Page 73 of Immaculate Deception (Romanoff Bratva)

But that doesn’t matter. I can’t let it stop me.

“Get off of me!” Brigitte snarls, swinging at me with her one free arm. She lands blows to the top of my head, my neck, and my back, but I barely feel them. Compared with everything else going on in my body, they are nothing.

“Give me back my baby!” I find her throat and squeeze. My nails tear at the skin of her neck.

She does the same to me. Both of us strangling the life from the other. Lukas crying. Brigitte crying. Me crying. Chaos and pain and screams bouncing from wall to wall to wall to wall.

Only one of us will emerge alive.

The other woman is going to die.

But before that can happen, guards appear in the doorway. A blur of men rushing into the room and tearing us apart.

It only takes one of them to detain me, holding me in a headlock, my arms pinned and disabled. That doesn’t stop a second guard from throwing a nasty punch that lands squarely on my jaw. My head snaps sideways with the blow.

I feel like I’m going to be sick. Not only because of my pain level, but because I know I lost.

Whoever these people are, they won. They’re going to take Lukas away from me.

I’m going to lose him forever.

Brigitte and Lukas are rushed out of the room between another pair of armed thugs. I watch through tear-filled eyes, but I don’t even catch a tiny glimpse of him.

No last look.

No parting wave.

Nothing.

He’s just gone. And then I’m left alone in a cell with strange men wearing all black.

When I start to cry, the guard drops me to the ground. I land in a groaning heap on the cold floor, shock and anguish warring for a prime spot in my heart.

Jorik and Brigitte wanted Lukas. Now they have him.

Part of me doesn’t care what these men do to me next. Why should I? Lukas is gone, so how could I ever go on without him?

Still, somewhere deep, the fire for survival still flickers. There are embers of something like a will to live burning inside of me that can’t be extinguished by this crushing blow. No matter how I feel now, I don’t want to die. Not like this.

And I know why.

It’s not just biology, that innately human desire to persevere no matter what.

Not just stubbornness.

Not just hope.

But because Dima would expect more from me.

That’s the thought that stays in my head as the guards look down on me in disgust for a moment longer before they too turn and leave through the door.

Dima would expect more.

That’s the thought that stays in my head as the door clangs shut and I’m left alone once again.

Dima would tell you to fight.

It’s what he would do. Hell, it’s what he did already. He fought again and again for us.

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