Page 13 of Pregnant Bratva Wife (Vadim Bratva #13)

I ran like hell.

I couldn’t even breathe.

But I ran as fast and as far as my feet could take me.

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get the image of that bloodied man out of my mind. I couldn’t forget who put him in that state.

None of that mattered, though. It seemed like child’s play compared to how Federico, my husband, shot a man dead just moments ago.

“Autumn!” I heard his voice somewhere behind me.

Searching.

But he was the monster I ran from. Not those thugs. He probably killed them all.

I ran faster, my legs burning and chest heaving. I didn’t know where I was going—only away from the nightmare I’d stumbled into. Away from Federico.

My mind raced, trying to stitch together everything as I fled.

The unexplained injuries. Coming home with blood on his clothes. The strange late-night business meetings. The mysterious bank transfers worth millions.

I stumbled over uneven pavement and caught myself from falling by bracing against the wall. I looked around, desperately trying to orient myself. Where the hell was I?

Industrial buildings loomed on either side, and I was utterly lost.

“Think, Autumn,” I whispered to myself, trying to calm my racing heart. What had I witnessed? Federico torturing a man, followed by men hunting me down, wanting to take me to “the boss.” Federico killing them in return.

The money. The mansion. The guards. The weapons. The fear people showed him at the gala. Was Federico some kind of assassin? Hitman?

That’s what it had to be. From how easily he tortured and killed, I knew he wasn’t new to this. It had to be his profession. He was getting paid for this.

Fuck.

I was married to a professional killer.

I darted down a narrow alley, praying it led somewhere with people and safety.

What was I thinking, following him? How stupid could I be? Playing detective like I was in some crime show when real bullets were flying.

I took a right, then a left, moving deeper into the maze of alleys. I felt like I was going the wrong way. Getting more lost.

Panic clawed at my throat.

Where was I? These buildings all looked the same. I couldn’t even see the main road anymore.

I turned another corner and stopped dead.

A brick wall. No way through.

A dead end.

“No, no, no,” I muttered, turning back—only to freeze at the sound of multiple footsteps coming my way.

I pressed myself against the wall, hoping the shadows would hide me. My breath came in shallow pants that I tried desperately to quiet.

“Check down there,” a man’s voice ordered. “The boss wants the wife. Alive.”

The wife.

My blood turned to ice.

They were looking for me.

Three men appeared at the entrance of the alley. I pushed myself further back against the wall, hoping they wouldn’t see.

But one pointed.

“There she is!”

I was trapped. No way out. No weapon. Nothing.

Oh my god. I looked around, wondering if there was a wall to scale or a door leading to somewhere else. But I saw nothing.

The panic clawed at my chest, making my vision hazy. I thought I might pass out.

And then, they were standing right before me.

The one in front smiled, his teeth gleaming like a ghost’s.

“Mrs. Lebedev,” he hissed. “You’re causing quite the commotion tonight.”

“Stay back,” I warned, though my voice trembled. “I don’t know who you are—”

“But we know who you are.” He took another step closer.

“Please, just leave me be,” I said, literally cowering against the wall. “There’s been a mistake.”

The man laughed. “No mistake. You’re the latest Lebedev bride. And your husband will give us whatever we want to get you back.”

Who the fuck was my husband involved with? Whatever it was, he’d led trouble straight to my door. I felt tears rush down my cheeks. How stupid was I to have thought this marriage could save me from ruin when it was proving to be the end of me?

The man reached for me, and I mentally prepared myself to kick, scratch, bite—anything—when the night exploded.

The first man’s head jerked back as a bullet hit him through the head. He dropped dead before I could even process what happened.

The other two spun, reaching for their weapons, but it was too late.

Federico stepped into view with his gun raised. Two more shots, so fast they sounded like one continuous blast. The men fell, one after another, hitting the ground with sickening sounds.

And Federico— my husband —didn’t even look shocked.

With his gun still raised, he walked toward me, but his eyes darted all around, looking for others.

Who was he? This wasn’t the man who looked at me like I could be his world. This wasn’t the man who held open doors. He looked like a man with no conscience.

He finally looked at me, and then I saw the man I remembered. His brows furrowed with concern, his eyes lit up with relief.

“Are you hurt?” he asked softly as he quickly moved to me, visually checking me for injuries.

I pressed harder against the wall, unable to speak. My whole body trembled uncontrollably.

“Autumn,” he said, softer now. “We need to go. Right now. There could be more.”

I stared at the bodies on the ground. Three men. Alive seconds ago. Now nothing.

“You killed them,” I whispered.

“They were going to take you,” he said simply, as if that explained everything.

I felt sick.

“Autumn,” Federico’s voice was urgent now. “We need to leave. Please . I might not be able to fight our way out if more come.”

More. There could be more. There could be more fighting, and I would have to witness more deaths.

I couldn’t stay here, surrounded by dead men in a dead-end alley. When his hand touched my arm, I flinched but didn’t pull away.

Federico led me back through the maze of buildings, keeping me close, his body partially shielding mine as we moved. One hand held his gun at the ready; the other kept a firm grip on my arm.

We reached his SUV, and the driver waited inside with the engine running.

“All clear, Boss?” he asked as Federico opened the back door for me. I got in. Quietly. Without argument.

If Federico was dangerous, hanging around here was lethal.

I sank into the seat, and Federico slid in beside me from the other side.

“Go,” he ordered, and the car pulled away from the curb.

I stared straight ahead, my mind replaying the night’s events in horrific detail. The torture. The gun. The blood. The bodies.

“Are you cold?” Federico asked after a few minutes of silence had passed. “I can turn up the heat.”

I shook my head.

“The windows?” he offered. “Fresh air might help.”

Another head shake.

He shifted in his seat. “Water? There should be—”

“Stop,” I whispered as I looked right at him, glaring at him to be silent. “Just... stop.”

He fell silent, but my eyes remained on him, as though they were seeing him for the first time. The streetlights in the darkness highlighted the hard angles of his jaw and the intensity of his eyes.

Who was this man?

My fingers twisted in my lap, still shaking. I tried to steady them, embarrassed by my weakness.

Federico noticed—of course, he did.

He noticed everything.

Probably had to—as an assassin.

“It’s adrenaline,” he said quietly. “It’ll pass.”

I looked at the blood on his shirt, the bruise forming on his jaw. The way he held himself, alert and ready, even now.

“Who are you?” I asked, my voice barely audible.

He looked away, out the window at the passing city. “We’ll talk at home.”

“Talk about what? How you torture people? How you kill like it’s nothing? How you’ve been lying to me since the day we met?”

His jaw tightened. “Not here.”

I let out a scornful little laugh, but he didn’t take the bait. He remained quiet. The rest of the ride passed in tense silence. I retreated into my thoughts, trying to make sense of everything.

The pieces were all there—Federico’s mysterious work. The armed guards at his house. The fortune he seemed to have access to. The way those men knew exactly who I was.

All pointing to something I’d been too naive to see.

A god damn assassin.

By the time we reached the mansion, I’d stopped shaking. The fear hadn’t disappeared—it had hardened into something like anger.

He should have told me the truth before embroiling me in his mess of a life. His dangerous, problematic world. A word he once used to describe the people he knew, but I was too innocent to think much of it.

I got out of the car before Federico could reach around to open my door.

Chivalry could go to hell. An assassin, however chivalrous, was still an assassin.

I stormed into the house, and Federico followed. I headed straight to the bar, poured myself a double scotch, and downed it before turning to face him.

“You’re a fucking assassin, aren’t you?” I demanded.

His eyebrows nearly hit the roof, and to see him act so surprised only angered me further. I slammed the glass down and walked over to him, staring up right into his towering eyes.

“Don’t you dare act like I’m the one who lost her mind.

“You owe me the truth, Federico,” I said, voice rising.

“I’ve watched you bleed, lie, kill —and every time I asked, you deflected.

So stop. Stop protecting me or sparing me or whatever delusion you’re operating under and just tell me the truth.

Don’t you dare try to lie about this. I’m your WIFE! ”

He flinched, as if I’d slapped him across the face. Then, he met my glare with his forest green eyes—eyes I used to lose myself in. Then he said it. Calmly. Cleanly. Like he wasn’t detonating my entire world.

“I’m Bratva.”

The words didn’t register at first. Not fully. I just stared.

“You’re what?”

“Bratva,” he repeated, stepping closer. “It means brotherhood. But not the kind you’re thinking. I’m part of a family that runs one of the most powerful criminal syndicates in the world. Old blood. Old rules. Old money. What you saw tonight is a part of who we have always been.”

I took a step back. “A syndicate.”

He nodded, and his face softened. “We control arms and drug ammunition. Run casinos and territories. Have internal intelligence. What the government can’t handle, we do. What they want done quietly—they come to us.”

I swallowed hard, the air thinning around me. “You’re a criminal. You kill people.”

“When they come for what’s mine? Yes.”

“I married a Bratva thug,” I whispered. “I married into the mob .”

“I’m not a thug, I’m an enforcer,” he said. “I’m at the top. My name carries weight across oceans. I don’t take orders, Autumn—I—” His voice faltered, and he looked at me like every word was a stab in his chest. “I give them.”

Something snapped in my chest.

My vision tunneled. My lungs stopped working right. My hands started to shake—fingers curling into my sides because I couldn’t physically control them anymore.

The air felt thick. The room felt small. My skin felt tight.

“I—” I tried to speak but couldn’t catch my breath. My throat closed, like someone was squeezing it shut from the inside.

Heat rushed to my face. I staggered back a step, clutching the edge of the console table behind me. It crashed to the floor. My knees gave way. I dropped to the floor.

“Autumn?” His voice changed instantly as he rushed over. Sharper. Softer. A thread of alarm under the calm. “Look at me. Just breathe.”

But I couldn’t.

My chest rose in shallow gasps. My ears were ringing. My body was shutting down.

I’m having a panic attack, I thought dimly. And there was nothing I could do to stop it.