The Bratva’s Secret Baby (Empire of Sin #2)

1. Dominik

DOMINIK

Present time

St. Petersburg

Back then, I wasn’t just breaking bones and collecting debts. I handled containment for the Markov Bratva, which meant I watched the money no one was supposed to touch. Some of our accounts weren’t real accounts. They were bait.

We set them up to look legitimate, clean paperwork, clean history, just enough balance to tempt someone stupid.

The second anyone tried to access one, the system lit up.

Names were flagged, cameras got pulled, and the location was locked.

By the time they finished telling the teller it was a simple transfer, we already knew where they were.

I open the alert since ignoring it doesn’t stop what’s already moving.

The claimant is Ana Markova.

She wasn’t some quiet wife who stayed in the background.

Vadim Markov sent her to meetings when he wanted signatures without noise.

She’d sit across from men twice her size, pour the drinks herself, hold their eyes until they signed, and then walk out before anyone could mistake her for decoration.

She wore power like it was part of the deal.

In that house, everything about her was arranged by someone else. First her father decided where she’d stand and whom she’d marry. Then Markov decided which table she’d sit at and which men she’d calm down. She learned fast. She adapted. She survived. But survival isn’t the same thing as choice.

After Markov died, after the funeral and the private condolences and the night that followed, it became clear she wasn’t safe staying where she was. Too many men were calculating what a widow was worth.

So I made her disappear because she was the only person in that house who ever spoke to me like I was human. And because, if I’m honest, she was the reason I stayed in the Markov household as long as I did. Not for the money or for Markov. For her.

I told myself it was protection. The truth is, keeping her in that house and trying to guard her from the inside would have chained me deeper to the council, deeper to work I was already trying to step away from.

Then one day, she vanished from my protection. Six years ago.

The feed updates.

She isn’t alone.

There’s a child in her arms.

That’s when the situation locks into place.

Ana didn’t surface because she wanted to.

She touched something tied to Markov’s name, and the system responded the way it was designed to.

Once a recovery order goes out, it isn’t about money or inheritance.

It’s about reclaiming assets and closing debts the council never forgave.

She’s in Sector B with a child. A dormant account has been touched. An alert went out. I can do the rest of the math.

I don’t hesitate. I grab my gun, my keys, my wallet, and the spare change I always keep in the same pocket, and I’m moving before the screen finishes loading because muscle memory exists for moments like this, when thinking slows you down and slowing down gets people killed.

I send Denis a quick text, telling him to bring the Lada around and park it near Sector B. He’s been with me for years now, long before Markov died and Ana was left a widow.

Ana survived Vadim Markov. She left a debt unsettled and vanished without a trace. That alone puts a target on her back. And when the Bratva decides to move, they don’t hesitate. If there’s a child involved, they move even faster.

A child tied to bloodlines that matter, hers and Markov’s. That’s enough to trigger interest.

A traitorous thought still creeps in. Is that my child? It couldn’t be that simple. Markov was rumored to have problems, the kind the inner circle kept quiet because power doesn’t survive laughter. But rumors aren’t proof, and timelines can be manipulated.

After his death, Ana was under my protection, and what happened between us was contained and never spoken of again. I thought I’d never see her after she ran.

“Apparently not,” I mutter to myself as I run a hand down my face.

I don’t lie to myself about the rest. I still want her.

That mouth, wicked, sweet… I’ve imagined ruining it more times than I’ll ever admit.

Even now, with the city burning under my wheels, the thought hits hot and hard.

My cock twitches at the memory of her writhing under me, how she whispered my name through parted lips as I held her arms firmly in place over her head while I fucked her, long and slow.

I glance at the message again. From my apartment to Sector B during rush hour should take forty minutes, and I cut it in half because compliance was never part of my job.

My hands stay steady on the wheel. My mind runs the math, fast, ruthless.

Ana didn’t step into the open by mistake.

She wouldn’t put herself or that child in daylight unless something forced her hand.

So, why here? Why now? Sector B’s not random.

It’s central, exposed, and surveillance-rich, certainly, not her kind of place. Unless…

My eyes narrow. She’s near a Bank Saint Petersburg branch on Nevsky Prospekt.

Markov’s old money sat there. Not operating cash or street flow but the deep reserves.

The kind you park under shell names and foreign paperwork and forget until war forces your hand.

I know exactly how loud it is if someone touches it.

If Ana is touching that money, it’s an emergency. That kind of money doesn’t move quietly. Especially not after I tied a tripwire to it when she ran. I knew the containment tier would light up the second it shifted. I knew it could pull eyes I didn’t want. But it was the only way to trace her.

Now the alert is live. And she’s fucking twenty minutes away.

I push the pedal harder and start counting backward, measuring what I have against what they did six years ago, knowing they won’t allow the same outcome twice.

Ana won’t slip out of their hands this time.

The stakes are higher now because she has a child.

If they reach her before I do, I lose her for good.

I check my watch. Twelve minutes to Sector B if traffic holds, five more before someone gets eyes on her, and no more than thirty seconds after that before they take her and the kid, and there’s nothing left for me to fix.

By the time I hit the parking structure, I’ve shaved it down to ten.

I ease through the rows of parked vehicles.

Concrete pillars loom under fluorescent glare.

Oil and tire marks smear the ramp as I spiral upward, but there’s no sign of a struggle, noise, or movement.

A part of me wonders if it’s already over, but that would’ve triggered another coded message confirming Ana and the kid were secure, and nothing like that has come through.

I lower the window and listen, straining for anything out of place. At level three, I spot an empty space and slide the car in and cut the engine before the sound can carry. I send Denis a quick text, telling him to bring his Lada and hold near Sector B.

I check my gear, the gun, the knife strapped tight at my ankle, and take the stairs. I climb two at a time and keep to the edge where the sound dulls. Footsteps scrape above me, clipped and hurried. I tighten my grip on the gun and move silently.

Then I hear a child’s scream cut through everything else, and I take the remaining steps to level four at a run.

As I clear the pillar, I see three men, Bratva recovery crew without question, and I know them by the posture, the spacing they keep, and the way they adjust without speaking.

The gloves, the jackets with no insignia, are standard issue, all part of the operation.

One already has his gun out. Another keeps his hand close, pretending he isn’t a threat. The third is trying to box a woman in against a black SUV with the engine running.

I’d recognize Ana a mile away, those curves, the long, sinewy back, the soft reach of her neck.

She has her back to me, her thick hair twisted into a braid.

She’s clutching a child tight to her chest, a little girl with a mass of dark hair falling into her face.

She’s maybe four or five, her hands fisted in Ana’s sweater, her face pressed hard into her shoulder.

One of the men reaches for the child.

Ana’s knee comes up fast and clean, and from the noise it makes, she has hit bone.

The man folds with a sound that’s more breath than pain.

She pivots immediately, elbow snapping up into the second man’s throat.

He chokes and stumbles back, dropping his grip on the car. The child clings to her all the while.

Her assailant recovers first and brings his gun up, the muzzle pressing against Ana’s head.

The child buries her face deeper into Ana’s shoulder.

The man grins and flicks off the safety.

He opens his mouth to speak when I shoot him high in the chest. His knees buckle, and the gun skids across the concrete.

I step out into the open and kick it aside, sending it down the ramp.

Ana turns at the sound and her eyes lock on mine. Years of oblivion dissolve in a heartbeat as recognition hits her hard. A hundred emotions cross her face—disbelief, anger, and something else I can’t quite place.

“Dominik,” she says. My name sounds like a bitter pill in her mouth, hard for her to swallow.

The operation was meant to stay controlled, and the crew wasn’t expecting anyone to move for Ana. The man with the ruined throat dives behind a pillar and fires blindly in my direction. The third lunges for the SUV, yanking the rear door open and trying to haul Ana and the child inside.

I slide past the next pillar, keep my grip steady, and line up the shot.

One round takes the driver. His head snaps back and his body folds sideways, blood spattering the window.

The man hauling at Ana screams and lets go of her as I fire again, the shot catching him square in the back and dropping him hard, his body going slack as he collapses near the ramp.