Page 9 of Pregnant Virgin of the Bratva
I’ve been in this game long enough to recognize the signs. She’s young. Early twenties. A college girl, if I had to guess. Her hands are soft, nails clean. No tattoos, no scars. Canvas shoes, not leather. Her bag—now dumped on the table—held a half-eaten sandwich, a dead phone, and a notebook. I don’t see any ID, or a wallet. No pepper spray, no blade tucked in a sock.
She’s not a threat, but that doesn’t matter.
I should kill her. That’s the rule. No witnesses, no loose ends. I know this. I’ve enforced it myself more times than I care to remember. More times than I can count.
My gaze drifts back to her face. Her pulse flutters visibly at her neck, a tiny, stubborn rhythm. She’s breathing steadily now. The sedative is wearing off.
I take a slow breath and step closer.
Arseni had said she ran like she had something to protect. Like someone would be coming for her. But no one had. No one ever does. Girls like her—the ones with quiet eyes and spiral notebooks—move through the world unnoticed. They don’t cause ripples. They get swept up in other people’s messes and disappear without leaving a mark.
I glance at the notebook again. Nothing inside but scribbled names I don’t recognize, little notes in cramped handwriting, and a sketch of a coffee cup with a crooked handle. There’s no reason for her to be here.
So why was she in the warehouse?
I watched the footage. The camera above the loading dock caught her slipping inside after the rain started, hugging the shadows. She didn’t have a weapon or a camera. Was it just… curiosity? Dumb luck? A mistake.
Wrong place, wrong time.
Still, when I grabbed her, when her wrist twisted in my hand and she looked up at me with panic in her eyes, I expected something. A scream. A lie. A name she thought might save her.
She said nothing.
Now, I move in closer, boots echoing faintly in the stillness. I pause beside the chair and crouch.
She doesn’t stir.
My hand hovers near my jacket. The pistol waits there, weighty and certain. All it would take is one clean shot. Quick. Painless. Efficient.
I’ve done worse. Far worse, but something stops me.
It’s not fear. I haven’t known fear in years. Not guilt. I buried that long ago with the others.
It’s something smaller. Quieter.
I look at her again. The curve of her jaw. The faint smear of dirt below her ear. The way her hair curls at her temple. The pulse at her throat hasn’t changed.
This isn’t hesitation. Not in the way I’ve known it.
I stay there, crouched in front of her. Silent. Watching. Thinking. Wondering what the hell it is about her that makes me pause at all.
She stirs with a small sound, something between a breath and a groan. Her body shifts against the chair, legs tensing, shoulders twitching as she blinks groggily at the floor. I stay where I am, crouched, still, waiting. It doesn’t take long.
Her eyes snap open.
The panic hits all at once. I see it spread across her face like a fuse being lit: the widening of her gaze, the sudden awareness of the ropes at her wrists, the damp chill of the chair beneath her. Her back jerks against it. She tries to push away, to stand, to twist out of the bindings that aren’t even tight.
“What the hell—let me go!” Her voice is raw, frayed at the edges, but not broken. Trembling, yes, but not weak.
I lean in, just slightly. Close enough to see the detail in her eyes—brown, flecked with amber. Close enough to hear the ragged rhythm of her breath.
“You saw something,” I say, with a broad sweep of my hand in her direction. “Too much, I imagine.”
She flinches like the words strike her. Her eyes dart to the pistol still holstered at my side. Her expression tightens.
“That makes you a problem.”
She stares. I can see the thoughts chasing each other behind her eyes, too fast and too loud to grab hold of. She’s trying to figure out if I’m bluffing. If this is some scare tactic. Some act. The kind of thing you see in movies and think,He’s not really going to do it.
