Page 26 of Pregnant Bratva Hostage (Dubrov Bratva #17)

The look in her eyes as she watches me has my heart aching in my chest. There are so many words in her gaze. So many unsaid things. A sea of emotion is flooding the air between us, yet we are both silent. Our eyes locked, and our lips sealed.

I should have told her.

But I don’t think I was ready to admit it to myself.

But I should have told her how special she was to me.

That she has my heart.

And now it might be too late.

All I wanted to do was save her, and now he has her, and I have no idea how to fix this. Would he kill his own family?

Yes.

I don’t doubt it for a second.

“Drop the gun. I won’t tell you again,” Boris screams, spit flying from his mouth in his raged state.

I was hoping to buy some time, hoping that maybe he was losing blood a lot faster.

But he’s not. He still looks strong. I have no other option but to do as he asks.

He shoves the gun harder against her head, and her eyes grow wide with fear.

It’s painful to lower my weapon, but it doesn’t mean I’ve given up.

I move slowly, my eyes locked onto him, searching for a weakness. Searching for anything I can use.

I’ve never backed down. I’ve never let fear get the better of me. But the thought of losing Tania is making me crazy.

Find something. Do something. Save her.

My chest heaves as I take gave breathes, fighting the panic. My hand releases my gun, and it drops onto the floor between my feet.

“Stand up, kick it over here,” Boris snarls.

I stand up as slowly as I crouched down. There has to be something.

I can’t fucking lose her. I will tear this world apart if I lose her.

“Hurry the fuck up,” Boris screams.

I’m standing with my hands raised in the air and my heart turning black with fear.

Boris smirks at me. “Now, you get to watch her die. Which will be a pleasure for me because I can see it in your eyes, how much she means to you. It took me a while to decide who should die first. If I should make you watch her die, or it would be more fun for her to watch you die. But at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter, except to entertain me.

So, you get to watch her. And then I shoot you.

And then I’ll take all my men and tear down the homes of your brothers.

” Boris is gloating. It’s good. It’s buying me extra time.

He can rant as long as he wants, as long as he doesn’t pull that trigger.

But now I’ve run out of time.

He shoves Tania onto her knees in front of him and aims the gun at the back of her head. She’s sobbing, and my heart is splintering. It’s too late.

I can see his finger squeezing against the trigger in slow motion and that sickening grin that’s curling over his lips.

At the same time, several men burst through the broken window behind me.

Shooting erupts again. Boris screams in anger as he lifts his gun to shoot at my brothers and the Kuznetsovs. I dive for my gun, rolling as I grab it, I fire two shots, directly into his head.

Not a fucking chance am I missing this time. And not a fucking chance am I showing lenience. He had his chance when he took Rose. And he chose to fuck up again.

He drops like a stone, his lifeless body slumping to the floor, blood gushing from a massive hole in the side of his head.

His leg twitches once.

I spin around to see if my brothers have the other guards under control. He had three teams set up for this. One of the roof. One in the coffee shop and another around the corner.

But they’ve all been taken down.

“Tania,” I shout, turning back to her. But she’s lying on the ground, unconscious.

I crawl towards her, grabbing her in my arms. “Tania?” I shout, picking her up and holding her.

Luka is next to me. Then Niko. Then Yulian.

“Is she shot?” Luka asks.

“I don’t know,” Yulian says, leaning down, trying to see.

“No,” I say as pain shoots through me.

She murmurs my name, a faint smile on her face. But then she passes out again.

Niko feels the back of her head, and his hand comes up covered in blood.

“It must have been a ricochet bullet. We weren’t shooting in her direction.”

“Bring the car. Call the doctor and tell him we’re on the way,” I demand, standing, cradling her against me.

I run towards the vehicle my brother radioed for, and I climb into the back with her on my lap. Niko pulls the driver out and climbs in to drive himself.

He speeds through the streets towards the hospital, where we have a doctor on standby for emergencies like this one.

Everything is a blur. It all happens too fast and too slow at the same time. One minute she’s in my arms, the next they’ve pulled her from me, and one of the nurses is yelling for me to wait with my brothers, pushing me away from her as they wheel her down a corridor on a hospital bed.

I can’t breathe.

Niko’s voice tugs at me.

“Ark, come, we can wait in here.” He guides me away from the passage to a private room.

Twenty minutes later, which feels like a thousand years, a doctor comes through to let us know she is in surgery to remove a piece of a bullet from her skull. He says there is excessive swelling, and it’s a dangerous surgery, but they have to do it.

It will take a few hours.

Luka leaves the hospital and comes back with fresh clothes for all of us. We shower in the bathroom off the private room.

I pace up and down.

They eat food, but I can’t face it.

My brothers wait with me for four hours until the doctor comes back.

“She’s out of surgery, but she’s in an induced coma. We have to keep her this way for a few days to stop her from moving too much. The surgery was successful, though, and we hope for a full recovery.”

“Hope?” I murmur in disbelief.

“Yes, it’s all we can do. But you will be relieved to know that the baby is fine.”

“What?” Niko snaps. “Baby?”

They all turn to me. I’m standing with my mouth dropped open in shock. “I-I—I had no idea.” I press my hand over my heart because it feels as though it’s about to tear through my rib cage.

“I have a baby?” I smile, but I’m also crying, aching to hold Tania, aching to be with her. “When can I see Tania?”

“We’ll take her through to the private room you booked in a moment, then you can come and see her, but please, only one at a time. She has to rest.”

***

Over the next three days, I don’t leave her side. My brothers take turns to bring me what I need, stopping by to check on me while I watch her.

There are tubes in her mouth, feeding her, needles in her veins, hydrating her, oxygen being fed into her nostrils.

The doctors come in and check on her every day, and they go out after scribbling things on her charts, day after day, until finally, the doctor smiles and says, “The swelling has gone down significantly. We will pull her out of the coma tomorrow.”

I’m sitting right next to her bed, watching him as he looks over the scans they did on her this morning.

My heart leaps in excitement. “Is she going to be okay?” I ask.

“I can’t answer that, Arkady. We’ll be here for her when she wakes up, and we can provide all the support she needs for healing, but it’s up to her now.”

I reach out and take her hand. “She’s strong. Stronger than anyone I’ve ever met. She will be okay.”

The doc smiles at me, nodding. “You know her better than anyone, Ark. And it’ll be your job to remind her of how strong she is.”

He leaves, and I lean over her bed, gently kissing her forehead. One more day until she wakes up.

The room is packed with nurses and doctors, each allocated their own task. “Let’s get the tube out of her mouth. Leave the IV in. She won’t need the oxygen.” The doctor is handing out orders and waiting to the side, trying to stay out of the way, but not wanting to be too far from her.

They work around her until the doc waves me over.

“That’s it,” he says. “We’re done.”

“What?” I say, confused. “But she’s not awake.”

“We’ve stopped feeding the medication into her body. It will slowly wear off, and she can wake up any time now. The nurses will be right outside. Call us if you need anything.”

And just like that, everyone leaves the room.

I sit next to her again, staring at her beautiful face. Without the tubes feeding into her, she looks peaceful. Beautiful and calm. The bruise on the side of her head is fading, but still angry.

I gently touch it, wishing I could have saved her from all of this.

“You’re going to be okay,” I whisper, brushing my hand over her cheek.

“Ark?” she croaks, her voice barely even a whisper.

I leap away from the bed in surprise.

Then immediately rush back to her. Tears spill from my eyes as I take her hand. “Tania, can you hear me?”

My hands are shaking, my voice is shaking too.

She smiles, but it seems to cause her pain.

“Do you want water?” I ask.

She nods, blinking against the lights above her.

I hurry to turn them off, then press the button to slowly raise her bed and hold a cup of water against her lips.

She sips slowly.

I can’t take my eyes off her.

“Are you ok? Does it hurt anywhere? What do you feel?”

She giggles softly and closes her eyes, spreading her fingers to look for my hands. I grab hers and hold it tightly.

“Everything hurts,” she groans. But she’s smiling. “How long have I been here?”

“Six days.”

“Is the—is my—” she stammers and takes in a shaky breath.

“The baby is fine.” I smile widely. “The little one is healthy and growing happily.” I wrap my hand over her stomach, and she lets out a laugh of relief.

“My head hurts,” she says, touching her temple and wincing.

“Well, a bullet ricocheted into it.”

“Oh. Was anyone else hurt? Are your brothers okay?”

“Everyone is fine, and so are you. I’m going to take care of you. Everything is going to be fine.”

“My uncle?” she asks tensely.

“He’s dead.” I wait for her response.

“Good,” she says with pain in her voice. “Good.”

We sit quietly for a moment. I’m letting her process everything. But then she turns to me and looks into my eyes, her face becoming strained with emotion.

“I love you,” she blurts out. “I thought I was never going to get a chance to tell you that. I love you so much.” Tears spill over her cheeks and I can’t hold myself back. I climb onto the bed next to her and wrap my arms around her, cradling her against my chest. She snuggles into me.

“I love you too, darling. So much that I can’t describe it in words. I haven’t left your side since it all happened. I couldn’t stand to leave you. I was terrified as well. I thought—no, I knew you were strong enough to pull through. I knew you’d be okay,” I say, emotion flooding from me.

“Do you want to be a father?” she asks nervously when I pull away slightly to look at her.

A low, happy laugh rumbles through my chest. “With you, Tania, I want to have a family. I want to build a life. I want to spend my days making you smile. Is that why you didn’t tell me before? Because you were nervous, I didn’t want a baby?”

“And because I wasn’t even sure if you wanted me.” She presses her lips together.

Grinning, I brush my hand over her cheek.

“I want to marry you. If you’re willing to put up with a reckless, slightly wild, but a little bit tamed guy for the rest of your life.”

She giggles. “Since when did you get tamed?”

“Since I met the love of my life and I am willing to do anything to keep her safe.”

“Ask me again,” she whispers.

“Tania, darling, will you marry me? For real this time.”

The smile that spreads across her face is beautiful. Her eyes light up, and my heart swells with happiness.

“Yes.” She grins. “I will marry you every day for the rest of my life.”

We lie together on the bed, her in my arms, talking about everything that happened. We are already married by law, but I had to ask her again. With love. With happiness. With a real future.

“I’m so sorry for how I handled it,” she whispers. “I should have warned you earlier. I let it get too far. It could have gone so badly.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t come find you sooner, too, darling. I should have known the moment you didn’t come home that something was wrong. I was stupid enough to think you’d tricked me. I guess—I thought you were too good to be real. But you are real. And I’m so sorry.”

She reaches up and wraps her hand around my neck, pulling me closer so she can kiss me.

Her lips are warm and soft against mine, and my heart is racing with happiness. She’s okay. Everything is going to be okay.