfire ripped the world apart. The stutter of her breath, the way she clung to life even when blood slicked her hands. I can’t explain, even to myself, why any of it matters.
Why the thought of her vanishing in a spray of bullets makes my chest ache in ways no loss ever has.
She’s still standing by the door, shoulders rigid, fire crackling in her eyes despite the tremor in her hands. Her voice slices through the silence, low but unyielding.
“You’re a monster, Rostya. You use people. You break things. You don’t save anyone. So why me?” Her chin lifts, but her voice falters on the last word, softening into something rawer. “Why did you care?”
