Pregnant with My Enemies' Heir

1. Alley Blood & Silk

Alley Blood & Silk

Vera

The clinic smells like antiseptic and old coffee when I lock the cabinet for the third time.

Sister Marisol hates it when I leave after midnight. She says good girls with famous last names don’t wander the streets carrying narcotics and goodwill like party favors. I tell her antibiotics aren’t narcotics, and goodwill isn’t a crime.

She tells me the world doesn’t care.

I slide two blister packs of amoxicillin into my canvas medic bag anyway.

Mr. Alvarez lives three blocks over, third floor, no elevator, lungs that sound like paper crumpling in a fist. If he goes to a hospital, they’ll ask questions about insurance he doesn’t have and paperwork he can’t read.

The neighborhood knows my last name. That buys protection. Sometimes it buys silence.

It also paints a target.

I pull my coat tighter and step into the wet shimmer of the street. Rain earlier left the pavement slick and reflective, turning the city into a broken mirror. Neon signs hum. Somewhere, a siren wails and then fades, like it remembered it wasn’t supposed to come here.

This is our territory.

People call it protection.

I call it a tax paid in fear.

The alley behind the clinic is my shortcut. I know every dented dumpster, every loose brick, every security camera mounted high and watching nothing. My heels click once before I regret wearing them and slip them off, tucking them into my bag. Stockinged feet are quieter.

I make it halfway down before the engine growl hits me.

Low. Expensive. Not from around here.

Headlights flare at the mouth of the alley, washing the brick in white. A black SUV rolls forward slowly, deliberately, sealing the exit like a lid snapping shut.

My pulse stutters—but I don’t run.

Running invites chase.

The rear door opens.

Two men step out first. Broad shoulders, dark suits cut for movement instead of fashion. They drag someone between them—a man whose shoes leave streaks on the wet pavement.

He’s bleeding.

A lot.

His head lolls forward, hair soaked dark, shirt torn open at the chest. Even from here, I can see the entry wound near his collarbone.

Arterial. Not fatal yet.

“Please,” he chokes, though I don’t know who he’s begging.

The alley narrows. My spine presses against cold brick as if the wall might swallow me.

One of the men shoves him to his knees.

There’s a sharp crack.

The sound ricochets off the brick and steel like a slammed door.

The body folds forward instantly. No dramatic pause. No cinematic last breath. Just gravity taking over as if a string’s been cut.

Gunpowder bites the air.

For a second, nobody moves.

The world goes eerily still, like the city is holding its breath.

I count automatically.

One Mississippi. Two. Three.

No movement from the man on the ground.

The shooter lowers his arm. Efficient. Unbothered.

Professional.

My stomach turns—but my feet move before my brain does.

“Roll him,” I hear myself say.

All three men look at me at once.

I step forward into the spill of light.

“I can stop the bleeding,” I add, though we all know that isn’t true anymore. “He’s still warm.”

One of them laughs softly. Not amused. Just surprised.

Another figure steps out of the shadow near the SUV.

He doesn’t rush.

He doesn’t need to.

Tall. Broad. Tailored black coat that falls like poured ink over his shoulders. The kind of fabric that costs more than the clinic’s monthly rent. Steel gleams at his wrist when he adjusts his cuff.

He doesn’t look at the body first.

He looks at me.

Not in the way men usually do.

Not at my legs, or my mouth, or the fact that I’m alone in an alley after midnight.

He studies my face like he’s matching it to a memory.

Dark eyes. Unblinking. Controlled.

I’ve seen him before.

Across banquet halls thick with perfume and politics. On the periphery of my father’s meetings. In newspapers that print speculation instead of truth.

Roman Koval.

The exiled prince.

The brother who came back.

The man whose name has been circling our city like a storm cloud.

Recognition flickers across his expression—so subtle I might have imagined it.

Then it hardens.

Decision.

His gaze drops briefly to my canvas bag.

The red cross stitched near the zipper.

When he looks back up, something in his posture shifts. Calculated.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he says.

His voice is low, smooth. No wasted syllables.

“I work here,” I answer before fear can swallow my tongue.

Silence stretches.

One of his men nudges the body with his shoe. “It’s done.”

Roman doesn’t look away from me.

“I know who you are,” he says.

It isn’t a question.

The night air feels thinner.

“I doubt that” I reply softly.

His mouth curves—not into a smile. Into something sharper.

“Vera Bellini.”

My pulse hammers once against my throat.

He steps closer.

The space between us shrinks until I can see the faint shadow of stubble along his jaw, the precise cut of his coat, the way nothing about him feels rushed.

He smells faintly of cedar and smoke.

Behind him, the men wait for instruction.

To him, they are extensions.

Tools.

“Your father keeps you very safe,” Roman says.

“I keep myself safe.”

His gaze flicks to my bare feet on wet pavement.

“Do you?”

There’s blood pooling near the dead man’s hands. It creeps toward the gutter like it has somewhere to be.

“I can’t help him,” I admit quietly. “But I can help someone else. So if you’re finished—”

His hand moves so fast I don’t see it until it’s there.

Cold metal presses against my ribs.

Right beneath my breast.

Exactly where a lung sits.

I freeze.

The gun isn’t shaking.

Neither is his hand.

Up close, his eyes are even darker. Not wild. Not cruel.

Measured.

As if he’s calculating angles and consequences.

One of his men shifts behind him. “Boss—”

Roman doesn’t break eye contact with me.

“Quiet,” he says.

It takes me a second to realize he isn’t speaking to them.

The barrel digs in slightly.

Not enough to bruise.

Enough to remind.

“Quiet, princess.”