Page 60 of The Bratva’s Stalked Pregnant Bride

My blood went cold, and I could feel Aleks’s eyes on me, but I could only glare down at the prisoner, wanting to wrap my hands around his neck and squeeze. Until his damn head came off.

“What woman?” My tone made him flinch. “Tell me now before I rip your tongue out and you’ll never say another word again.”

“Her name’s Laurel Harris. She works at that restaurant, but we weren’t supposed to kill her. It’s part of the deal to get the money for her. She’s got to be delivered alive and unharmed.”

The bright light over the prisoner’s head started slowly fading, taken over by my growing black rage. Rand wanted her unharmed so he could inflict it all himself. And he was so far gone in his egomaniacal need to control her that he was willing to mix himself up with the mob.

He didn’t expect the mob to be on Laurel’s side, though.

No time to explain to Aleks why, I turned and took off out of the shed, not giving a shit what his decision for the prisoner would be. Fear and fury drove me on. There were no thoughts except to get back home and make sure Laurel was all right, even if it meant she saw my bashed-in face and the blood on my hands.

The secrets I was keeping were going to get her killed. It was time to tell her everything and deal with the fallout. I didn’t know how I made it home, didn’t have a single recollection of any traffic lights or when I turned left or right. I just needed to get to her and keep her safe.

No matter what it cost, she had to know the truth, even if it meant she’d hate me forever.

Chapter 35 - Laurel

Nothing changed what I was looking at. Chugging two bottles of water and taking the other tests didn’t change the outcome. They all agreed I was pregnant. What a mess. After wrapping everything up in paper towels and burying it all under the bottom of the kitchen trash, there was no way I could get back to work like nothing had changed, and sleep was also out of the question.

I was antsy and amped up, but also felt like all my energy had been drained out of me, and ended up alternating between sitting and staring at nothing and wandering up and down the hallways. It was almost ten when I decided I had to get this off my chest and share it with someone so I could calm the heck down.

My mother was out of the question, but since Mila had been a friend to me when I was upset after the shooting, I decided to give it a shot and see if she’d answer. I took a deep breath, finally jamming my finger on the number in my contacts, determined to tell her everything, including the real reasons Mik and I got married. Yes, even his lie, and why it upset me so much.

I didn’t know what I was hoping for, whether it be reassurances or answers, but I wasn’t expecting her to completely blow me off.

“So sorry, Laurel, it’s just crazy over here right now,” she said before I even got out a greeting. “Can I call you back tomorrow?”

“Okay,” I said slowly, trying not to let her hear my disappointment. It was late at night. She had a kid, a husband, and a popular catering business. My news wasn’t going anywhere, either. “Sure, yeah, that’ll be fine.”

“Great,” she said. “Oh, and don’t worry about Mik. He’ll be fine.”

With that odd afterthought, she ended the call. Why would I be worried about Mik? Was there another attack at the restaurant, and he didn’t want to tell me because he didn’t think I could handle it?

I probably couldn’t. Thinking about him getting hurt because of me made me sink into the nearest chair and pull my knees up to my chest. When I could breathe properly again, I sent a text to Chase asking if there was any news about the restaurant.

You’d know before me, he answered.

Would I? Maybe not. But if something else outlandish happened, it would surely get back to Chase through the gossip grapevine. He was close with everyone who worked in the kitchen, so if something new and alarming happened, someone had to hear about it.

So if nothing happened at the restaurant, why would Mila tell me not to worry about Mik? As far as I knew, she wasn’t aware of the problems with my ex. They were a tight-knit bunch, but I couldn’t see Mik sharing something like that.

Were the family problems he was always helping out with dangerous? It did always seem odd to me that he went out at such late hours and didn’t return until the next day. But LA was a twenty-four-hour town and his family did business all over the world. Maybe it was a time zone thing?

The thought of strip clubs or wild parties might have crossed my mind in the beginning, but I knew Mik well enough by now that those things weren’t his style. At least, I thought I knew him well enough.

Actually, how well could I really know someone who left the house almost every night with no explanations? What about that long scratch across his rib cage that he said was from an accident he got helping his cousin unload some things at his warehouse? How many people as rich as the Fokins unloaded their own shipments?

Unless the shipments were full of things they didn’t want anyone to see.

“Enough,” I said out loud to myself before putting my face in my hands. “Enough is enough.”

But it wasn’t enough. One of his first days as the new owner of the restaurant, he showed up with two black eyes and a busted nose, and hadn’t bothered to come up with some nonsensical excuse at all back then. There were other times I had dismissed, or rather forcefully pushed out of my thoughts, because he insisted he was fine, and anything that hinted at violence made me queasy and weak.

I couldn’t keep dismissing it as nothing I had to worry about, especially now that his cousin was specifically telling me not to worry. What dumb advice.

I had been curious and even annoyed at his late nights, but since our marriage wasn’t real, what right did I have to demand answers? Ever since I found out I was a charity case, I really didn’t want to rock the boat. Now that I was pregnant, I had to get everything out on the table so we could decide what to do.

What if he still didn’t want to tell me? What if nothing changed? Or worse, what if everything changed, but for the worse. Because things could always, always get worse. I found myself crying, my head resting on my knees, my pajama pants slowly getting soaked with the tears flowing down my cheeks.