Page 69 of Immaculate Deception (Romanoff Bratva)

My body feels heavy, almost waterlogged, and the world is coming to me through a dense haze. Just a blurry, diffuse light through my closed eyelids.

At least there’s light. Which means that I’m alive. And if I’m alive…

Then I need to get the hell up.

There’s an urgency in my mind I can’t explain. I still don’t know where I am or what happened—hell, I can’t even remember my own name right now. But my instincts are propelling me to move. To assess. I need to figure out what’s going on and figure out what to do next.

My body responds before my eyes do. I lift my torso slightly. Literally a millimeter or two.

Instantly, every nerve ending gets napalmed with pain. Stomach. Head. Between my legs. All of it burning like the world is ending.

But it’s a clarifying pain. It brings details with it. Memories.

My name is Arya George.

I just had a baby.

His name is Lukas.

He is…

Where is he, actually?

That’s the thought that finally does it. Pries my eyes open and beats back the tide of pain.

The room I’m in is a wash of bars of light and deep shadows. I blink away the haze and try to make sense of the objects that surround me.

Whatever this place is, it’s square. Small. Concrete. A basement room or bunker, maybe. I can make out the rough shape of a doorway. But there’s no handle to open the entrance. No way out.

My heart begins to race. Panic brings more memories flooding back.

Erik in my room. Threatening me.

Brigitte coming in. Plucking Lukas from his crib.

Lifting his little hand in a wave. “Say goodbye to Mama...”

Same as I did back then—whenever the hell that was—I let out an animal scream, a howl of pain and anger and betrayal.

A scream for my baby, wherever he is.

“Hello?” I cry out. “Help me!”

My voice cracks in agony and fear. I fumble to my knees—that’s as much as I can manage right now—and crawl across the cold stone floor.

“Who’s there? Where am I?”

My words echo uselessly off the cement walls, reverberating around the room and through me in a way that’s almost physical. I can feel them vibrating in my bones.

“Lukas!”

He’s too small to understand or answer even if he could understand, but logic isn’t at play right now. Fear is choking me like a pair of hands around my throat. I just want someone to explain to me what is going on.

I drop back on my haunches and try to remember what Brigitte had said. Something about my debts. About how it was time to pay up.

But what did Brigitte have to do with any of that? She knew the real story. She knew what Jorik had done to me—and what I’d done to him.

After all, Brigitte was the first person I told about the drugs.

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