Page 48 of Forced Pregnant Prisoner of the Bratva
Normally they move quickly, in and out, no words wasted. Tonight she lingers. Her hands fuss with the corner of the bedspread, smoothing fabric that doesn’t need smoothing. Her eyes flick toward me once, then again, before she sets the tray down with deliberate care.
When she finally speaks, her voice is barely above a whisper. “He has never been like this for anyone.”
I freeze, the words hitting harder than gunfire. “What?”
The maid glances at the door, as though afraid someone will hear. “Rostya. He… he does things for you he’s never done. Ordered food, your food. Made sure the kitchens prepared it exactly as you like. He sent for fabrics you touched in the market, though you didn’t know he saw. Even the tea. This is your favorite, isn’t it?”
The steam rises, fragrant, unmistakably mine. My mouth goes dry.
Her eyes soften, but her voice stays hushed, urgent. “It’s not only because of the child. He makes sure you’re comfortable. You’re… special to him. He doesn’t say it, but it’s there. His way of caring is silent, but it’s there.”
The words land like stones in my chest, one after another, dragging me down. My knees weaken, and I sit heavily on the edge of the bed. The tray of food earlier—the one I dismissed as manipulation, another way to tie me tighter to his leash—flashes in my mind. The quiet gestures I ignored or spat on, the little comforts arranged without acknowledgment.
All of it reshapes under the maid’s whispers, the edges tilting into something else.
My pulse races, my thoughts a blur. I don’t want to believe her. I don’t want to see meaning where there should only be control.
Except her voice trembles with sincerity, and the truth is, I felt it too. I felt the difference in the way he looked at me tonight before the bullets fell.
The maid straightens the last pillow, her task finished, and dips her head. “Forgive me,” she murmurs. “I only thought you should know.”
Then she’s gone, the door clicking shut behind her, leaving me in the silence she’s cracked open.
The room feels emptier now, the shadows longer. I stare at the untouched tea, at the faint curl of steam that thins and disappears. My hands twist in my lap, nails biting skin, the ache sharp.
Guilt swells, sticky and suffocating, impossible to scrape away. I betrayed him. I carried the phone that nearly cost him everything.
Still, her words cling to me.
I drop my face into my hands, the whisper of his eyes, his gun lowered, replaying until it’s all I can see.
The hours stretch, pulled taut until they feel like they might snap. The clock on the mantel ticks with surgical precision, each sound a needle stitching panic tighter into my chest. I pace the room, chewing raggedly at my nails until the taste of iron floods my tongue.
Over and over, the same question loops in my skull, relentless as the ticking clock:What if he doesn’t come back?
The thought chokes me. My throat closes, breath snagging as if I’ve been struck. I see him in flashes—Rostya sprawled across wet pavement, blood soaking his suit, enemies’ boots grinding him into the dirt. I see him cornered in some dim alley, gunfire shredding the air until his body gives way. The images are brutal, too vivid, and the ache they leave in my chest is unbearable.
I hate myself for it. He’s my captor, the reason I’m locked in this gilded cage, the man who stole my choices and branded me as his. I should want him gone, should be praying for the bullet that ends his reign.
Every time I imagine that empty chair across the table, that voice gone silent, the weight in my ribs grows heavier, unbearable. My heart betrays me again and again.
I move to the window, barefoot on cold marble, and curl into the sill like a child. The glass breathes cold against my temple as I stare down at the driveway, the estate stretched silent and still below.
Every distant rumble of an engine claws at me, heart lurching into my throat, hope sparking only to gutter when the sound fades into nothing.
My nails scrape the glass as I whisper to myself, voice raw, almost a growl. “Stop it. Stop caring. Stop feeling.”
The words are empty, brittle as dust. The truth presses heavier with every passing second—something inside me already belongs to him.
It isn’t survival, isn’t fear, not anymore. It’s the way my chest tightens at the thought of his absence, the way his silence fills this room louder than the clock. I don’t want it. I don’t want this treacherous, impossible thing clawing up through the cracks of my resolve.
It’s there. The beginning of love. The most dangerous weakness of all.
I press my knees to my chest, arms wound tight, watching the gates below as though staring hard enough will conjure headlights from the dark. Nothing comes. Only shadows shifting in the wind, guards pacing with rifles, their boots too far away to hear.
The night stretches on, cruel and endless. My reflection stares back from the glass, hollow-eyed, lips pressed tight, a stranger trapped between dread and longing. Headlights never pierce the drive. The silence remains, and I can’t decide which terrifies me more: that he never returns, or that I want him to.
Chapter Twenty-Six - Rostya
