Page 54 of Forced Pregnant Prisoner of the Bratva
A sound splits the air. Sharp. Shrill. Alive.
The newborn’s cry slices through the room like lightning. Everything stills. The midwives’ hands freeze, the doctor exhales, Karmia collapses back against the pillows. The walls, the air, the weight of the world—all of it halts around that sound.
And I… I feel the ground shift under my boots. The unshakable ground I’ve built on blood and fear, the empire that has never bent, tilts beneath me for the first time in years.
A midwife turns, the swaddled bundle in her arms. She leans toward Karmia, but my hand shoots out, intercepting. No hesitation. The child is mine before he ever touches her skin.
My hands, scarred and large, cradle him with a care I didn’t know I had in me. He is impossibly small, warm and damp and squalling, his fists no bigger than the joints of my fingers. Fragile. Breakable. And yet the weight of him is heavier than anything I’ve ever carried. The weight of the future itself.
Karmia’s voice is faint, worn to threads, but certain when she whispers, “Damian.”
Damian.
The name sinks into me like steel driven into the earth, anchoring me. I look down at him, his eyes squeezed shut, his mouth open in protest, and for the first time in my life, I feel something closer to reverence.
I bend, bringing my mouth near his tiny ear, my voice low, raw. “I’ll protect the two of you as long as I live.”
The words should feel like threat, like every declaration I’ve spoken before—sharp-edged promises drenched in power. But they don’t. Not this time. The sound of them surprises even me. They are vow. Blood-deep. Unshakable.
Damian quiets, just a fraction, as though he hears me. My chest constricts, unprepared for the force of it.
Karmia watches through half-lidded eyes, her body trembling, face pale with exhaustion. But I see the shine of tears, the curve of a smile. For this moment, there is no empire, no Bratva, no war waiting beyond these walls. There is only us—the three of us—bound by something no enemy can touch.
Yet in the same breath, shadow curls through the reverence. He is love, yes. But he is also empire. Legacy carved into flesh and bone. The line that will not break.
I hold him closer, my vow ringing in my chest like a tolling bell. Damian Sharov. My son. My heir. My future.
God help the man who ever tries to take him from me.
At last, when the storm of the child’s arrival stills, I turn back to her.
Karmia lies against the pillows, her skin pale, almost translucent in the lamplight. Her chest rises weakly, each breath shallow, fragile, as though even air costs her more than she has left. Her lips are cracked and dry, but when her eyes flutter open, she finds me.
“Rostya,” she breathes, the sound faint, half a ghost of a word. Then her lashes lower, and exhaustion pulls her under.
The sound of my name from her lips twists something inside me I cannot name. Not victory. Not conquest. Something deeper, more dangerous.
I look down at the child in my arms. Damian stirs, his small mouth open in soft protest, his fists clenched tight. I move toward the cradle—a piece of furniture carved with old wood and older promise—and lower him into it as if I am setting down a crown. My heir. My future. My blood. He quiets there, swaddled in blankets finer than most men will ever touch.
My eyes are already back on her. As though leaving her side for even a second is unbearable, I return. The chair scrapes the floor as I pull it close to the bed, sitting where I can see the weak flutter of her pulse at her throat. My hand hovers, then lowers, brushing damp strands of hair from her forehead.
I bend and press my lips there, gentle, tender, so unlike the man I am. For once, the blood on my hands feels irrelevant,erased by the heat of her skin. This is what matters. This woman. This child. Everything else—the empire, the wars, the endless weight of my name—feels distant, shadows against the flame of this room.
I settle into the chair, body rigid but unmoving, every muscle strung tight. I do not pace, I do not command, I do not strike. I watch. My eyes never leave her, sharp as any blade I’ve ever held. The estate outside breathes in silence: guards at their posts, engines cooling, the city beyond asleep.
Inside me, everything has changed.
I will never admit it aloud—not to my men, not to my brother, not even to myself when dawn comes—but the truth coils through me with the certainty of steel: Rostya Sharov has been remade tonight.
From this moment on, I am not only Bratva king. I am a man who has something more dangerous than power. I am a man with everything to lose.
The soft cries of Damian echo from the cradle, high and insistent, filling the room like a reminder. My son. My heir. My blood.
I look from the cradle to Karmia’s pale, sleeping face, my chest heavy with something I can neither command nor kill. My eyes burn, sleepless, with determination.
Empire. War. Blood. All of it pales beside this room.
The king of the Bratva sits at a woman’s bedside, the sound of his child’s cries in the air. He is something else. A father. A man bound by a vow no blade could ever break.
