Page 56 of Pregnant with Bratva Twins
I can see it now in the way he lingered on the girls, as if wondering how much of their mother might be stamped out with enough money, enough distance.
When he looked at me, there was no question at all. No matter what happens, no matter how gentle Markian is with the girls, how many smiles or kind words they offer him, I will never belong here. Not to this family. Not to this world.
Even if the twins are accepted as daughters of a Sharov, I’ll always be the outsider. The American. The mistake.
My thoughts spiral, tugging me down, dragging every old wound to the surface. I replay every word Vitaly spat, every cold warning and thinly veiled threat. And then, like a knife twisting in my ribs, I remember what else he said.
Engaged.
I didn’t know. No one told me. He had a whole life he planned to step into while I was out there, bleeding and broken, raising our daughters alone. There was someone else. Someone proper. Someone who belonged here.
Maybe she’s beautiful and educated, a daughter of old Russian money, someone who knows how to walk these halls and navigate the sharp edges of men like Vitaly. Someone who never flinched at words like bastard or mistake.
I swallow the ache in my throat, but it doesn’t go away. Markian must have planned to marry her. To move on while I hid, praying he’d never find me, terrified every night that he would. I picture him at a shining table, his fiancée at his side, their future as bright and easy as the diamonds in her ears. The ache grows, twisting tighter, making the walls feel closer, the air thinner.
The door creaks open behind me. My body tenses, instinct flaring. I keep my gaze locked on the dark floorboards, bracing for another fight, another round of cold words and harsh demands. I hear the soft tread of his footsteps. He doesn’t storm in; he just lingers in the doorway, silent.
He calls my name, quietly, not a command but a request. I don’t answer. I can’t trust myself not to cry, not to say something that will make everything worse. The silence stretches, thick as molasses, until he speaks again.
“That night…” he begins, and his voice is nothing like I expect. It’s rough, yes, but not angry or cold. It’s quiet. Honest. Like he’s setting something down that he’s carried too long. “I didn’t mean it.”
I glance up, wary, searching his face for the danger I’ve learned to expect. It isn’t there. There’s only exhaustion and something that looks too much like regret.
“I was drunk,” he says, voice barely above a whisper. “Furious. I wanted to distance myself from you. From what I felt. When you ran… and I realized what I’d done… I saw you for what you are. A flower in the fire. Something I should’ve protected, not threatened.”
My throat tightens, eyes blurring with tears I thought I’d used up years ago. The truth lands like a stone in my chest, breaking through years of confusion and pain.
I want to tell him how much those words cost me, how I’ve replayed them over and over, every night in every strange bed, clutching our daughters and wondering if he’d ever come to finish what he started. How every shadow felt like a warning. How his voice haunted my dreams, his threats chasing me across continents, through every empty room.
He moves a little closer, careful, as if he’s afraid I might shatter. “I hated myself for it. For letting him—my father—shape me. For letting fear speak instead of love.”
His words wrap around me, raw and awkward. The apology is not perfect, but it’s real. I force myself to look at him, to see the man beneath all the layers of power and violence and pride. For the first time, I let myself believe that maybe he does regret what he’s done. Maybe he is sorry not just for losing me, but for making me run.
“You never told me about her,” I whisper, the question tearing out of me before I can stop it. “The fiancée. Were you ever going to?”
His jaw tenses. He looks away. “It was arranged. For business. For my father.” He meets my eyes again, voice low and brittle. “I never touched her. Never wanted her. It was always you.”
I press a trembling hand to my mouth, the pain and the longing and the relief colliding all at once. For a second, I don’t know if I want to sob or scream.
He moves to kneel beside the window seat, not reaching for me, but close enough to feel his presence. “I don’t know how to fix this,” he says. “I want to try. For you, and us.”
I look at him, really look, searching his face for lies, for old cruelties. I don’t find them. I only see a man who’s tired, scarred, desperate to make something right in a world that’s always taught him to break what he loves most.
My hand finds his, fingers lacing together. His grip is gentle, hesitant. We sit like that in the hush of the night, two broken things learning how to be whole again. For the first time since I ran, I believe we might have a chance. Maybe not a perfect one—but a real one.
Outside, the rain softens, the world growing quiet.
My hands tremble as I hold his, my body still braced for pain, for disappointment, for the thousand little cruelties that life has taught me to expect.
I can barely believe I’m asking, but the words slip out anyway: soft, raw, desperate. “Do you miss her?”
He doesn’t answer right away. His thumb moves slowly across my knuckles, grounding me, but his silence stretches until I almost regret asking. My breath catches, and my heart pounds so loudly I’m sure he must hear it. Then he finally meetsmy eyes, and all the old, sharp things in his face are gone—no distance, no arrogance, no anger. Just truth. He shakes his head once, slow and sure.
“No,” he says, voice low and steady, like the answer was never in question. “I don’t even think about her at all.”
He breathes out and looks at me as if I am the only thing left in his world, as if nothing outside this room matters.
“The one I love is you,” he says, and in that moment, I believe him.
