Page 44 of Kept By the Bratva
After I’d had her. I curled my fingers into a fist.Goddammit.If I’d told her who I was, if I gave her any way to get ahold of me and see each other again, maybe this wouldn’t have happened.
“I’m sorry,” I said sincerely.
She jerked her face up, blinking quickly. “Are you… are you mocking me?”
I glowered at her. “What the hell does that mean?”
“I don’t understand. What could you be sorry about?”
I licked my lips, nursing the slip there. She’d been so impatient to tend to my wounds when I’d returned, and I loved being under her care. Amy was a compassionate, giving woman, and I longed for her tenderness again. It seemed unlikely now.
“I’m sorry that this happened to you.”
She blinked, pensive and speechless for a long moment. Her surprise at my words of kindness pissed me off. Like she wouldn’t ever thinkthat I could say something kind. That I was only a bad guy, an evil person capable of lying and killing.
We didn’t fit in each other’s worlds, but I would give her mine.
It didn’t matter what happened. I refused to give her up. Amy was caught in my life now, and I wouldn’t let her go.
She couldn’t be free. Not with this new development. Diego wanted her, stuck on a weird obsession to have “his blonde” that he paid so much for.
We already knew this couldn’t be an easy solution. We’d gotten the women out to hurt the Cartel, and we had, but we had to wait and figure out how to release them.
Now, with Diego’s claim and this pregnancy, she could never return to her old life in the “normal” civilian world.
“Amy, I will keep you with me.”
She sniffled and hung her head. Her chin touched her chest, and tears dripped down to wet the carpet.
“I will make sure you’re safe.”
“Bypayingfor me. So I will be indebted to you and be your, your possession to lock up?Yourslave instead of his?”
I gritted my teeth. “You will be no one’s slave. I’m paying him to get him to back off.”
Standing, I glared at her. Hurt and annoyed that she would balk at being with me, I paced away.
“Even with a baby you couldn’t tell me about.”
She sucked in a deep breath and lifted her teary face to me. “No. Nik, it’s not. I probably won’t have the baby. I doubt I’ll carry him or her to full term.”
I paused, studying her. “Why?”
“I have a condition. PCOS. A miscarriage is highly likely. I’m just not sure that I am even able to keep a baby full term.”
Fuck.Every word was coated in a determined tone that she’d survive this all. But I hated the idea of her facing such a hardship alone.
“Amy.” Her name was torn from my mouth, and I hurried to hold her. She was stiff, breathing evenly to likely stop crying, but she rested her head against me as I offered her the simple comfort of a hug.
“It…” I heaved out a deep breath, preparing to lie again. “It’ll be okay.”
I couldn’t promise her that, but I would do everything in my power to see to her comfort and security. Nothing was guaranteed in life, but I wouldn’t fail her. Diego wouldn’t have her. That rapist would never see her again.
I detested that she was forced into my life like this. That she hadn’tchosena life with me.
But she is here, now.
Leaning down and cupping her sweet face, I kissed her. Just once, a tame brush of my lips against hers. She sighed, keeping her eyes closed, and I did it again, letting her know that I wasn’t mad at her, that I didn’t hold any of this against her.