Page 55 of Pregnant with Bratva Twins
Liana, not to be left out, adds a flower in the corner, her careful lines brushing against mine.
A warmth stirs in my chest—foreign, shaky, impossible to name. When Sofia suddenly crawls into my lap, her little hands sticky with wax and glue, I freeze. I don’t know what to do, how to hold something so small and fragile.
My arms hesitate, hovering in the air, until instinct takes over. I settle my hand on her back, gentle, steady, and she sighs contentedly, wriggling closer. Liana leans against my side, her head heavy against my arm. My throat tightens. Something softens inside me, old scars giving way to something tender and new.
Jessa watches from the other side of the rug, her face unreadable. She hasn’t been alone with me since that night in the hall. She has this careful, measured distance. I feel it like a cold draft, the gap between us full of things unsaid. Still, her eyes are on me now, dark and searching, and for a moment the world narrows to just us and the girls. I want to reach out. I want to say I’m sorry. I want her to see the man I am trying to become, not the monster I was.
I can’t say any of it, so I let the moment be enough. The girls curl into me, small and trusting, their giggles a music I never thought I’d deserve. Jessa looks away first, but not beforeI see something flicker in her eyes. A question, maybe, or hope, or just the memory of a life we lost and could still make new.
I don’t smile often. I’ve forgotten how. Now, as Sofia hands me a yellow crayon and demands a sun for our crooked house, I feel something break loose in my chest… a rare, quiet joy. My mouth curves, slow and reluctant, into something that feels almost like peace.
Then a door slams open, loud and sharp, a deliberate announcement of power. The sound echoes through the corridors like a threat.
I stiffen. I know that step, the measured authority in every tread. Before I even see him, I hear the old voice. It’s cold, impatient, slicing the air like a knife.
Vitaly Sharov, my father. He’s aged, but not softened. His eyes are ice. His mouth a hard line, thin with disdain as he surveys the scene. His gaze lands on the girls first, narrowing at their pale hair and startled faces. Then on Jessa, crouched in the sunlight, braiding Liana’s hair with hands that tremble ever so slightly now.
He lets his lip curl, turning that contempt toward me. “So this is the mother of your bastards?” he spits, his tone flat, not loud but full of venom. “You drag them here, these little mistakes? You think this is what a Sharov does?”
The girls freeze, their drawings forgotten. Liana looks at me, confusion and fear in her eyes. Sofia presses closer to Jessa, silent. Jessa shrinks a fraction, as if she’s heard words like that before, as if she’s learned to survive them. My blood boils. I force myself not to react.
Vitaly’s gaze lingers on Jessa, his expression sour, almost curious, as if she’s some insect he’s debating whether to crush.
“Don’t forget your duty, Markian. You’re already engaged. To a woman with status. To a future worthy of our name.”
He takes another step forward, jaw clenched, and I see Jessa flinch, just barely, but enough for anger to spike hot in my veins.
Without thinking, I get to my feet and move between them. I plant myself in front of her, my body a wall she can hide behind if she wants to. I don’t look at him. I stare through him.
“They’re my daughters,” I say quietly. “She is their mother. My choice is made.”
His eyes narrow. “You think you have a choice? You think love is anything compared to blood and legacy?”
I don’t answer. There’s nothing left to say. For the first time, I realize how little his approval means to me, how empty his threats sound in this room, with my children behind me and the woman I want just an arm’s length away. All my life, I lived by his rules. All my life, I mistook his cruelty for strength.
Vitaly snorts, a harsh, ugly sound. “Be careful, Markian. You know what happens to men who forget where they come from.” He lets his gaze settle on Jessa again, cold and dismissive, before he turns to leave, his footsteps echoing down the hall.
The silence he leaves behind is heavy, suffocating. I stand there, my back to Jessa and the girls, breathing hard, fists clenched at my sides. For a long moment, no one moves. Then, slowly, the girls edge around me, drawn to the safety they find in each other. Jessa gathers them close, her eyes shining with something fierce and unspoken.
I turn and kneel again, reaching for them, feeling the old wounds my father left in me, the scars from a childhood where love was never a certainty, only a weapon. I don’t want to be him. I will not be him.
I look at Jessa, at the way she holds our daughters, and I know that my choice—this new, uncertain, trembling love—is the first decision I have made in years that feels right. I reach out and brush Liana’s hair from her forehead, let Sofia tug my sleeve.
They look at me not with fear now, but with a growing trust, a cautious hope.
Vitaly’s shadow is long, but it’s fading. I don’t need his approval. My daughters will know a different kind of father. A better one. I won’t let them feel the cold I grew up in. I won’t let them become strangers to their own hearts.
Jessa holds my gaze for a moment, and this time, she doesn’t look away. There’s a question there. A fear, maybe, or a hope that I’m not too late. I nod, silent, and she nods back. The old ways end with me.
As Vitaly’s footsteps fade, I let myself breathe again. I made my choice.
Chapter Twenty-Seven - Jessa
I sit in the window seat, knees pulled tight to my chest, chin pressed to folded arms. The lights in the hall are dim, the only sound the distant hush of rain and the echo of my daughters’ gentle breathing.
Somewhere far below, the mansion is a maze of silence and shadow, too big, too cold for the kind of life I tried to build before all of this.
The events of the day flicker through my mind, but it’s Vitaly Sharov’s face that stays with me—those flat, lifeless eyes, that twist of his mouth as he looked at me. I’d heard disgust before, but this was something deeper. Not just anger. It was judgment. Contempt.
