Page 55 of Pregnant Virgin of the Bratva

I press a hand to my stomach—an instinct I don’t even think about anymore—and squeeze my eyes shut.

I don’t know if I’m shaking because I’m scared, or because it’s cold, or because I know I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t be outside Kion’s walls. I shouldn’t be walking unguarded in the open, not now.

Not when there are men in cars watching me.

Not when my body isn’t just mine anymore.

I think of the man at the post, the way he moved like he wasn’t really moving at all. Too casual. Too slow.

I crouch lower behind the dumpster, pull my coat tighter around me. My fingers are trembling now. Not from the cold. From the knowledge that I can’t outrun this, not really. No matter how far I walk or how clever I think I’m being, they’ll always know where to find me.

I’m not just Esme anymore.

I’m Kion’s wife, and that means people always come looking.

A soft scrape of something down the alley sends my heart into my throat. I don’t move. I barely breathe.

The can rolls a little further, clinking faintly against the concrete wall.

I tell myself it’s nothing, probably just the wind or the city shifting around me.

Except, then I hear the footsteps.

My breath stalls.

I press my back flat to the wall, body frozen, every muscle locked tight as the sound draws closer. One footstep. Then another. Slow and deliberate. The kind that doesn’t need to hurry because it knows it already has you.

A shadow stretches out across the alley floor. He steps into view like he’s been waiting for me to sit still. Tall, broad-shouldered. Dark coat. Thick boots. Gloved hands.

When I look up—when I finally see his face—I know this isn’t random.

I know this man came forme.

“Well,” he says, voice calm, almost conversational. “Took me longer than I’d like to find you. You move around a lot for someone who’s supposedly protected.”

My mouth goes dry. I push myself slowly to my feet, keeping the wall at my back. “Who are you?” I ask.

He smiles, but there’s no humor in it. Just teeth.

“I’m Damien Clarke,” he says, and just like that, the name drops like a stone in my gut. “You remember my brother, Aaron.”

I do, too well.

Aaron Clarke. A man with a slick smile and a dangerous tongue. A man who turned on the Sharovs for a payout and ended up dead for it. One of the first deaths I ever truly understood in Kion’s world.

“Kion murdered him.”

Fuck… I didn’t know Aaron was dead.

“I’m sorry about your brother,” I say, voice barely above a whisper.

He tilts his head. “Are you?”

“He made his choice.”

“You made the choice,” Damien snaps. “He warned you, didn’t he? Told you what would happen if you kept playing house with a monster. But you didn’t listen. You stayed. And now he’s gone.”

My spine stiffens. “You think that was my fault?”