Page 11 of Pregnant Bratva Hostage (Dubrov Bratva #17)

“Do you want to go over it one more time?” I ask Tania, handing her the earpiece.

“No, I’ve got it.”

“Then you tell me,” I say, needing to confirm everything. It’s an incredibly risky plan and I have to know she is going to be safe.

She rolls her eyes.

“Tania, I’m dead serious,” I snap.

She lets out a soft sigh and nods. “Sorry, I know it’s serious.

I’m a bit nervous. Um—I’m going to slip into the office, avoiding the security cameras and switch the delivery labels on each of the devices my uncle plans to have my co-workers deliver to the rivals.

I’ll take off the real location’s address and swap it out with this one. ” She holds up the printed stickers.

“It's not some random device, Tania,” I huff.

“The bombs,” she says tightly.

“Right. The bombs. And best you keep that in mind the entire time. This plan isn’t a joke. This is serious. You need to pay attention every step of the way.”

Three bombs neatly packaged. Ready to go off the moment someone opens the boxes.

She nods and bites her lower lip. Every time she does that, it distracts me, even in the tense state I’m in now.

I pull my eyes from her mouth. I wish I were the one going in there, not her.

I hate putting her in danger like this. She became my responsibility the moment I took her.

And seeing how passionate she is about helping these people—it makes me want to protect her even more.

“I’ve got this, Arkady. And you’ll be with me.” She lifts her hand to the side of her face and taps the earpiece.

“It’s not the same as me being there with you. I can’t help you if you get into trouble,” I say tensely.

“I’m not going to get into trouble,” she reassures me.

“Alright. Let’s do this, then. They are supposed to be delivering the bombs in the next thirty minutes. We need to swap those labels now before they leave the office, but after your uncle’s team has security checked everything.”

She pushes the car door open and climbs out. I want to tell her not to go. But I stay quiet.

She’s just swapping a few labels. That’s all.

And her uncle isn’t here today—he’s made sure he’s got an alibi somewhere else for when these bombs go off.

And the poor people delivering them have no idea what they’re handing over.

They’re just innocent people, like Rose, thinking they’re dropping off a gift with a potential new client.

A normal, everyday delivery. Two people from the marketing team and one from accounting, each set to approach different warehouses belonging to one particular rival.

Boris is putting all three of them in danger.

He doesn’t give a shit.

The moment they step into that rival’s business and the rival realizes there is no delivery scheduled, it will cause suspicion. They’ll investigate the packages, and they will retaliate with deadly force.

The address we are replacing on the ‘gift’ packaging will take her coworkers to empty warehouses in a completely different area.

Some of my guards will be there to accept the packages and pretend to be the clients who was meant to receive them.

Then Tania’s co-workers can leave, not knowing the danger they’ve avoided today.

They can go back to their families as though nothing happened.

Tania runs across the street, and I watch her from the car.

She slips into the building.

My heart is clenched in my chest. I press my hand against it to try and ease the anxiety I feel.

I’m not usually bothered by operations like this. But with Tania right in the line of fire, I don’t like it at all.

“Can you hear me?” I say into the mouthpiece.

“I can,” she whispers.

“Be quick.”

She talks quietly as she moves through the building. “I’m about to get to the security office. I won’t talk to you while I’m in there.”

“Noted.”

Voices in the background tell me she’s surrounded by other workers, and I wait patiently, pressing the earpiece harder into my ear so that I don’t miss anything.

Her voice comes through to me. “Weren’t there supposed to be three packages my uncle wanted delivered today?”

“Yes, there are three,” someone answers.

“I see two. I just wanted to make sure they were all ready. Where is the third one?”

“Oh, sorry. Peter left already. He’s on the way to the client. He got here a bit early, so we sent him off.”

“Okay, thank you,” she says, her voice suddenly tight. “The other two are leaving now as well, right?”

“Yes, in about a minute.”

My skin is crawling with tension. One of the bombs has already made it out of the building to the original address.

There is a long moment of silence, and I wait for her to tell me what’s going on.

Then the sound of her heavy breathing comes through the line. Tania is running, headed somewhere in a hurry.

“Tania, what are you doing? Get back to the car,” I say.

She doesn’t answer me.

“Tania, dammit, what are you doing?”

“I have to stop him,” she says, breathless.

“Where the hell are you? It’s too late to stop him—get back to the car.”

I hear a car engine start and realize she’s taking one of her uncle’s work vehicles. “For fuck’s sake, I told you not to take any risks,” I growl, starting my car as well.

I know where the rival’s warehouse is; so does she.

And now she’s chasing down some guy who’s about to deliver a bomb right into the warehouse of a dangerous bratva family, and she doesn’t realize that they will shoot her the moment they see her if they realize what’s going on.

My tires skid against the road as I take off, chasing after her.

“I’m five minutes away,” she says. “I’m going to park out of sight near the back of the warehouse.”

“Tania, don’t go in, wait for me.”

“I have to stop him, Arkady. There isn’t time to wait.”

“Tania!” I shout into the earpiece. She doesn’t reply. “Tania?”

She’s pulled the damn thing out and left it in the car.

“Dammit,” I snarl angrily.

I pull up right behind where she parked and burst out of my car, running towards the warehouse.

I see her slip around the side of the building. I can’t call out to her because it will put both of us in danger.

I run faster, sprinting to close the gap between us.

As I round the corner, I see her crouching behind some crates outside the entrance. She’s about to stand up, but I manage to grab her and tug her back down again, clamping my hand over her mouth. Her eyes shoot wide until she sees it’s me.

“It’s too late,” I whisper harshly. We both peek through the slats of the crates, watching her co-worker talk to one of the guards at the entrance of the warehouse.

“What is this?” the guard snaps, his gun sitting openly on his hip.

“It’s a delivery for, um, for Mr. Ivan. He’s expecting it,” the co-worker says nervously. The guard snatches the parcel from the guy and hands it off to another man. “Check it.”

He turns back to the co-worker, who is starting to catch on that something is wrong here.

Tania squirms in my arms, a muffled complaint coming from beneath my hand still locked over her mouth.

“There are no deliveries expected today. Who are you?” The guard pulls his gun from the holster, holding it in his hand.

The co-worker starts shifting nervously. “I’m from the marketing department. I came here to—”

“It’s a fucking bomb,” someone yells from inside the warehouse. “The scanners are going ballistic.”

“You fucking rat,” the guard snarls, lifting the gun and aiming it at her co-worker’s head. I try to pull Tania away, but she grabs onto the crate in panic, eyes glued to the scene playing out in front of us.

The gun fires. The bullet snaps through the air, a loud pop that dulls my senses for a moment. The back of his skull splinters open, and blood and brains spray from the crater in his head.

The guy slumps lifeless to the ground.

Tania’s tears are spilling over my hand.

I have to get her out of here.

Tugging her fiercely, I drag her away from the crates and pull her towards my car.

I don’t let her stop. I shove her into the car and pile in after her. We aren’t safe until we’re far away. If they catch us here, they’ll think I did this. They might even think I’m working with that fucking uncle of hers.

That will be a shit show I do not want to deal with.

I’m so angry that she put herself in danger that I’m scared to say anything to her while I drive, afraid that I will lash out and be too aggressive.

I clench my jaw tightly, grinding my teeth, holding back on everything I want to shout.

We’re almost home when my men send me a message to confirm that the other two bombs were delivered successfully to the fake addresses and the other two people have left safely. Two out of three. We managed to save two people today.

But Tania almost lost her life in the process.

I park the car outside the mansion, and Tania pushes the door open and storms towards the house without saying anything to me.

I climb out and run after her, bursting through the front door and chasing her into the living room.

I can’t hold back anymore.

“What the fuck were you thinking?” I shout.

“Why didn’t you do something?” she shouts back at me. “You could have shot them. You could have stopped him from dying—”

“How? What the hell did you want me to do?” I yell back.

Tania shakes her head. “I don’t know,” she screams.

Her hands are shaking badly as she covers her face and tries to take a few deep breathes.

“I told you to listen to me,” I say, trying not to shout anymore. “You could have been killed.”

“It’s my fault.” She sobs, dropping onto the sofa, grabbing a throw pillow, and hugging it against her body. “He’s dead because of me. I should have stopped him sooner. His poor family.” She’s crying, in pain, struggling, and blaming herself.

I sit down next to her and wrap my arm around her, but she’s stiff and tense in my embrace. I tug the throw pillow away from her and pull her closer. “Stop this. It’s not your fault. It’s your uncle’s fault.”

She shakes her head, slowly relaxing against me. Her crying slows down, and she takes her time to catch her breath.

I wait, stroking my hand up and down her back.

This woman drives me crazy. How the hell did this all happen?

Closing my eyes for a moment, I take a few deep breaths, too. She makes me so angry. How am I supposed to keep her safe if she won’t listen to me?

After a while, Tania is much calmer, but clearly broken by what she witnessed today. I don’t understand. She knew the entire time what kind of person her uncle was—why is she so surprised by what happened today?

I move a bit so that I can see her face, dropping my arms from around her. She picks up the pillow again and hugs it to her body.

“It’s your uncle’s fault, Tania. You have to see that. You didn’t deliver those bombs. You saved two people today. They both would have died in exactly the same way if you hadn’t done what you did.”

She bites her lip and closes her eyes. “I didn’t do enough,” she whispers.

“I don’t get it. Why did you carry on working for your uncle after what happened with Rose? It clearly broke you, and you hate yourself for it, but even after seeing how evil he truly is, you were still working with him. Why?”

She looks up at me, her eyes red from crying. “I knew he was evil long before what happened with Rose.”

I wait for her to explain.

She fiddles with the corner of the pillow as she speaks. “What happened with Rose just made me even more aware of what he was willing to do to people—to anyone—regardless of who they were to me. I didn’t have a choice, though. I had to keep working there.”