Page 11 of Bred By the Masked BRATVA
My stomach drops. “Yours,” I echo.
He steps closer, every line of him deliberate, controlled. “My wife. The mother of my children. Not a guest. Not a witness. Part of the family. Bound.”
The words slam through me, cold and hot all at once.
He’s insane. He’s deadly serious. It’s only now I’m realising both things can be true at the same time.
I swallow, forcing my voice to work. “That’s not a term. That’s a threat.”
“No,” he says softly. “That’s the only way you survive what you want to know.”
My pulse hammers. This is the part in every exposé where the narrator warns you: the deeper you dig, the more dangerous it gets. But no warning ever felt like this, like a man promising to ruin you and protect you in the same breath.
He lifts his hand, trailing the backs of his fingers down my jaw, not rough, but claiming. “You asked what I offer in return for your truth. Protection. Power. Certainty. But I don’t give away my world for free. If you want it, you don’t just write about it. You live in it. Starting tonight.”
“Starting—” My voice breaks. “You mean—”
His thumb drags over my lower lip, slow, deliberate. “I mean I start breeding you tonight. And while you’re carrying my child, I give you the story of a lifetime.”
The words land like a body blow. My breath shudders. Images flash, front page headlines, awards, a byline that finally matters. A baby. Cage with man who may well be part monster.
My whole career, my whole life, has been about fighting to get inside the rooms I’m shut out of. Now I’m inside one, and the price of entry is a life I never planned.
And yet some treacherous part of me, the part that still tastes him on my lips, whispers:He’s telling the truth.He could give me everything. Protection, access, a story no one else could touch.
But at what cost?
I curl my fingers into fists at my sides. I have to remember why I came. I have to remember who I am.
He’s watching me, patient, unreadable. As if he knows the war going on behind my mask.
“Choose, little dove,” he says quietly. “Do you want to stay a reporter? Or do you want to become the story?”
Ivor
She stares at me like she can’t decide what to do.
Good. That’s exactly where I want her, on the knife’s edge between fury and surrender.
Most women don’t understand what they’re asking when they come sniffing around the Bratva. They think they can peer through the keyhole, scribble down a few juicy secrets, then walk away untouched. They don’t realize that once you’re inside, there’s no leaving.
But this one… she’s different. She’s sharp enough to know the danger, reckless enough to step into it anyway. Brave or suicidal, I still haven’t decided.
What I do know is this: if I’m going to give her the truth, she has to be bound to me in every way that matters. She has to carry my mark inside her, under her skin. That’s the only contract worth making.
Her throat works as she swallows, and I can see the fight in her eyes. Ambition colliding with instinct. She wants the story. She wants the risk. But she’s not ready to admit that she wants me too.
So I’ll help her.
I slide my hand down the line of her throat, slow, deliberate, until my palm rests over her heartbeat. Steady. Fierce.
“You think you can stay outside of this, little dove,” I murmur. “Write your piece, walk away, go back to your neat little life. But the moment you stepped into this ballroom, you stopped being a bystander. You put on a mask and came hunting. That makes you part of the game.”
Her lips part, ready to argue, but I don’t give her the chance.
I take her mouth again. Harder this time. Demanding. A collision of teeth and heat, staking my claim before she can talk herself into running. She pushes back, just like before, and the fight of it makes my blood roar. She doesn’t kiss like prey. She kisses like a rival, like she’s daring me to devour her whole.
And I’ve never wanted anything more.
