Page 22 of Pregnant Virgin of the Bratva
They build in my throat like pressure, and when the younger maids enter—two of them this time, barely older thanme—I watch them too closely. One carries a fresh change of silk nightclothes. The other sets out rose-scented lotion and brushes the bed linens smooth. They whisper to each other when they think I can’t hear.
I sit stiff-backed on the edge of the bed, palms pressed to my knees.
They hover near the footboard, glancing up now and then, always looking away just before my eyes catch theirs. They don’t speak to me directly. They smile politely and murmur pleasantries. One of them—dark-haired, pretty—reaches for the hem of the blanket to straighten it, but her hand is shaking.
I snap. “What is this?”
My voice cracks, sharper than I intended, scraping from my throat like broken glass. The girls both go still.
I rise to my feet, barefoot, fists clenched at my sides. “Why are you treating me like this? Why is no one watching me? Why does the food keep coming?”
Neither girl answers. One stares at the floor. The other swallows visibly, her hand still caught on the blanket’s edge.
“Say something,” I demand, my voice ragged. “Tell me what’s going on. Why are you pretending this is normal?”
I don’t know what I expect—tears, shouts, maybe a guard storming in to drag me back downstairs. Part of me wants a fight. Something real. Something with edges.
Instead, it’s the senior maid who speaks.
She appears in the doorway like she’s been waiting, like she’s heard everything and decided now was the time to step in. Her name is Lidia. She’s older than the others, maybe in her fifties, with silver in her hair and a spine too straight to belong to anyone broken.
She moves past the girls without a word, carrying a stack of fresh towels. She sets them on the armoire, smooths one at the top, and begins folding with methodical ease.
“You are to marry Mr. Kion,” she says.
The words are casual. Unbothered.
I don’t move.
The word hammers inside my skull, loud and echoing, like it can’t quite find a place to settle.Marry.It makes no sense. None of this does. The luxury, the silence, the endless procession of food and silk. All of it felt surreal before, but now it twists into something worse. Something cold and real. Something permanent.
I blink at Lidia, still folding towels as if she hasn’t just ripped the floor out from under me.
“You’re lying.” My voice comes out uneven, too quiet to sound convincing. “That’s not… that’s not a thing that happens. People don’t get kidnapped and then married off like—like some medieval fairy tale gone wrong.”
Lidia doesn’t pause her folding. “I don’t lie, Miss Esme.”
I stare at her, heart pounding. “How can you say it like that?” My voice rises. “Like it’s normal? Like it’s something you do every week?”
She glances at me then, folding a towel in perfect thirds. “Because here, it is normal.”
I take a step back, as though the very air might shift around me. “I’m not from here. I don’t know what the hell this is, but it isn’t normal. You can’t just dress me up and feed me and tell me I’m someone’s—someone’s bride. That’s not how the world works.”
Lidia’s voice doesn’t change. “This isn’t your world.”
I shake my head. “I had a job. I had friends and an apartment. People know I’m gone.”
Her gaze meets mine without flinching. “Then Mr. Kion did you a kindness.”
I laugh—sharp and bitter. “A kindness? He dragged me off the street. He hit me. He tied me up like an animal and left me in a basement.”
“And yet, you’re here,” she replies evenly. “Alive. Breathing. Bathed. Fed. He didn’t have to make that choice.”
My mouth opens, but I can’t find the words. My throat tightens with rage and confusion. “You think that matters? That because he didn’t kill me, I owe him something?”
“You owe him nothing,” she says. “But your survival comes at a price. It always does.”
I fall onto the edge of the bed, legs folding beneath me like paper. “This is insane.”
