Page 16 of Forced Pregnant Prisoner of the Bratva
I freeze, every nerve raw, his words cutting deeper than the strike. His tone is quiet, but it coils in my ears, venomous. He leans just enough for me to feel the cold weight of his presence, his breath brushing my ear as he adds, “Already bent before me, whether you admit it or not.”
Heat surges to my face, searing hotter than fire. Shame claws under my skin, worse than the pain in my knee, worse than the bruises on my throat. The humiliation is unbearable. The men may be gone, but their eyes still cling to me in my mind, their stares crawling across my bare skin, drinking in my collapse.
I squeeze my fists against the polished floor, nails biting into my palms. My body shakes, my throat convulses with the sting of unshed sobs, but I bite down hard, swallowing them. I refuse to give him that. I won’t cry, not for him, not now.
The floor is cold against my palms, slick with polish, the chandeliers above reflecting in its surface. My reflection trembles in that shine—a girl on her knees, stripped of pride, stripped of control. His shadow covers it, erasing me piece by piece.
My breath stutters, but I lock my jaw, keep my eyes on the floor until I can gather enough strength to look up again. If he wants to see me broken, he’ll have to wait longer.
Even so, the shame doesn’t leave. It burns in my chest, heavy, unrelenting. A reminder of what he can take with a flick of his boot and a few quiet words.
The polished floor bites into my knees, cold enough to seep through skin to bone. My throat still throbs, bruises blooming where his fingers had pressed, every swallow raw and sharp. Dignity hangs shredded around me, scattered like scraps no one bothers to pick up. On my knees, cornered, I feel the crushing weight of what I’ve become in this place: not a hacker, not even a woman with her own name, just a thing stripped of choice, forced toward a role I cannot accept.
Yet, deep inside, an ember refuses to die. Stubborn, small, but alive. I grip it with everything left in me, whispering inside my head that I won’t break. Not here, not like this. Hecan bruise my skin, steal my breath, drive me to the floor, but he cannot burn that last ember out of me.
He watches. I can feel his eyes drag across every trembling line of my body, but when I finally raise my gaze, he’s not gloating, not shouting. His stare is colder than that, studying, dissecting. He sees the shake in my shoulders, the uneven rise of my chest, but he also sees the fire I refuse to smother.
It unsettles him. Or maybe it amuses him.
A faint curve touches his mouth, not a smile exactly, but something close—something cruel. My rebellion irritates him, yes, but it intrigues him too. I can see it in the way his gaze lingers. He enjoys this—the fight, the resistance, the humiliation he can layer on top of it. To him, my defiance isn’t a wall. It’s a game board. I’ve already been pushed into play.
The silence stretches. The office shrinks around us, walls pulling tight, chandeliers glaring down like witnesses to something that can’t be undone. Smoke clings in the air, heavy as chains. Neither of us moves.
The tension is thick with everything unspoken—threats curled sharp behind his lips, promises twisted enough to choke me. Each second draws itself out, pressing down like ink across parchment. I can almost feel it writing itself onto me, etching a future I don’t want into my skin, stroke by stroke.
To me, this moment is suffocating certainty. My future narrowing to a cage I can’t code my way out of, no escape routes left to trace. I feel it sealing around me with each breath, the inevitability of something I can’t refuse.
To him, this is the perfect beginning. His victory isn’t in forcing me to kneel—though he did—it’s in knowing I’ll rise onlywhen he allows it. It’s in watching me resist and planning how to bend me, slowly, until defiance is as natural to him as silence.
His silence feels like triumph. Mine feels like a noose.
I want to scream, to shatter the air, but my voice locks in my throat. He doesn’t need words; his presence is enough. And maybe that’s what terrifies me most—that silence can carry more weight than violence, that his patience is more dangerous than his rage.
I breathe, shallow and ragged, and in that breath I understand something I’d been too frantic to see before: I am no longer just a prisoner. To him, I’ve already shifted into something else.
His eyes tell me what his lips don’t: I am already his bride.
Chapter Eight - Rostya
The hall is stripped bare of pretense. No flowers, no music, no celebration. A notary sits stiff-backed at the table, papers aligned in neat stacks. Ivan stands to my right, a wall of loyalty and steel. Two elders, gray and watchful, sit across, and a pair of soldiers linger near the door, witnesses and guards in equal measure.
This is no wedding. It is a transaction dressed in legality.
She stands opposite me, pale against the crimson drape that serves as backdrop. Her eyes stay downcast, lashes shadowing her face. When the notary prompts her, she speaks. The words are brittle, hollow, each vow falling from her lips like stones she’s forced to carry. She doesn’t look at me. She doesn’t look at anyone. Her voice shakes once, then steadies into that strange cadence of a hostage reciting lines with a gun pressed to her spine.
I see the truth. The slight tremor of her hands where she grips the paper too tightly. The way her jaw tightens with every forced “I do.” Beneath the compliance, her defiance simmers. A fire she can’t smother, though survival demands she bury it under obedience.
The notary’s pen scratches across parchment, finalizing what the Bratva will recognize as law. Just signatures, cold and efficient.
I study her while she bends her head, pressing ink to paper. She doesn’t see me watching. For me, this moment isn’t about vows or ceremony. It’s a battlefield—another front where territory is taken, power cemented. Her name is now bound to mine, her freedom sewn shut by legal stitch. She is no longer just the hacker who breached my walls; she is mine in the eyes of thecouncil, the law, and every rival who might dream of touching her.
The air in the hall is wrong. Weddings are meant to hum with joy, with the warmth of families and futures. Here, the silence feels closer to a funeral. The scrape of chairs, the shuffle of papers, the faint clink of a soldier shifting his weapon. There are no congratulations, and I don’t expect them. Only the knowledge that something has been sealed, and it is heavy as earth on a grave.
When the notary closes his book and announces the binding complete, no one claps. No toast is raised. Only silence, broken by the scrape of chairs as the elders stand and turn away. Ivan stays a moment longer, his eyes flicking between us, then inclines his head and follows.
I remain. Watching her. She doesn’t lift her gaze, doesn’t dare.
Satisfaction curls slow in my chest. I have bent her without breaking her. More permanent than chains, more binding than rope, this is the weapon I wanted. She is mine now, not just in shadow, but in the sharp light of law.
