Page 42 of Forced Pregnant Prisoner of the Bratva
Chapter Twenty-Two - Rostya
The estate is quieter now, but the silence sits wrong. Tension clings to the woodwork, heavier than the perfume of cigars or the velvet drapes still trembling with echoes of the men who left. I send the guards away with a word, sharp enough to clear the air, and pour wine myself.
She comes anyway.
Karmia moves through the doorway on silent feet, no chains, no guards at her back—nothing but that stubborn set to her jaw, the chin tipped just enough to telegraph her refusal to be small. She’s shed the cell’s fear but not the calculation, a tension in her shoulders like a pulled wire. When I nod to the chair across from mine, she slides in, hands folded, spine straight. Not obedient. Not broken. Just… present.
A challenge written in silence.
The fire in the grate snaps. Light crawls over her face, catching the shadows under her eyes, painting her cheekbones sharp. My own glass is cold against my palm, untouched. Across the table, her gaze tracks the room, cataloging escape routes, the weight of the cutlery, every inch of territory that isn’t hers.
It’s the photograph that catches her. A black-and-white relic on the sideboard, tucked between crystal decanters and the cold gleam of a pistol. The frame is battered, silver worn thin at the corners. Four faces locked in time, two boys flanking a woman with eyes too tired to be young. My father’s hand on my shoulder, heavy, claiming.
Her question is quiet, cutting through the hush like the first note in a cathedral. “Is that your family?”
For a moment, I want to lie. Deflect. The urge to shut her out is old, bone-deep. Instead, I shrug, the movement sharper than intended. “Was. Once.”
She looks at the photo, not at me. “You look different.”
My voice comes out flat, but it betrays me with a roughness I hate. “That was before. Childhood here is short.”
She turns back, eyes catching the firelight. I should end this, but the pressure in my chest won’t ease. My words scrape out, unplanned. “My mother died young. My father—” I gesture toward the photo, hand flexing. “He taught us the only lesson that mattered. Survive, whatever it costs.”
There’s a weight in the air now, too heavy for wine or fire to dissolve. I drink, finally, the burn slicing clean through the back of my throat. The silence stretches, close to suffocating.
She doesn’t ask for more. Doesn’t look away. I almost respect her for that.
Across the table, her hands tighten around the stem of her glass, knuckles white, the only sign of nerves she allows. The old photo catches the light and glints, a memory reflected in miniature. It feels dangerous, the way she’s here—willing, unbroken, sharp enough to cut—and I wonder, not for the first time, what it is in her that refuses to bend.
The stem of my glass creaks between my fingers. Karmia waits, silent, patient in a way that’s almost provoking. I should hate it, but something in me can’t resist the jagged edge of honesty.
“My father believed in pain,” I say, voice low, words rolling out like stones. “He ruled this house the way he ruled the streets. Fists, threats, broken promises. Obedience wasn’t earned; it was beaten into us. Every day was a test, every failure a debt owed in blood.”
Her gaze doesn’t flinch. She’s still, but I see the tension at her jaw, the way her breath shortens. I press on, too far in to stop.
“For him, sons were a burden. We weren’t children, we were projects. He wanted soldiers. He wanted heirs who could carve a kingdom out of bone.” My fingers flex around the glass, knuckles straining white. “He made sure we never forgot it. Not Miron, not me.”
The fire cracks. The room feels too small for what I’m saying. My chest aches with something bitter, ugly, a heat I can’t shake, the old rage crawling up my throat.
“Some nights I’d wake to shouting, his voice carrying through the halls, breaking sleep like glass. I learned to stay silent, to keep my back to the wall, to never give him a reason.” My jaw locks. “He taught us how to hurt, and how to be hurt. That was the Sharov legacy.”
Silence spills between us. The memory burns—years of it, unrelenting, still alive under my skin. I don’t look at her, don’t want to see what’s written on her face. Pity would be unforgivable. Judgment, intolerable.
She gives me neither.
When I finally glance up, she’s watching, steady as before, lips parted like she wants to interrupt but can’t. Her fingers curl around her own glass, but she doesn’t drink. She waits, breath shallow, something almost fragile in her eyes.
“No child deserves that,” she says, voice low and certain. No tremor, no condescension. “Not even here. Not anywhere.”
It’s not an apology. It isn’t the kind of comfort people offer when they want to fix things they can’t understand. It’s just truth, spoken with a quiet sorrow that’s sharper than any blade.
For a second, I can’t breathe. The pressure in my chest cracks, raw and too exposed. She’s not looking at me with fear; no recoil, no careful calculation. There’s a soft ache in her expression, a sorrow she doesn’t try to dress up as anything else.
It feels like a knife under my ribs—too real, too close. I want to look away, but I don’t. Her compassion unsettles me more than the memory itself. For a heartbeat, I’m not the Bratva’s wolf, not the monster at the end of a story. I’m only a man—seen, and unable to hide.
I reach for the wine, steady by habit, but her fingers are already there. The backs of our hands meet, skin to skin, a fleeting touch so slight it shouldn’t mean anything, but it stings like a current. Heat, bright and sudden, jumps the gap between us. I don’t pull away.
For a heartbeat, neither does she.
