Page 11 of Pregnant Virgin of the Bratva

I grin. “Probably.”

Her lips press into a thin line. She looks exhausted and frightened, but even now she doesn’t beg. Doesn’t plead. I can’t decide if that makes her brave, or stupid.

I straighten up and step back, eyes never leaving her face. The fear is still there, lurking beneath her anger, and I let her sit in it. Let it soak into her bones for long enough for her to start wondering what comes next.

She shifts in the chair again, wrists tugging at the rope, testing the slack with more precision now. Not panic. Calculation. I recognize it, the slow tilt from fear to strategy. She’s still terrified, but she’s starting to plan around it.

I don’t stop her. Let her try.

Her eyes track me as I move to the small metal table near the wall, pick up the notebook from her bag, and flip through it one more time. The pages are water-damaged now, some of the pencil sketches smudged beyond recognition. I find one that’s still mostly intact—two figures drawn in a diner booth, heads bowed together, one hand reaching across the table. It’s rough, fast, but there’s care in it.

“You draw everyone you see?” I ask, turning the page without looking at her.

She doesn’t answer.

I glance over my shoulder. “Or just the stuff you find interesting?”

“I didn’t draw you,” she says coldly.

“No, I suppose you didn’t get the chance. I bet I’d look good in this little notebook; I wonder how I look through your eyes?”

She tenses. I see the movement in her shoulders before she even realizes she gave something away. I set the notebook down and walk back toward her. The chair creaks as she leans back, but there’s nowhere for her to go.

“You’re a watcher,” I say. “Not the kind that makes a lot of noise. The kind that sees too much. Slips in. Stays quiet, and people forget you were even there.”

She flinches, just barely. Enough.

“You make up stories about them,” I continue. “Strangers. People on the street. You build little lives in your head and scribble them down like they belong to you.”

She looks up at me, sharp now. “You read my notebook?”

I smile. “Of course I did. Though it’s not nearly as interesting as this sketchbook here.”

“That’s private.”

“So is a man getting his brains blown out in a warehouse. But you watched that too.”

Her mouth opens, then shuts. Her expression crumbles just for a second—one heartbeat of real, crushing horror before she pulls herself together again.

“I wasn’t supposed to be there,” she mutters.

“No. You weren’t.”

The silence stretches between us like wire, tight and fragile.

She exhales, long and slow. “So what now?”

I consider her for a moment. My thumb brushes the corner of the table absently. “That depends on you.”

“You said I’m a problem.”

“You are.”

“Then fix it.”

Her defiance almost makes me laugh. She’s shaking—she probably doesn’t even know she is—but she stares me down like she has a say in how this ends. There’s a heat behind her fear, and I like it more than I should.

“I haven’t decided what to do with you,” I say. “Not yet.”