Page 4 of A Baby for the BRATVA Boss
The car curves around the last bend, and the estate comes into view. Stone walls, tall gates, a line of pines standing guard. Lights glow behind the windows, warm against the snow.
“Are we there?” she asks quietly.
“Yes.”
“You saidlodge. This looks like a fortress.”
“It is,” I tell her. “It’s where I keep what’s important, safe.”
The gates open automatically, and the tires crunch over the snow-covered gravel as we roll forward. I can feel her heart racing in the air between us, even though she doesn’t move.
When the car stops in front of the steps to the main entrance, I nod to the driver. The engine dies. The world goes still again.
I open my door, step out into the snow, then hold hers open. She hesitates, one gloved hand resting on the seat, eyes flicking up to me. I see the question there. The one she doesn’t know how to ask yet.
“Come,” I say. “You’ll be safe here. Even from me.”
She steps out, scarf bright against the darkness.
The bells echo again in the distance as I lead her up the steps, the sound fading into the wind until it feels like the whole mountain is listening.
Sophia
The first thing that hits me is the warmth. After hours of snow and silence, it feels alive. Thick, golden, curling around my skin until the chill I carried all the way from my house sinks away. I step over the threshold and stop, because I can’t pretend I’m not stunned.
This isn’t a cage.
The entrance opens into a hall lined with pine beams and soft light. The floors gleam, polished and warm beneath thick rugs that look older than I am. Firelight spills from the room ahead, flickering across garlands wound with tiny gold lights. Everything smells like warm bread and cinnamon, like the inside of a story that shouldn’t belong to a man like Yury Dubovich.
He shrugs off his coat and hangs it on a carved stand, moving with that same quiet precision he’s carried all night. Even here, especially here, he feels out of place. Too dark for the softness of the room. Too controlled for the warmth. The high collar of his sweat frames his square jaw and the colour makes the gray of his eyes pop. The parts of him that looked so severe earlier are suddenly softer, somehow.
“Follow me,” he says.
His voice fits the space around us perfectly. It settles into the wood, the stone, the steady hum of the fire. I trail after him down a hallway that opens into a vast living room. A wall of glass facesthe valley below. The lights of the town flicker far beneath us like a scatter of fallen stars.
I should be terrified. I remind myself of that every few breaths. But fear has sharp edges; this feels different. Like standing too close to a fire and pretending the heat doesn’t feel good.
Yury gestures toward the view. “We’re high enough that no one comes up without permission. You’ll be left alone here.”
“You keep calling it safe,” I murmur. “It doesn’t look like the kind of place where safety is needed.”
He glances at me. “Maybe not. But I like to protect what’s mine.”
A small sound breaks the moment, the squeak of a door, then voices. A woman’s laugh filters from the entryway. I turn, startled, as two women step inside: bundled in coats, snow dusting their boots, arms full of evergreen wreaths and a box wrapped in red paper.
“Mr. Dubovich!” the older woman calls warmly, unbothered by the sight of armed men in the shadows. “We brought this year’s wreaths. Thought we’d welcome you home for the season.”
She pauses when she sees me, eyes bright with curiosity. “And you brought company!”
I open my mouth to protest, to explain that I’m notcompany, that I don’t even know what I am, but Yury steps in smoothly.
“Yes,” he says, that quiet command wrapped in something gentler. “I wanted to show my wife the mountain at the most magical time of year.”
The word stumbles through me like a pulse.Wife.
The woman beams. “How lovely! We’ll leave these here, dear. Fresh pine, hand-tied ribbons. We will return proper tomorrow, as you asked.”
The older lady crosses to me, takes my hands in hers and kisses both of my cheeks. “Welcome, dear, you will be happy here.”
