Page 33 of Used By the Bratva

Only when my voice goes hoarse do I let myself sink against the door, and more sobs shudder through my body. I pull my knees to my chest and hold them tightly.

When I set out to find my family, I never in a million years thought I would find something like this. I thought that I would learn the truth. I would find my family and we would finally be with each other again.

Instead, I met a ruthless monster who told me that he slaughtered my family. Then he sent me to Russia to live with people I don’t know.

Marina kept this secret from me for years. She told me that my family had given me up for adoption. That I was from Russia, even though I thought I had memories of New York. She always told me that I made them up after watching too many movies.

She lied to me for as long as I can remember.

I take a shaky breath and try to stop the sobs. I pull myself together; I can’t afford to sit here and wallow in self-pity.

As I stand up, I feel lightheaded, and the floor beneath me starts spinning again. I hold on to the chest of drawers next to the door to support myself for a moment.

My room is large, with two doors on the wall opposite the bed and a bookshelf between them. There is nothing on the shelves; the room is without any decoration. There are no curtains hanging over the windows, no books, or pictures, not even a single work of art.

I stumble to the other two doors and yank one open to find the closet; behind the other door is the bathroom. A single roll of toilet paper and a towel lie on the vanity, but there’s nothing else to help me get out of here.

Sighing, I go to the window and see a large, manicured garden.

As I press myself against the window, I look to the side, searching for any houses or buildings. Someone that might be able to see me if I try to get a signal to them. Nothing. Just trees that tower high around the perimeter of the garden.

“Shit. Shit. Shit.”

I can climb out of the window. It doesn’t look like a long fall. If I get the window open and try to land properly, the baby would be safe, and I could run.

Hope floods through me, and the world around me sharpens as I reach for the window and try to yank it up. I pull until one of my nails breaks, and blood drips onto the windowsill.

“Fuck.”

The window doesn’t budge. Not even a little bit.

My gaze wanders around the room as I look for something to break the glass. As I rush to the dresser to check the drawers, I catch my foot on the edge of the carpet. I tumble into bed and slam my shoulder into one of the bedposts.

My hands ache, and my body feels like it’s been put through the wringer as I stand up and walk carefully to the dresser. None of the drawers open.

The weight of the world is on my shoulders as I slink back to the bed, needing a moment to catch my breath and think clearly. Panic won’t get me out of here. I’ve tried everything I can for now.

It’s time to make a plan, but it’s hard to do while I'm lying on the bed and my brain is going haywire. My mind is like a broken record of thoughts; words echo from deep canyons, repeating everything I’ve heard in the last few weeks.

‘But trust me, you don’t want to do this.’

Boris was supposed to be a lovely man who finances an orphan. He was supposed to be kind, a friend of Marina's who knew how hard she struggled. He was supposed to be a man who was happy to see me and welcome me. I had built him up in my head so much that I thought he would be the solution to all my problems.

Instead, he handed me over to the freaking monster who ruined my life.

‘I killed your family.’

The man who killed innocent children. Killed my parents. And is thinking about killing me.

Leonid Orlov is the devil. My avenging Dark Angel of the night–is the devil in disguise.

He may be handsome, but it’s not his perfect warrior body, his perfect hair, or his well-defined cheekbones that make him look like he belongs in the underworld. It’s his stormy eyes that glow with rage and sparkle with lust at the same time.

His seductive charm has lured me in, and an undeniable attraction has brought us together like a magnetic force. I don’t regret that I had the best fuck of my life, which I will never experience again, feeling desired and empowered. Just thinking about it sends a heat coursing through my body.

And now I’m carrying his child.

But he said something else, which I can’t make any sense of, ‘after everything your family had already done to mine,’ he said. What did he mean by that? Was my father in the mafia, too? Is my life destined to be surrounded by murderers?

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