Page 44 of Forced Pregnant Prisoner of the Bratva
I answer questions with practiced blandness, keeping my voice low and agreeable, letting my hair fall forward to shield my face. Every word is chosen, measured, scrubbed of defiance. No one here wants to know me.
They want to see that I understand my place.
There are moments when conversation stutters—when someone forgets their role for just a breath, and the air tightens. In those silences, I can feel Rostya’s thumb tracing slow circles at my waist, his presence iron and unyielding. I wonder if it’s comfort or constraint. Maybe both.
By dessert, my jaw aches from clenching it shut. The room is too warm, the air thick with perfume and expectation. I force another smile, another toast, laughter that never quite reaches my eyes. I try to remind myself I’m surviving, not surrendering, but the difference feels paper-thin.
When the final glass is raised, the performance ends. The car waits outside, black and silent, the city night curling cold around its doors. I slide into the leather seat and let my head fall back, only then realizing how tightly I’ve been holding myself together.
As we drive, the city blurs, lights streaking by in feverish colors, each block slipping past too quickly to hold. The farther we get from the house, the more I breathe, but the relief feels breakable, delicate as spun sugar. I keep waiting for it to shatter.
We turn onto a narrow street, the city thinning to after-midnight hush, and I notice the black sedan in the rearview. Then another. Headlights slice through the dark, too bright, too focused. My gaze flicks to the side mirror, pulse rising as theystay with us, always two car lengths behind, no matter how many corners Ivan takes. My skin prickles, the hairs on my arms standing as a chill seeps through the thin silk of my dress.
Rostya sits beside me, silent, unreadable. His hand hasn’t moved from my thigh, heavy and sure, but I can feel the tension radiating from him now—a coil winding tighter with every turn. I want to tell myself it’s nothing. Paranoia, leftover nerves from the performance of dinner. The street ahead narrows, and still the shadows tail us, unshaken by the quickening pace.
The headlights behind flare brighter, closer. My breath hitches. I press back against the leather seat, fingers gripping the clutch of my skirt, knuckles white as glass.
It happens all at once. Light explodes in the mirrors. The night rips open in a staccato eruption of gunfire, the sound so close it shreds thought, a thousand hammers slamming the world apart. Bullets ring off steel, sparks bouncing in the darkness. The car rocks violently as Ivan jerks the wheel, the windows spiderwebbing but holding. Bulletproof, but not invincible.
“Down!” Rostya’s voice cracks like a whip. The calm is gone, replaced by command, the tone I’ve only heard in threats before. He pushes me down, body caging mine against the seat. “Ivan, left! Now!”
The city turns feverish—neon smeared across the windows, engine roaring as Ivan punches through gears, another car in front of us peeling away to cut off pursuit. I hear voices over the radio, sharp, desperate. The convoy reacts in a storm of motion, black vehicles boxing us in, shields against the hail of bullets.
Another volley, closer this time. A tire screams. The car jolts so hard my teeth clack together, my knees slamming the door. I can’t breathe, can’t move, can only listen to theshuddering percussion of gunfire, the dull thuds against the glass, the distant wail of sirens rising behind us.
The world shrinks to chaos—Rostya shouting orders, Ivan’s knuckles white on the wheel, the blur of city lights swallowing everything but fear.
My hands twist in my lap, searching for something, anything. They close around the hard shape hidden in the folds of my dress—a burner phone, small and cold, the one Denis pressed into my palm with a whispered warning days ago.
It’s there, humming with dread, and in that instant every piece clicks together. The shadowing cars, the relentless pursuit, the way they found us even wrapped in Bratva armor. The phone—myphone—is the beacon. I’m the reason they’re here.
The realization is ice, sliding down my spine, locking my breath in my chest. I clutch the phone, shame and terror battling as the gunfire rages and Rostya’s world tears itself open all around me.
Gunfire echoes through the steel cage of the car, but it’s Rostya’s voice that cuts deepest. “How are they tracking us?” The question is a knife, aimed straight for my heart. He doesn’t look at me, but then again he doesn’t have to. Fury radiates from him, a heat that burns even through the chaos.
My hands shake so hard I nearly drop the phone. I want to explain, to throw words between us like a shield, but I can’t make myself speak. The confession lodges in my throat, sharp and choking. Instead, I seize the moment between bullets—window cracked from the barrage, the air thick with smoke and fear—and hurl the phone out into the night.
It vanishes, spinning end over end, swallowed by the dark. For a split second, nothing changes. Gunfire still echoes,tires still shriek around corners, Ivan’s voice still barks commands over the radio.
Then, like a switch flipped, the pursuing cars lose formation. They hesitate, one swerving hard into an alley, another braking too late and spinning out on wet asphalt. The coordinated menace fractures into confusion, headlights scattering, engines roaring in retreat instead of attack. The danger doesn’t vanish, but the precision—theiradvantage—bleeds away.
Rostya’s eyes flash in the rearview mirror, catching mine for just a moment. I see the understanding snap into place behind the anger. Proof: Denis marked me, and through me, marked him.
Our convoy regroups, black vehicles snapping back into formation, engines gunning as backup streams in from every direction.
The radio fills with terse Russian, the promise of violence thick in every syllable. Ivan’s hands never leave the wheel, but the way his shoulders settle tells me the worst is over. The city rushes past, neon and sirens and the smell of smoke, all of it moving too fast for me to breathe.
I curl into myself, hands knotted in my ruined dress, every muscle locked tight. Shame pounds through my veins, colder than any fear. I did this. I let Denis get close, let him press a phone into my palm and promised myself it was insurance, not a trap. I wanted a lifeline.
Instead, I brought a gun to Rostya’s head.
My lungs refuse to work, every breath a shallow scrape. I can’t meet Rostya’s gaze. Not now, not when the truth is laid bare in the night’s wreckage. He knows. They all do.
The car speeds on, city lights smeared and broken, the adrenaline still humming in my blood. I sit frozen, not daring to speak, not daring to move. Guilt presses down, heavier than bulletproof glass, harder than any of their stares. I can feel his eyes on me, feel the weight of everything unsaid tightening the air between us.
There’s no forgiveness in the silence that falls. Only consequence.
The city fades behind armored glass, the battered convoy winding through empty industrial blocks until, at last, the cars grind to a halt. The engine’s growl dies, replaced by a silence so dense it smothers breath. My heart still slams against my ribs, but now it’s the only sound left.
