Page 21 of Bribed & Bred By The BRATVA (Bred By The BRATVA #9)

The house is too big for silence. Every footstep echoes, bouncing off the tiles and walls and polished wood like it doesn’t know where to land. Back at our apartment, silence meant creaking pipes, the hum of the broken fridge, Mateo’s breathing in the next room. Here it feels deliberate.

I trail my fingers over the cool railing as I climb the staircase. It should feel like a cage, all this perfection. Instead, it feels like I’m walking through someone else’s dream, one I was never supposed to see.

Our room in the south wing is immaculate. Every book on the shelves is something I’ve wanted to read; every item of clothing folded in the drawers is my size. It’s terrifying, the way Aleksei already knows me better than most people I’ve called family. Terrifying, and… comforting.

I wander because I don’t know what else to do. Past tall windows that pour light across marble. Past the kitchen where I can still smell coffee and fresh bread from breakfast. The walls hum with hidden power, cameras tucked where I can’t see them, guards moving like shadows through the gardens.

Eventually, I find myself at the door of his new office. It’s different from the one in the pool house where I first sat on his knee, more polished, more functional. Papers spread across the desk. A laptop glowing faintly. And him.

Aleksei sits behind the desk, shirt sleeves rolled, tattooed forearms braced on polished wood. He doesn’t look up immediately, but the air shifts as if he felt me the second I stepped into the doorway.

“Come here.” His voice is low, certain.

I obey before I even think about it, my feet carrying me across the rug until I stand in front of the desk. He sets his pen down, finally looking at me. Those eyes strip me bare every time.

“Are you settling,” he asks.

I nod. “I think so. It’s…different.”

“Different is good,” he says. “Different means you’re not where you were.”

I bite my lip. He’s right. It’s the first time in years I’m not counting the hours until rent is due, or worrying whether Mateo’s medicine will last until the next pay check. But saying it out loud feels like giving too much away.

His gaze drops, not to the papers, not to the laptop, but lower. My stomach knots under the weight of it. Then he asks, calm and simple, “Has your period come yet?”

Heat floods my face. “What?”

“You heard me.” He leans back in the chair, spreading his legs, every inch of him patient but unyielding. “Your cycle. Has it started.”

I swallow hard. “That’s…you can’t just ask—”

“I can,” he cuts in, voice soft but absolute. “And I will. Every month. Because your body is mine, Isabella. Every change, every ache, every shift belongs to me now.”

My cheeks burn hotter. I wrap my arms across my stomach, trying to hide from the bluntness of it. “No. Not yet.”

Satisfaction flickers in his eyes, sharp as steel. “Good. That means when I filled you last night, and all the nights before, it wasn’t wasted. It means the next time I spill inside you; it could take root.”

My knees feel weak. Shame and heat war in my chest, twisting so tight I can barely breathe. “You talk about it like it’s normal conversation.”

“It is,” he says simply. “You will swell with me. Your body will soften, change, carry what I give you. And when it does, I’ll fuck you even slower, even deeper, so you know there is no part of you I don’t worship.”

The words make me shiver. They should terrify me. But beneath the fear is something darker, something that makes my thighs press together even as I try to look away.

His chair scrapes back. He stands, circling the desk with deliberate slowness, until he’s in front of me. Close enough that I can smell the subtle aftershave he favors on his skin. He tips my chin up with one finger.

“You’ll tell me the moment it happens,” he murmurs. “When your blood comes, when it doesn’t, when your body changes. You won’t hide it. You won’t lie. Do you understand?”

My voice comes out a whisper. “Yes.”

“Say it.”

“I understand.”

His mouth brushes mine in reward. Soft, almost tender, which is somehow more dangerous than when he takes me hard.

“Good girl,” he says against my lips. “You’ll make me a father. And when you do, I’ll make sure you never forget how beautiful you are when you carry my future.”

My breath trembles. My body betrays me, leaning into him, craving the promise in his words even as my mind screams to resist.

Because the truth is, I already believe him.

The house is too quiet when I leave his office. My heart is still hammering, my skin hot from the way he spoke so calmly about my body, about the future he already sees written in me.

I pad down the hall to my room, trying to steady myself. But when I close the door and sink onto the bed, I can’t stop counting backwards. My cycle has always been regular, too regular, like clockwork. I should have come on my period by now. A day, maybe two, late.

I press my palms to my stomach. Nothing feels different. But something is different.

When I finally stand and walk into the bathroom, I see it. On the shelf above the sink, tucked neatly beside folded towels: a pregnancy test. Still in the box, unopened. I don’t have to guess who put it there.

My throat tightens. He’s already thought ahead. Already prepared. He’s waiting for me to take it.

I pick it up, turning the box over in my hands. Too early, I tell myself. A few days doesn’t mean anything. And yet, my chest is tight with the possibility.

What happens if it’s positive? If I’m already carrying Aleksei’s child?

A new fear grips me, not that he’ll keep me, but that once he has what he wants, once I’m pregnant, he won’t need me . Just the baby. Just the heir.

I close my eyes, gripping the box so hard it crinkles. The thought should be a relief. That’s what I told myself at the start, this was just sacrifice, a bargain for Mateo’s life. If he cast me aside afterwards, at least Mateo would be safe.

But the idea slices me open. I don’t want to be cast aside. I don’t want to be forgotten once I’ve given him what he wanted.

I want to stay.

The realisation hits so hard I stagger back against the counter. I want to be here. In this house. In this world. With him.

I want to be the woman at his table, in his bed, in his future. Not just the mother of his child, his wife, his queen .

Tears sting my eyes, but I don’t let them fall. I open the box, my fingers lingering over it the test. It says it’s accurate from the first day of a missed period… As I remove the foil wrapper, I know I’ve made up my mind.

I don’t just belong here because of Mateo. I belong here because I want to. Because somewhere between fear and gratitude, I’ve started to choose him.

And if I’m pregnant… it won’t just be inevitability like Aleksei says.

It will be my choice too.