Page 116 of The Lazarov Bratva

Taking a deep breath, I stand and approach the counter. The test blinks up at me with one very clear result.

Positive.

“I’m pregnant,” I whisper.

“Huh?” Alyona barks.

I chuckle weakly and turn to face her, holding up the test. “I–I’m pregnant.”

Words I never thought I’d say.

“See?” Alyona remarks, lifting one brow. “I knew.”

“Congratulations,” Andrev calls from his post.

“Thank you.” Staring down at the stick, my attempts to reassure myself earlier flood back into my mind. I’m pregnant. Kristof is definitely making it home. He has to.

“This will be good, right?” I stare down at the stick. “It’ll be a nice—a nice surprise for Kristof when he comes home. I bet he’ll need it. Everything that’s happening is insane, but this… this will be a nice surprise.”

“Do you not see, girl?” Alyona sucks on her teeth.

I lift my gaze to her. “See what?”

“Kristof coming back alive will be good, yes,” she says, “but to achieve that, he will either have made an unpleasant deal with your father or…”

“Or?”

“Or there will be bloodshed. And you, my child, will have to live with his decision.”

“His decision?” The test trembles in my hand. “Are you asking me if I’m okay with him killing my father?”

Her answer never comes.

Andrev abruptly launches from the window and starts yelling in Russian. The suddenness makes me jump, and Alyona clutches at her cardigan. Chek yells back as I dart out into the bedroom. I glimpse Chek as he sprints away from the door. More yelling rises from inside the Manor. Andrev pulls a walkie-talkie from his belt and starts barking out what sounds like an order.

I run to the window and press my palms to the glass, staring down in horror.

We’ve been found!

Too many cars to count spill up the driveway, screeching to stops in front of the manor. Men, armed to the teeth, pour out of the vehicles like tar and swarm the garden from all angles, yelling at each other.

I recognize the pins on the lapels of several men leading the charge.

These are my father’s men.

“Andrev!” I spin to face him. “What is this? What’s happening? I thought Kristof was the one attacking early?”

“I don’t know,” he answers, switching back to English for me. “We didn’t get a warning for this.”

“A warning? From whom?”

Andrev ignores me, returning to his radio as Russian spills through amid static. Alyona clutches at her heart, and I dart toward her, catching her just as she sags against the door.

“Andrev, what do we do? Where do we go?”

An almighty crash erupts from the floor below, and a split second later, the air erupts with the screams of frantic gunfire and yelling men. English and Russian mix together in such harmony that I can’t decipher anything.

Andrev cocks his weapon, hurries toward me, and leans close, his ocean-blue eyes as dark as a storm.

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