Page 30 of The Bratva Stalker and His Pregnant Bride

Samuel doesn’t flinch. He slowly sets his own silverware down, his blue eyes narrowing as he absorbs my words. “I didn’t pull a stunt, Ashley. I went to see my son.”

“He’s a four-year-old boy. Not even fully four yet,” I snap, my tone hardening. “He has a routine, a sense of security, and a mother who has protected him from day one. If you want to be involved in his life, it’s going to be on my terms, and my terms only. And that starts with one non-negotiable rule: You do not tell him who you are. Not yet. As far as Ethan is concerned, you are Samuel, my business associate and friend. His life is stable, and I will not have it upended because you suddenly decided to show up.”

Samuel’s jaw tightens, a dangerous, dark shadow crossing his face. He rejects the boundary instantly, a harsh, mocking sound escaping his throat.

“A friend?” he repeats, his voice vibrating with sudden, raw heat. “You want me to play-act as a family friend? Absolutely not. The truth isn’t something you get to delay, reshape, or ration out whenever it suits your comfort level, Ashley. He’s my son. I felt it the second I looked at him, and he felt it too. I’m not going to stand in the margins of his life pretending to be some distant uncle while you pull the strings.”

“You don’t have a choice!” I yell, the control I worked so hard to maintain finally snapping. I scrape my chair back, the wood groaning against the floor as I stand, towering over the table. “You don’t get to disappear for four years, live your dangerous, lawless life, and then march in here demanding to be ‘Daddy’ on day one! It would confuse him. It would terrify him!”

“You don’t know a damn thing about what would terrify him!” Samuel roars, slamming his palms flat against the mahogany table as he surges to his feet.

The sheer force of his movement rattles the wine glasses, but I don’t back down. He rounds the table with predatory, furious strides, closing the distance between us until he’s directly in my space. I refuse to retreat. I stand my ground, my chin lifted, our chests practically touching as we glare at each other, the air thick with years of unspoken resentment and sudden, volatile fury.

“I’ve been locked out of his life for four years because of your choices,” he growls, his face inches from mine, his icy blue eyes wild with a pain he is trying desperately to mask as anger. “I’m not going to sit back and let you dictate how I get to love my own kid. I connected with him today, Ashley. He looked at me, he laughed with me, and he saw himself in me. I’m his father. That is a fact, and I’m not going to lie to him for your peace of mind!”

“This isn’t about my peace of mind, you arrogant bastard!” I hiss back, my voice trembling with rage as I press my hand firmly against his chest, feeling the heavy, rapid thud of his heart beneath the dark knit fabric. “It’s about his safety! Look at who you are! Look at what your family does! You think you can just bring the Bratva to his playground? You think you can introduce him to a world where people get targeted, shot, and hunted? I raised him in the light. You live in the dark. If you tell him the truth, you drag him into your shadows, and I will burn this entire city to the ground before I let you do that to him!”

“He’s a Rusnak!” Samuel barks, his large hands reaching out to grip my upper arms, not to hurt me, but to steady the violent shaking running through both of our bodies. His grip is iron, his chest heaving as he stares down at me, completely unraveled. “It’s in his blood, Ashley! You can’t run from it, and you can’t protect him from who he is by lying to him!”

“I am his mother!” I scream back, my eyes stinging with hot, angry tears that I refuse to let fall. I shake his hands off my arms, stepping even closer, my breath hot against his jaw. “I am the one who held him when he had fevers. I am the one who built this fortress. You have no rights here, Samuel! None!”

“I have every right!” he shouts, his voice echoing off the kitchen walls, raw, feral, and completely stripped of the civilized corporate executive he pretends to be.

We stand there, panting, completely up in each other’s faces, the space between us suffocatingly small. The anger, the unresolved passion of a night four years ago, and the sheer terror of what this child means to both of us collide in a blinding, dangerous friction. Neither of us is willing to back down. Neither of us is willing to yield. We are two forces of nature on a collision course, and the wreckage has only just begun.

“Fucking hell,” Samuel swears, followed by another swear in Russian.

Before I can even draw breath to scream at him again, his large, scarred hands shoot forward. He grips my waist, his fingers digging into the soft wool of my knit sweater, and drags me flush against his chest. The sheer, overwhelming momentum of his body knocks the remaining air from my lungs.

And then, his mouth crashes down on mine.

Chapter 16 – Samuel

I have commanded men, negotiated multi-million-dollar shipments under the threat of gunfire, and faced down the coldest killers the Bratva has to offer. But nothing—absolutely nothing—has ever paralyzed me quite like the taste of Ashley’s mouth.

The kiss is a chaotic, beautiful violence. It is the collision of four years of ghosts, of lies, of a son I didn’t know I had, and the simmering, undeniable heat that we both tried to pretend was just a fleeting mistake.

For years, I approached intimacy the way I approached my work: detached, controlled, and entirely clinical. Sex was a release, a transaction of mutual pleasure where I never let myself get fully dragged beneath the surface. It was easy to walk away when you kept your soul locked behind iron doors.

But this time, there’s a terrifying, consuming intention behind my actions. I’m fully, painfully present. I don’t just want her body; I want her. I want the sharp, defiant spirit that refuses to bow to my name. I want the brilliant, fierce mother who built a fortress to protect my son. Every touch is layered with a heavy, raw meaning that scares me to my very core.

Ashley’s hands press hard against my shoulders, her fingers digging into my sweater as she tries to push me away. She fights me, her body tense, her lips tight with a stubborn resistance fueled by anger, mistrust, and the sheer terror of what giving in means for her carefully ordered life.

I swear against her mouth, refusing to let her retreat.

“Please, Ash…” I deepen the kiss, my hands sliding down to grip her hips, pulling her so close there is no room for doubts, no room for the walls she tries so desperately to rebuild. “Krasavitsa, I’m burning for you. Please. I’m not the same man.”

Slowly, the resistance begins to fracture.

Her rigid posture gives way, her hands sliding from my shoulders to tangle desperately in my hair. A low, trembling sigh escapes her lips, and then she is kissing me back with a fierce, consuming hunger that matches my own. This isn’t soft. It isn’t a gentle reconciliation. It is a desperate, volatile release of everything we have left unsaid, everything we have tried to bury under logistics contracts and corporate boardrooms.

“Ashley,” I growl against her lips, my voice a rugged, breathless ruin.

She doesn’t answer with words. She just pulls me closer, her nails scratching lightly against the nape of my neck, her breath hitching as I trail my lips down the sensitive line of her throat.

The heat between us is absolute, a wildfire ready to burn down the entire house. I slip my hands beneath her thighs, lifting her effortlessly off her feet. She wraps her legs around my waist without hesitation, her hands anchoring her to my chest as I hold her against me, her heart hammering wildly against my own.

She pulls back just enough to look at me, her brown eyes dark with a wild, intoxicating mix of anger and desire. Her breathing is ragged.