Page 11 of Bratva Knight

“No thanks,” she threw over her shoulder without looking back.

“It wasn’t an offer.”

“And yet, I’m declining it anyway.” She stepped into the foyer, walking right to the front door.

My restraint snapped. Years of repressed emotions came spiralling to the surface and I was powerless to keep them down any longer. Anger, guilt, pain. They all slammed into me at once. I couldn’t bite my tongue for one more second.

“How long do you plan to punish me?” I hissed, my hands curling into fists.

Tatiana stopped dead in her tracks, her spine stiffening. She turned to face me slowly, her face a mask of anger. “Punish you?” she whispered softly, like she couldn’t believe I even uttered the words. “You think I’m trying to punish you?”

“Aren’t you?” Sadness dripped from my voice. “You blame me for what happened. You blame me—”

“I don’t blame you for what happened, Nikolai. Ineverhave. I blame you for what happenedafter.”

I frowned. “What—”

“I called you 137 times!” Tatiana yelled, marching towards me. “137 times! And what did you do? You rejected my calls. You turned off your phone. Youignoredme. When I needed you the most,you weren’t there.”

Guilt choked me, squeezing my heart, making it hard for me to draw breath. “Tatiana—”

“No!” She shoved me hard in the chest, forcing me back a step. “I don’t want to hear it! I don’t want to hear the same fucking excuses from you! You didn’t believe me! You didn’ttrustme! You believed what Kurt said without even giving me a chance to explain. You cut me out, refusing to even talk to me. And then—” Her words cut off with a choke, tears glistening in her eyes. “I needed you, Nikolai. I needed you more than I ever needed anyone in my life, and you weren’t there. Do you have any idea what it was like? To hear that our son’s heart had stopped beating? To have to give birth to him, knowing he’d never take his first breath? Never open his eyes? That I’d never get to hear his first cry? I had to do it all on my own because you were mad at me for something that didn’t even happen!” Tears flowed freely down her face and everything inside me broke.

I dropped to my knees at her feet, overwhelmed by her words. I buried my head in her stomach, the same stomach that created our child, and cried alongside her. My arms wrapped around her, holding her to me as we both mourned the life of the son we never got to know.

“I’m sorry. Fuck, I’m so sorry, Tati.”

Her fingers combed through my hair, her touch soothing my soul. I didn’t deserve it. Everything she said was right. I had abandoned her when she needed me the most. There was nothing I could do to make up for it. But I had to try, even if it took the rest of my life.

She stepped back out of my embrace, putting distance between us. It hurt just as much as it did the first time. Seeing her right there, right in front of me, but never being able to reach her. Never being able to touch her. It killed me.

Tatiana wiped the tears from her cheeks, standing tall. “What happened—losing our son—was nobody’s fault. Not yours. Not mine. It was something that was out of our control. I’ve never blamed you for that, Nikolai, and I’m sorry if I made you think I did.” She took a deep breath, centring herself for what she was going to say next. “But I can never forgive you for abandoning me, for not trusting me. For accusing me of cheating on you and then just cutting me out of your life like I was nothing. Likewe”—she laid a hand on her stomach—“were nothing. You were the one person in the world I thought I could depend on. Who I thought would always be there for me, to love me, comfort me, protect me. And you let me down.”

Her words cut me like a knife to the heart. I knew she wasn’t saying any of it to deliberately hurt me. She was just speaking her truth, and as much as it hurt, I was thankful for it. In the two years since that horrible night, she’d never once opened up about how she felt.

“I don’t know if I can ever forgive you for that, Nikolai,” she continued, opening the front door.

I jumped to my feet, panic squeezing my chest. I couldn’t let the conversation end there. I couldn’t let her walk out the door without at least trying to make things right.

“Tatiana—”

“Don’t,” she warned, raising a hand to silence me. “I need space from you. Why do you think I’m moving to New York? Because every time I look at you, every time I see you, I’m reminded of how much you hurt me. My trust in you, in your ability to be there for me when I need you, is gone. It vanished the moment you rejected my calls when I was lying in that hospital bed, crying out for you. While I was holding our precious little baby boy in my arms, begging God to somehow bring him back to me. I’ve tried and tried to forgive. To forget. To move on. But I’m not sure it’s ever going to happen.” She turned on her heels and walked out the door, not looking back.

I rushed after her, my feet stopping at the edge of the front porch. Conflicting emotions warred inside me as I watched her disappear into the darkness. I wanted nothing more than to follow her. To force her to talk to me. To forgive me. But I knew I couldn’t. I wasn’t there to give her what she needed when she was at her most vulnerable. She just poured her heart out to me. She told me she couldn’t rely on me.

I had to show her she could, that I was a man she could trust again.

I looked at the two soldiers guarding the front door. There was a slight awkwardness in the air from overhearing our conversation, but I ignored it. “Follow her. Make sure she gets home safe. Anything happens to her andyou’llbe the ones to suffer.”

Both men nodded.

“And not one fucking word about what you just heard, or I’ll cut out your tongues.”

They paled.

“What are you waiting for? Go after her!”

They took off running after Tatiana.

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