Page 18 of Knocked-up Bratva Bride
Lust swam in her eyes, reforming the green in them to a much darker, wilder shade.Pure unadulterated desire.Andbefore I dove in again, the familiar traditional tune from my phone sliced through the moment, disorienting both of us.
I released her thumb, turning away from her as I snatched the phone from my pocket.
“Eto dolzhno byt’ vazhno.” This had better be important.
Over the phone speaker, the heavy thrums of music resounded in high volume, and I had to press the phone closer to my ear to pick up Fedor’s words. “You’ll have to decide whether it’s important or not, but I think it’s something you should see for yourself.”
The call disconnected, and I faced Elena, now feeling nothing but the familiar coldness I was at home with. Crouching, I picked the blazer from the floor and handed it to her. Confused, she received it.
“Cover yourself up,” I said brusquely and ignored the flash of hurt schooling her features. “I admire your boldness and decision to maintain your purity. In a world like mine, that sort of shit takes guts. But trust me, I’m not the right one. Fair enough, I might beelectric, but that only makes me the bad guy.”
With her mouth opening and closing, she was back to being the fish on dry land. But I walked past her and strode out before she got the chance to speak.
By the time I arrived on the main floor, it was in more of a frenzy than I had left it. The dance floor was flocked with a larger crowd. Smoke and the thick stench of alcohol curled in the air, and, somehow, the atmosphere seemed warped in a spellbound synchronization.
Looking over at the bar, I scanned faces, one after the other, until I caught Fedor’s eyes. Seemingly relaxed, he had a bottle fixed in his mouth, but his eyes motioned to the center of the dance floor.
While I followed his subtle directions, the frown on my face deepened, and my fingers gravitated to the holsterpositioned between my belt. When I finally found what I was looking for, my heart exploded in my chest as if it had taken a bullet.
There, in the middle of the madness and flashing lights, was my daughter, sensuously swaying her body in a man’s arms, with her half-naked back pressed against his chest, her ass digging into his groin, and her head swung back on his shoulder.
We might have been apart for years, but I could recognize my daughter as well as I knew my own fucking name.
He whispered into her ear, and I thought I heard her laughter spread through the deafening bass.
I gritted my teeth until a headache hit hard. And for some unfathomable reason, almost like she felt the heat of my gaze on her, she lifted her head and looked in my direction.
Through the swarm of gyrating silhouettes and pulsating lights, our eyes met. Her excitement morphed to dread, and very slowly, the laughter on her lips died.
The man kept talking, but Katya didn’t take her eyes off me.
She whispered into his ear, unwound his arms from her waist, and half-ran through the crowd until the unconcerned human beings swallowed her up and she disappeared from sight.
Chapter 6 – Elena
The rain hadn’t let up all day. I remembered the sound of it, how it clattered against the tin roof of our crappy little apartment like it was trying to punch holes through it.
I was curled up on the couch with a blanket that smelled faintly of too many years of use, halfway through a mug of instant coffee that didn’t even pretend to be good.
Someone knocked on the door.
Rapid, urgent short raps. I even remembered frowning, setting the mug down on the stained coffee table, and tiptoeing to the door. No one ever came by unannounced to our apartment.
Mama didn’t even have friends like that….
When I opened it, the world outside was a burst of grey and water, but Katya was crystal clear.
She was soaked through, her hoodie hanging limp and heavy around her shoulders, dark hair plastered to her face. Her arms were wrapped tightly around herself like she was holding her own body together. But it was her eyes that got me. They were red, swollen, and teary.
“Kat? What are you doing here? Come, come inside. How did you even get here?”
“I kinda snuck out. The bodyguards don’t know, and they’ll get in so much trouble when he finds….” She paused. “But I don’t care. I—I couldn’t sleep.” Her voice cracked. “The house…it was empty, and I felt alone. Really lonely.”
I pulled her in without another word. The door slammed shut behind us, muffling the roar of the storm, but Katya was still shaking like it was storming inside her.
We sat on the couch, and I wrapped that old blanket around both of us. I started to ask about her family. I had always been curious about why she never talked about herparents, despite never lacking anything. But the distance in her gaze made me stop poking.
After a few minutes, she started to talk anyway.
