Page 30 of Pregnant Bratva Wife
I jerked away. “Don’t touch it.”
Her expression hardened. “What happened? Were you in an accident? Should I call a doctor?”
“No doctors,” I snapped. “It’s just a scratch. I’ll handle it.”
“A scratch that bled through your jacket?” She crossed her arms. “What aren’t you telling me?”
I had no answer for that. What wasn’t I telling her? Everything. Everything that truly mattered. Everything that would have sent her running for the hills if she knew.
“Nothing that concerns you,” I said coldly.
Her eyes flashed. “I’m your wife.”
“On paper,” I reminded her, throwing her own words back at her.
She flinched like I’d slapped her. “Right. How could I forget? Just business.”
“Exactly.” I stepped around her, heading for my room. “So mind your own business.”
“Fine.” Her voice was tight, controlled. “Bleed out for all I care.”
I turned, the anger and frustration boiling over. “This is my house, Autumn. My life. You don’t get to ask questions just because we signed some papers.”
“I wasn’t aware basic human concern was off-limits in our arrangement,” she fired back. “Next time I’ll just step over your corpse on my way to breakfast.”
“There won’t be a corpse,” I growled. “I can take care of myself. I’ve been doing it long before you came along.”
“Clearly,” she said, her gaze dropping to my bloody sleeve. “You’re doing a fantastic job of it.”
We stared at each other, the air crackling with anger. I could have told her everything—about the Bratva, about the Espositos, about what I really did for a living.
But she would have walked away. It was better if she hated me than feared me.
“It was a fight, okay?” I said, at last. If she pried deeper, asked more questions, I would be cornered.
I hated keeping the truth from her. But this way, she might have thought it was a bar fight or something. A fight was still a fight. A half-truth.
“A bar fight?” She furrowed her brows. “What happened?”
“None of your business,” I said, truly tired now. I was done making up stories. Tired. I needed to get to bed.
Disappointment flushed across her face, her eyes turning cold. “You know what your problem is, Federico? You think the world works on your terms, but sooner or later, you’re bound to find yourself alone.”
With that, she turned and walked away, the water forgotten, her back straight and proud.
The door to her bedroom slammed shut.
I stood there, still bleeding. Thought about what she said.
She was right, of course.
But what she didn’t understand was that there was one world I was protecting her from, one world I couldn’t let her be a part of, one world that simply worked better on my terms.
Chapter 8 - Autumn
I couldn’t sleep that night. Not with the way Federico had looked at me. The way he’d refused to give me a straight answer.
There was a constant itch at the back of my brain.
