Page 55 of Secret Baby for the Bratva Boss

Aleks…I close my eyes, and feel tears roll down my cheeks.Where are you?

“It’s your son that Aleks will really want, once he realizes who the boy is.” Konstantin sighs softly, like a man satisfied. I suppose he is that. “But here’s the thing, Kat. I don’t want to make this too easy. I don’t want the torment to end, not just yet. So, I need you to play along with me, won’t you?”

“Fuck you,” I whisper. Now, there is a house in view, a low log cabin almost completely obscured by thick drapes of rich green ivy. There are trucks parked out in the rain, scattered among the trees—at least a dozen of them.

Hope surges through my chest. I had almost forgotten there was a guard set up here, that my family wasn’t just left out in the lurch. But then, as we roll closer, my eyes begin to pick up details. Horrible details.

Bodies. A dozen of them. No, more—bent and swung among the overgrowth. Windows, shot out and shattered. Tinted glass shines on the drive. Some of the men, I recognize. Some of them have been at the farmhouse in the last few days. Some of themare so young, as young as Toma was. Just boys, not even men, who will never again see Russia.Because of me.

No…because ofhim.

Hatred spreads through me, a wretched black flame. And I feel what last tendon of control I had in me snap like finger. I lunge.

Konstantin screams. In my rage, in my fervor, I am barely processing what I’m doing. All I know is that my hands are bound, and I’ve thrown the bulk of my weight at him, over the center console. And I know that I taste blood. Lots and lots of it, a hot metallic flood that makes me want to gag. There’s something between my teeth, and when Konstantin slams on the brakes and my body flies forward into the dash, I take that thing with me.

The driver’s door flies open. He’s thrown the car in park. The man in the backseat is cursing under his breath in Russian, and I realize that he’s sounds afraid—ofme.

Konstantin is screaming, gripping his head, staggering away from the car. We’re nearly at the other SUVs, the majority of which are parked directly in front of the cabin. The man in the back is still cursing, furious and clumsy as he fumbles with his seatbelt and gets out of the car. An instant later, the passenger door flies open, and he grabs me, hurling me onto my knees in the mud. He grabs me by the hair, keeping my there in place, and turning to call something to Konstantin that I don’t understand.

I’m still fuzzy and reeling, and I realize there’s something in my mouth. I spit hard. And stare, disbelieving—and honestly, very close to fainting—at the human ear that falls onto the dirt before me. I blink.

Then smile.

“You crazy fucking little bitch,” wails Konstantin. He storms toward me, grabbing me hard by the hood of my jacket andyanking me to my feet. “No, no, no—marriage, being my prisoner, my captive, mywife, oh, no, that is too fucking good for you. I would sooner marry a chained dog.”

I stumble after him. He’s walking fast, and more dragging me behind him than letting me walk. I look up at him, and see his fine pale hair is tinged pink; his neck and collar are drenched in a fresh blood so red and dark it nearly looks like tar in places.

I hear myself laughing.

“They always say to go for a fighter,” snarls Konstantin, clearly more to himself than me. “Well, Aleks can have you—I have already procured the far, far better prize. And you will see. Both of you will suffer more for your fighting in the end.”

My smile withers, and the pit in my stomach deepens. It occurs to me now that there is no movement here at the cabin, not outside or down the road, not in the trees.Where are his men?All of Aleks’ are dead, splayed like ragdolls up and down the drive, some half-hanging out of their vehicles, some still sitting behind the wheels. But there are no living men, no guards.

And what savage hope still hangs inside of me falls away. There are no guards—because there is nothing left here to guard. Konstantin has already come and gone. My son is not here. My mother, my brother, are not here.Unless…

But no—I won’t let myself think it.

“I will show Aleks what kind of a woman you really are,” says Konstantin. The front door to the cabin is left hanging open—its hinges are bent and broken off, glinting on the porch. He throws me inside. “Let’s end this little fairy tale of yours—once and for all, Katerina.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Aleks

I can’t move quickly enough. My legs can’t carry me fast enough.

Be alive be alive be alive.

God, I think to Kat—how I have failed you.

It’s dusk now, and the cabin is half-hidden in the haze of shadowy fog that is seeping up from the forest floor. There are SUVs everywhere, and my men, dead in them. Dead around them. A veritable graveyard, and it was me who sent them to it.Be alive,I think—but to who? Who will be here? Surely, not Kat. But her mother, maybe. James.Her son, by God.

But I know the truth. There is only one reason that Konstantin would have come to this place, having already captured Kat. It is to capture her son. I know, in my gut, that I have failed Kat in the worst way I possibly could have—I failed to protect Adam. What kind of man am I, if I could not save him, a child? Her child?

The door is open, and I leap through it, rifle raised and armed—but my feet slow to a stop. They nearly stop carrying me.

Kat.

There she is, among the scattered things and broken furniture immediately inside the living room in the cabin. There are clear signs of a struggle, but not hers. Hers was at Konstantin’s safehouse, and it’s written all over her face.

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