Page 119 of Married to My Sis’s Bratva Fiancé

A second later, the status flipped to delivered.

Chapter 26

Kiryan

On the screen, Elena had been tied to a wooden chair.

Her hair had fallen in messy strips across her face. One cheek had been swollen and red, blood dark at the corner of her mouth. Thick rope had dug across her chest and waist, her wrists yanked out to either side. She had stared straight into the camera, hazel eyes packed with tears and a fear I knew too damn well.

She had been terrified of what the person on the other end would do.

And that person had been me.

Under the photo, there had been two lines.

—Elena and your child are in my hands.

—If you want them back, come alone.

An address followed: an abandoned warehouse at Pier 8.

Baby.

That word had hit like a bullet, punching clean through my chest.

I had stared at the rope cinched above Elena's belly. Blood had roared in my ears. The last few weeks had slammed into my skull all at once—her suddenly thinner face, refusing alcohol, only drinking milk in the mornings, the way her hand had drifted to her lower stomach when she thought nobody watched.

In the photo, her arms had been forced wide, but her body had still curled inward, instinctively guarding her abdomen.

And I hadn't noticed.

She had been carrying my child.

She'd known alone, left alone, worked alone—kept herself and the baby alive alone. And I'd let Isabella's lies drag me around by the throat, then tried to shove some late apology in Elena's face like that should've fixed anything.

No wonder she hadn't told me.

I had never given her the kind of safety that let a secret breathe.

I had given her disappointment. Over and over.

I didn't even know how far along she'd been. I didn't know if she'd smiled when she'd found out, or if she'd sat in some clinic bathroom and cried by herself. She'd been so young, already trained to calculate rent and what paint could sell for before she ever thought about herself.

And me—betrayal, death, power shifts—I'd told myself nothing got past me.

I hadn't even seen my wife was pregnant.

"Pull every gun you can get in New York back to me." I slammed my palm on the desk hard enough to sting.

If I got her back tonight, I wouldn't ask her to come back because of a baby. Where she lived, whether she forgave me—that stayed her choice.

But nobody took away her chance to choose. Not in front of me.

The ache in my chest flared into pure rage.

The edge of the desk gave a soft crack under my hand.

"I've already had people pulling surveillance around Pier 8," Feodor said, fingers moving fast across the screen.