Page 15 of Pregnant Virgin of the Bratva
“That’s what makes you interesting.”
His thumb strokes beneath my jaw once. He looks curious, like he’s handling something rare and delicate. Something he’s about to dismantle just to see how it works.
“They scream the same at the end,” he continues, voice lower now, almost thoughtful. “It’s the ones who start whole that are more satisfying to ruin.”
My blood goes cold.
This isn’t about silencing me. It’s not about punishment for what I saw, or fear that I might tell someone. This is about me. About what I represent. About the fact that I walked in untouched, unshaped, and now—he wants to mold the rest.
I realize that if I scream, it won’t save me. It’ll excite him.
The thought sends a jolt through me, and I try—desperately—to blank my expression. To retreat behind my eyes. I press my lips together. I tell myself to breathe slowly. To be nothing. But my body betrays me again. A tremor rolls down my spine. My throat bobs with the swallow I can’t hold back. My skin is hot, flushed, my breath shallow and unsteady.
He sees all of it.
His hand slides from my chin to my throat again. His palm just rests there—warm and solid, thumb brushing the hollow of my throat. I feel his pulse through his skin, steady and sure. His grip isn’t tight, but the promise is there. He could cut me off at any second.
He won’t. Not now. This is control. Power, without even needing force.
My skin tingles under his touch. My body is still trembling, still locked in fear, but something else lives under it. Something shameful and low, burning in the pit of my stomach. I hate him. I do. Every breath he takes near me makes my skin crawl.
A part of me—some deep, hidden, wrong part—wants to know what comes next.
His gaze drops to my mouth, then returns to my eyes.
“I could ruin you right now,” he says softly.
We both know he’s right.
He smiles, the kind of smile someone gives a gift they didn’t expect to enjoy unwrapping—curious at first, then pleased. Possessive. Like he’s savoring the anticipation more than the act itself.
It’s the understanding that stops me cold. The realization that he’s made up his mind.
Whatever game he was playing before, whatever hesitation had flickered in him earlier, it’s gone now. The decision is settled in his eyes, carved in the way his mouth curves, in the weight of his hand on my throat. I’m not a problem anymore. I’m a choice.
Something he’s going to take his time with.
His thumb strokes my skin once more, slow and firm, as if he wants to memorize the shape of me before he carves it into something new. I try not to move. Try not to breathe.
It doesn’t matter.
“You’re going to give me something no one else has.”
Chapter Six - Kion
The air in the room is cold, the kind of cold that seeps into skin and settles in bone. Smoke coils upward from a dozen burning cigarettes, thickening the already suffocating silence. The long table stretches between them like a battlefield, and every man seated at it wears the same grim mask of authority. They stare at me as if I’ve already failed them.
Yuri is the first to break.
He slams his fist against the table, loud enough that a glass rattles in its saucer. His voice follows hard and sharp, slicing through the haze. “She cannot live. This is not up for debate. You bring her here, and now you hesitate to clean up your own mess?”
I say nothing at first. I let the silence sit. Let them fill it with their anger, their posturing, their noise. I stand at the center of the room, arms crossed, back straight, giving them nothing.
Sometimes it’s fun to watch them squirm, to make them sit in silence with all of the attention on me.
One of the others leans forward, folding his hands. His tone is measured, but the warning is clear beneath it. “You know what happens when outsiders see what she saw. If we allow this—if we let her walk free—it opens a door we cannot close.”
Another man grunts in agreement, tapping ash into a crystal tray. “Loose ends are dangerous, Kion. You know that better than most.”
