Page 95 of Pregnant Virgin of the Bratva
“You’ve got blood on your sleeve,” he says, nodding toward my arm.
I look down. It’s dried, brown along the crease of my elbow where I held her too tightly in the car.
“I know,” I say.
He studies me for a second longer. “I didn’t like her at first.”
I look at him now.
Yuri shrugs. “Didn’t trust her. She was too… different. I thought she was going to fall apart the first time someone raised their voice.”
“You weren’t the only one.”
He nods. “She didn’t cry when she got dragged into this world. She didn’t run when things got ugly. She held your hand the whole way here and didn’t let go.”
“She’s not soft,” I say. “She’s steel under skin.”
He leans forward slightly, resting his forearms on his knees. “She’s yours, and she chose to stay. That’s more than most.”
There’s a long pause. The hallway hums with silence and distant machines.
“She better come back,” he says after a moment, voice quieter now.
I nod once, jaw tight. “She will.”
“If she doesn’t…” He trails off, then sighs. “Well, those doctors won’t see another day.”
I huff something close to a laugh, though it doesn’t reach my eyes. “You’ll have to get in line.”
He glances sideways. “I mean it.”
“So do I.”
Another pause. Then, softer, he adds, “You’re not used to waiting, Kion.”
“I’m not used to being powerless.”
Chapter Twenty-Five - Esme
I wake to silence. Not peace—silence. Heavy, unnatural. The kind that settles like smoke in the lungs. My eyelids drag open slowly, the world too bright and too white, everything blurred at the edges. It takes a moment to understand I’m not at home. Not in our bed. The scent in the air is all antiseptic and cold linen, machines humming in the corners of the room.
A hospital.
I try to lift my arm. It takes more effort than it should. My body aches. Not sharp pain—just a deep, dragging ache in every muscle and bone. My limbs feel strange, like they don’t quite belong to me. Heavy. Empty.
Something’s missing.
My hand moves to my belly before I fully realize what I’m doing. There’s no weight there anymore. No curve. No pressure. No motion beneath the skin.
Nothing.
The breath I draw in is shallow. Thin. I turn my head, vision swimming, trying to focus through the dizziness and confusion pressing against my skull.
Kion is in the room.
He’s sitting in the chair beside me, just out of reach, his elbows braced on his knees, shoulders hunched forward. His head is bowed, hands clasped. He doesn’t look up.
He looks… broken.
