Page 46 of Forced Pregnant Prisoner of the Bratva
The night hangs, taut and humming, every nerve in my body tuned to the next move. In the beat that follows, my mind floods with memories that don’t belong to me. Her body, small and hunched behind the seat as bullets slammed glass. The way her arms curled in to protect herself. There’s no calculation, just instinct, hands splayed at her stomach, holding in panic or pain. Not an operative. Not a killer. Karmia is just a woman shocked at the violence tearing through her world.
I feel the urge to finish it, to prove the calculus of power is still mine. The streetlight catches the edge of the gun again. It’s a cold promise. I tell myself it’s mercy to act, not weakness.
I can’t pull the trigger. Not yet. Something in those small, human gestures slackens my will, slows the engine of vengeance in my blood.
My arm lowers. Not out of forgiveness, not even out of doubt. I lower the weapon because I can’t deliver that kind of violence to someone who looks at me not as a monster, but as a man about to ruin everything. It isn’t softness. It’s the unbearable pressure of choosing, calculating the risk, the truth, the lie, the price.
Fury stays, burning hotter than before, but it changes. Suspicion sharpens my focus, makes the world clearer. If she’s innocent, why clutch the phone until her knuckles went white? If she’s guilty, why throw it away the second danger closed in? Was she an accomplice—tool or traitor? Or just the perfect mark for someone else’s trap?
I watch her face, hunting the truth in every tremor of her mouth, the flick of her eyes, the way she stands too straight to be blameless.
The gun hangs at my side, heavy and unresolved. Its weight reminds me the line between execution and reprieve is mine alone to draw. The silence between us is thick, charged, the air alive with everything unsaid. I don’t holster the weapon. I don’t lower my guard. But I give her that moment—one heartbeat, one measured chance to prove who she is.
Now the only thing more dangerous than trusting her is letting her go.
Her name is Karmia, and in this moment, that’s all that keeps me from becoming the executioner my father would recognize.
I keep the pistol level at my thigh, every muscle locked, voice grinding low as gravel in the dark. “No more games. Tell me the truth now.” Not a plea, not a threat. A verdict waiting to be written.
She stands shivering under the streetlight, eyes too wide, jaw set in that way I’ve seen only once before, right before she hurled the phone into the night. There’s a tremor in her hands, but not in her voice; it shudders but doesn’t break.
I watch her, dissecting every syllable, every flicker of breath, searching for the crack that will give her away.
“I never worked for the Volkovs,” she says, words tumbling out so fast they almost catch. “Denis—he followed me for days. He threatened me, said if I didn’t take the phone, they’d find my mother, my sister. He said if I told anyone, I was dead. I never—” She stops, biting back whatever she can’t bear to speak. Her arms wrap tight around herself, as if she could hold the truth together by sheer force.
Her eyes are pleading, but not slick with practiced tears. There’s panic, yes, but also something rawer, harder to fake. She doesn’t flinch from my gaze. That makes it harder, not easier. I’ve seen liars cry, watched men beg for mercy with all the conviction of saints. The world is full of desperate actors.
But there’s a thread running through her that rings true: the terror, the confusion, the fury at being trapped. Yet it’s also just plausible enough to be useful. If she was guilty, would she break this way? Or is it just fear talking, the kind that makes guilt look like innocence?
I think of all the betrayals that came dressed as loyalty—partners who toasted to brotherhood and slipped knives between ribs the second I turned my back. The men who shook my hand in front of crowds and sold me to enemies in shadows. The lesson of this life is simple: trust is an entry wound. I survived because I never forgot that.
Every instinct tells me not to believe her. Yet every instinct also recognizes the pattern of the cornered, the collateral. She’s not the first person to be used as a weapon against me, but she might be the first who didn’t know she was loaded.
Behind us, Ivan steps forward, silent but solid as a wall. My men shift in the dark, weapons still ready, engines idling. The city is an open wound around us, pulsing with the memory of bullets and what could have been.
I don’t take my eyes off her. “Ivan. Escort her back. Watch her every step. She doesn’t leave your sight for any reason.” The order is crisp, final. It’s not only surveillance; it’s protection, and she’ll know it. Punishment too, for the uncertainty she’s unleashed.
Ivan moves with the certainty of habit, taking her arm in a grip that brooks no argument. Karmia twists, protesting.
“Rostya, please, I didn’t—”
Her words are drowned in the scrape of boots on gravel and the hard line of Ivan’s purpose. He steers her away, ignoring her pleas, and for a moment she looks over her shoulder, face cut by panic and betrayal of her own.
The deed is done. The choice is made. I watch them disappear into the maw of the waiting car, pistol still in my hand, heart a cold ledger tallying debts I may never collect. For a moment, I almost wish she’d lied more convincingly, or broken less easily. The doubt remains, poisonous and persistent, as I turn away from the light and back toward the darkness I know best.
Ivan drags her off, her cries thin and desperate as they echo between warehouse walls. Karmia stumbles, caught in his grip, hair loose, cheeks wet and shining under the streetlight. She doesn’t look back again, and I don’t call out. The curve of her spine, the tremor in her shoulders, mean nothing now except the lesson they leave behind.
That flicker when I’d let my gun drop sickens me. It’s a flaw, a moment’s softness exploited by the same fate that’s always hunting men like me. In that slip, I see the cost: a line exposed, a legacy threatened. I harden around it, folding the regret into a sharper edge.
There is no room for hesitation now. That was the last mercy. My world only functions if its enemies believe I have none left to give.
I turn from the light, stepping into the cold, rotting breath of the city. The convoy behind me stirs, doors shutting, engines idling with tension still humming in their frames. But my mind is already elsewhere, every sense honing to the hunt. Denis Volkov’s name burns behind my eyes—bright, final, inevitable.
Tonight, the rules change. There will be no negotiation, no ransom, no threats traded in dim rooms. I will find him. I will make it public. Let his allies watch as consequence falls and understand that the Sharov line does not bend, and never breaks.
Boots swallow gravel, rhythm steady, breath clouding as I move deeper into shadow. My heart is cold iron, beating to the pace of violence measured and justified. I tally what I’ve lost. Men, hours, trust… and what I will gain by burning out this rot before it spreads.
Inside, the decision lands hard, not as satisfaction, but as resolve. This is how peace is bought. This is how silence is restored. There will be no more questions about my judgment, no rumors of softness in my house. The world will remember who rules this ground.
