Page 27

"This isn't happening," I whisper to my reflection as I stand in my private bathroom, box of pregnancy tests hidden in my robe pocket, smuggled into the compound by Lena after a cryptic, panic-filled phone call.

But denial cannot change reality. Three minutes later, I stare at the plastic stick in my hand, the two pink lines unmistakable in their implications.

Positive.

The word echoes through my mind as the bathroom tilts around me. I sink to the marble floor, cold seeping through my clothes as the full catastrophe takes shape.

I am pregnant. With Viktor Baranov's child. The man who disappeared from my life as suddenly as he entered it. The man whose full name I don't even know. The man who moved through the shadowed world of Bratva operations with a hidden purpose.

The man I can’t stop thinking about.

And I am Anastasia Markov, sole heir to one of the most dangerous criminal empires in Russia. Daughter of a man who would kill Viktor without hesitation if he knew what had transpired in Paris. A woman whose entire existence has been controlled, designed, and commodified for her family’s advantage.

A hysterical laugh bubbles up in my throat, emerging as a choked sob.

For one night, I had claimed freedom. Now, that fleeting rebellion has created the ultimate complication—a life growing inside me, tying me forever to a dangerous man who vanished with the Paris dawn, leaving nothing but memories and… his child.

I press my hands against my still-flat stomach, reality shifting seismically beneath me. Whatever plans my father had for me, whatever future Viktor envisioned when he walked away, whatever dreams of escape I might have harbored—all obliterated by these two pink lines.

"What now?" I whisper to the empty bathroom, the question echoing in the vast silence of my new reality.

No answer comes. Only the cold certainty that everything has changed, and the clear understanding that if my father discovers this pregnancy, neither I nor Viktor nor this innocent child will be safe from his wrath.

I flatten the pregnancy test box with shaking hands, tearing it into tiny pieces to be disposed of separately. The positive test I wrap carefully in tissue, hiding it in the bottom of a sanitary product box where no one would think to look.

Evidence concealed, I splash cold water on my face, straightening my spine as I stare at my reflection. Beneath the fear in my eyes, something new emerges—a fierce determination, a protective instinct I've never experienced before.

This child changes everything. But it also clarifies everything.

For the first time in my life, I have something worth fighting for that belongs entirely to me. Not to the Markov name. Not to my father's ambitions. Not to Bratva politics.

Mine.

As if responding to this silent declaration, my stomach rolls with another wave of nausea. I breathe through it, hands braced on the marble countertop, mind already calculating options, escape routes, contingency plans.

A sharp knock at my bedroom door startles me from my thoughts.

"Miss Anastasia?" It's Irina, my father's housekeeper. "Your father requests your presence in the main conference room. The Paris delegation has arrived."

"Tell him I'll be there in fifteen minutes," I call back, my voice remarkably steady despite the chaos raging inside me.

"He says immediately, Miss. He was very insistent."

My heart races. The Paris delegation. People who might recognize me from my time there. People who might know something about Viktor.

"Very well. I'm coming."

I check my appearance one last time, ensuring all traces of tears and panic are erased. As I turn to leave, my gaze falls on the bathroom wastebasket where fragments of the pregnancy test box peek through discarded tissues.

Too visible. Too dangerous.

I quickly rearrange the contents, burying the evidence deeper, just as Irina knocks again, more insistently.

"Coming!" I call, moving toward the door.

Viktor taughtme something essential during our brief encounter—that even the most carefully constructed cages have weaknesses, if you're determined enough to find them.

For my child's sake, I will find mine.