Page 158 of Bratva and Betrayal: Kirill

I remembered the knife in my boot. If I had to slash my way out of there, I would. Kirill owned this city. I could get away with murder. But will Adrian’s men kill me first? Is my father that desperate to keep me away from Kirill and my baby that he’d let the Bratva murder me?

Seconds later, there was a bang on the bedroom door.

“Are you packed?” My father jiggled the locked knob. “Open this door!”

“No, I want to go home,” I cried, my breasts aching and leaking. “My baby needs me. She needs to be fed.”

The door broke open, ripped from its hinges. My father stood in the fractured doorway, his expression dark and furious. Before I could move, before I could reach for the knife, he lunged, his hand closing around my arm again, dragging me back toward the hall.

“Let go of me!” I struggled, pulling hard, but I was so exhausted, my eyesight hazy.

We stumbled into the hallway, my feet slipping slightly against the polished wood. As I twisted, I wrenched my arm free just long enough to brandish the knife from my boot.

“Don’t come near me,” I warned, my voice shaking as I held the blade out in front of me.

My father froze. “You’re just like him,” he hissed.

“She wishes.” Adrian’s voice turned me around.

Blocking the stairs, he stood there, his eyes fixed on me with a cold, assessing intensity that made my skin crawl. And he was standing between me and my child, so I pushed my father away and lifted the knife.

“I am Kirill’s wife,” I screamed, hoping someone in his brigade would understand the gravity of this situation. “I gave birth to his child. The heir to this brotherhood. He will kill all of you when he finds out what you’ve done to me.”

“You silly child,” Adrian said, his furious voice mocking me. “You ruined everything. Spread your legs for our future pakhan. Got pregnant on purpose. Gold digger!”

“Now, wait a minute, Chernov,” Dad cracked. “Don’t talk to my daughter that way.”

“Shut up!” He smacked my father in the jaw.

Fury flooded my veins, and I lunged in a desperate move out of emotion and not coordination. More panic than precision. Adrian caught my hand easily. The man trained in a Russian military camp. Of course, he’d block the knife. He twisted my wrist with a sharp crunch until the blade slipped from my fingers. It clattered uselessly to the floor.

His other hand came up, gripping my throat. “I gave you a chance,” he muttered with alcohol on his breath.

My sight dimmed as he forced me back, my boot heels hitting the edge of the top step.

“Chernov, what the fuck are you doing to my daughter?” my father yelled, but he was held back by other men.

I glanced behind me. The drop down this staircase and those metal rails was suddenly very real.

“Kirill was supposed to marry my daughter!” he snarled, his face inches from mine. “She is the woman he really wants. They spent all weekend together at my house in Belize before he met you. He married you out of obligation. I’m here to undo that.”

I tried to process the idea of Kirill with another woman. But he was thirty, rich, and heir to the Bratva. He admitted to being with other women. He just never told me he was supposed to marry one of them.

Adrian’s grip tightened, and he stared down at me. “After this, I’m going to kill that bastard child of yours.”

My father’s voice cut in, strained from being held. “Adrian, what are you doing?”

“Fixing the problem,” he replied without looking away from me. “The one you failed to take care of like I told you.”

For a split second, everything narrowed to the stairs my feet could no longer touch. The grip of Adrian’s hand against my throat tightened. With a final look of hatred in his eyes, he pushed me.

The world disappeared beneath my feet, and I fell backward.

My baby.

Kirill.

Those thoughts collided, frantic and desperate, clawing at me as I tried to reach for something, anything, to stop from falling. Nothing.