Page 7 of Forced Pregnant Prisoner of the Bratva
The thought crystallizes sharp as glass in my chest:I’m not in control anymore.The screen, my shield, is gone. The game has changed.
Chapter Four - Rostya
The room waits with me, heavy and still, a tomb built for sound and pain. Concrete walls darkened with old stains. Rust blooms where chains hang from hooks, the smell of iron and sweat thick as fog. Every inch of it carries history—men brought here broken and leaving less than whole.
It’s my arena, my confessional, my truth. Yet tonight it feels different, a little too quiet, as if holding its breath.
The door grinds open. Ivan steps through first, men at his back, dragging a slight figure between them. Blindfolded, wrists bound, feet scraping the concrete with each step. Frail. Small. The opposite of what I pictured when I heard the wordhacker.
They halt at the center of the room. The girl sways a little, head bent. Ivan tugs the blindfold away and the light hits her face. I nearly laugh.
She’s young. Maybe early twenties, maybe younger. Hair mussed from the ride, hoodie smudged with dirt, eyes blinking fast as they adjust to the dim light. She looks like she belongs in a coffee shop with a laptop, not in my world of blood.
Even Miron lets out a sharp sound, his cool composure cracking for a second. “Is this a joke?” he murmurs, arms folded. The glow of his phone screen flickers across his lean face, highlighting the razor edge of his smirk.
Ivan’s reply is steady, his shoulders squared. “We found her studio. Custom rigs, encryption keys, mirrored drives. It’s her. No mistake.”
I rise from the chair, cigarette burning down to a long, brittle ash, and study her. I expect arrogance—the smug look of someone who thinks wires and code make them untouchable.Instead I find fear, layered under a mask of hardness. Her jaw clenches like she’s biting down on panic.
It unsettles me more than it should.
I circle her slow, boots echoing, predator’s pace. She follows me with her eyes, forced to tilt her head back just to keep me in sight. Prey tracking the hunter. Yet there’s something there—nerve, maybe, or defiance. A little girl who slipped past my men and cracked my system wide open.
“Who sent you?” My voice cuts low, dangerous.
Her lips press tight. No sound.
“You work for the law?” I move closer. “For a rival?”
Still nothing. Her breathing quickens, but she keeps her mouth shut.
“Silence costs,” I warn, voice scraping like steel. “You don’t want to pay the price.”
She does. Or thinks she must.
I lean in, studying her eyes. This isn’t bravery. It’s terror. Not of me, but of something else. Someone else. The idea sparks irritation deep in my chest. She’s bound, blindfolded, dragged into my cage—and yet she fears a shadow beyond my reach more than she fears me.
I grip her chin, forcing her face up. Her skin is warm, trembling. Her gaze locks to mine, wide and unflinching despite the tremor at its edges.
“You don’t get to look past me,” I growl. “Your fear belongs here. To me.”
Her lips quiver but stay shut.
My fist slams into the wall beside her head. The crack shudders through the room. Dust drifts down, pale against her hair. She flinches, but she doesn’t break.
Fury surges through me, molten and sharp. My interrogations end with men on their knees, screaming, pleading. Not this. Not her. She stands silent, a ghost of a girl, terrified but tethered to something I can’t see.
I step back, pulse hammering. “Take her away,” I snap.
Ivan’s men move in, seizing her arms, pulling her toward the door. Her hoodie shifts enough for me to see the faint impression of zip ties on her wrists, skin rubbed raw. She stumbles but doesn’t cry out.
The door closes behind her, leaving the room still again. Only the echo of my own heartbeat and the scent of rust and smoke.
For the first time in years, an interrogation has left me unsettled instead of satisfied. My empire bends to fists and fear, but this slip of a girl has pried open something else, something I can’t yet name.
I stare at the dent in the wall where my fist struck, stone cracked like brittle bone, and feel it sitting inside me like a thorn, digging deeper with every breath. She should have been nothing. Instead, she’s become a question I can’t stop circling.
Even Miron watches me from the corner of his eye, a faint glimmer of interest flickering across his cool face. “You’ve lost your touch?” he asks softly, but the question isn’t mocking. It’s curious. Calculating.
