Page 43 of Kept By the Bratva

All the aches and pains of my injuries ceased to matter. I was stunned and numb, completely stuck in this surprise. My heart raced and my chest heaved in shallow, panted inhales, but I couldn’t do anything other than stare at her.

A baby!

I lacked the ability to understand how and why Alek could know. He likely went to see her in my room, and maybe she’d told him then. It didn’t matter. My brother was thePakhanand nothing should be a secret from him in this organization.

Even the fact that this woman I couldn’t stay away from was pregnant.

“The…” Tears shone in her eyes as she volleyed her gaze from me to Alek. She was right to face him. Without any further explanation, she realized that he was the boss around here. Yet, she constantly glanced at me, picking up on this complete shock I couldn’t mask. It was too big of a truth, too heavy of a hit to accept easily.

“The Cartel… uh… one of those thugs raped me a while back, and, um…”

Raped?

I fisted my hands, needing to pulverize something and vent this unbelievable fury. I wanted to kill the motherfucker who touched her. I wanted to slaughter the man who dared to impregnate her and?—

A low growl left my lips, and she shied back.

“She thinks that might be why the Cartel targeted her when she was walking home,” Mila said. “That one of them remembered her and…”

Amy nodded, crying softly next to me.

I yearned to pull her into my arms. To comfort her. To erase the memories of what that asshole did.

But I couldn’t. There was no reset on the past, no rewind option to change what was done.

I failed to reach out to her now, too, locked in this cold numbness. The words ping-ponged in my head, not settling as the truth. I didn’twantto believe that she’d suffered such a fate.

Alek held my gaze when I made eye contact. He was sober and solemn, too. My brother was a hard man. He had to be to lead, but he nodded at me once. I took the slight gesture as permission to be excused.

Amy’s cries grew louder, wrenching at my heart, but I didn’t think twice about placing my hand on her upper arm and guiding her out ofhere. She didn’t need an audience for this breakdown. I didn’t want her to be on the spot and feeling even worse.

When I touched her, she flinched. Her reaction to my touch pissed me off, but I tried to rein in my temper. I wasn’t mad at her. I wasn’t furious because of anything she’d done. My rage was focused on the fucker who’d violated and impregnated her, but I wasn’t doing a good job of directing my ire.

“Amy.” I said her name as calmly as I could, urging her to leave the room with me, but she jerked out of my touch, crying as she filed out of the parlor.

All the way back to my wing, she sobbed and cried, wiping her face. Her steps were sure and steady, not ruined with blurred vision from her tears, but even if she stumbled, if she faltered, I was right there to correct her, to help her if she didn’t recoil from contact with me.

Once we were back in my room, I sat and heaved out a deep breath. She didn’t sit, standing in the center of the space and avoiding eye contact. Wiping her cheeks, she drew in one deep breath after another, likely trying her hardest to regain her composure.

Amy had backbone. I knew this. It was one of the many things that attracted me to her so deeply and strongly.

She proved it by speaking up freely, without my needing to prompt her to explain or elaborate.

“I’m sorry, Nik.”

I tilted my head. Blood was caked on my skin, pulling at my brow as I furrowed it. “For what?”

“For… for all the lies that stand and have stood between us.”

I sighed, shaking my head. Lies were a part of who I was. I constantly had to hide behind them as a spy for the Bratva, as a captured man who couldn’t betray any information to our enemies.

“I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you…” She placed her hand on her stomach, and the gesture hit me hard. A baby grew in there, and it wasn’t mine. That thought came out of nowhere, but it set in deep in my soul and I hated it.

I wantedmybaby to be in her belly. I wanted to father her children. From the first night I met her, she’d lodged in deep and had me wanting her to be mine forever. I couldn’t explain it. It was just the way it had happened between us.

“When could you have?” I replied gently, lightening up on my tone. I didn’t want to make a single thing worse for her. “I didn’t exactly leave you with any means of contacting me after we first met.” I frowned. “Were you pregnant then?”

She shook her head but seemed stiff to complete the gesture.