Page 62 of Pregnant Virgin of the Bratva

The mansion is too quiet when I wake up hours later.

I sit on the edge of the bed, arms wrapped around my stomach, listening to the silence press in from every wall. No voices. No footsteps. Even the distant hum of staff moving through the halls feels muted tonight, like the house is holding its breath alongside me.

I should be resting. My body aches. There’s a sharp throb in my side, and a dull soreness in my legs that reminds me of how hard I ran, how close it was. But it’s not my body that refuses to settle—it’s everything else.

My thoughts haven’t stopped since Kion carried me through the doors.

I keep seeing Damien’s face. That smug smile. The cold certainty in his voice when he said he’d make me pay. I hear the scrape of boots behind me, the alley closing in like jaws, the sick certainty that I wasn’t going to get out.

Then I see Kion.

The way he appeared, quiet and lethal. The way his hands moved—quick, brutal, methodical. The sounds his fists made. The blood.

He didn’t hesitate. Not for a second. He came for me like a storm, then tucked me into bed, the gentlest I’ve ever seen him. I haven’t said a word to him since.

He didn’t ask for one. Just held me, wrapped me in warmth and silence, and made sure I ate, bathed, changed. And then he left, slipping from the bedroom sometime after I curled under the covers. I felt the space cool beside me. I didn’t stop him.

Now, as the moon rises and the fire in the hearth dims, I find I can’t sit still any longer.

I need to find him.

I move barefoot down the hall. The floor is warm beneath my soles, but my hands are cold. I wrap them into the sleeves of my robe as I pass the closed doors and quiet wings of the estate, until I reach the one door I’ve never walked through without an invitation.

The room is dark when I push the door ajar, the lights off, but the glass balcony doors are open wide. A breeze stirs the curtains, and the faint scent of smoke lingers in the air.

He’s outside. Shirtless.

The glow of a cigarette ember flares in his hand, casting momentary light across the edge of his jaw. The rest of him is silvered in moonlight—his chest broad, legs stretched out, bare feet propped against the railing. His scars are more visible like this. Not softened by shadow, not hidden by clothes. They mark him in jagged lines and deep slashes, across ribs and shoulder and spine.

He doesn’t look back, but the corner of his mouth twitches—the kind of half smirk that always means he’s two steps ahead of me.

I pause behind him, watching the smoke curl upward and vanish into the air. Then I step forward. I reach out slowly, almost without thinking, and touch one of the longer scars across his ribs. It’s old, rough beneath my fingers. He flinches—just once—but he doesn’t pull away.

My hand stays there.

This is the first time he doesn’t feel like something untouchable.

He doesn’t speak right away.

Neither do I.

He turns his head, profile all sharp lines and new shadows. “Silence was the only thing we were ever allowed to keep. Love came in fists—if it came at all. I got more bruises than birthday cakes. Didn’t do much for my sense of humor, but I made up for it later.”

My fingers still.

“I broke into a stash house. Was trying to prove something to someone who’s already dead.” His voice is dry. Tired. “Didn’t make it five minutes before I took a knife to the ribs.”

I move my hand gently. Trace another one across his shoulder blade.

“That?”

“Belt. From my father.”

I press my lips together.

He turns his head slightly. His profile is sharp in the moonlight, but softer somehow. Less carved from steel.

“I grew up in a house where silence was survival. Where love came in fists, if it came at all. My mother tried to protect us, but she was small. Sick. He broke her down before I ever really knew her.”