Page 37 of The Bratva Stalker and His Pregnant Bride

The stakes have never been higher. My son is out there in the dark, and I am going to bring him home—no matter how much blood I have to spill to do it.

Chapter 19 – Ashley

Two days.

Forty-eight agonizing, endless hours of staring at the walls of my living room, watching the sun rise and set, feeling the air in my lungs turn to poison. I have always been the one in control. I am the woman who manages complex shipping logistics, who handles crisis after crisis with an icy, calculated precision. I built a fortress around my life, convinced that my own strength would always be enough to keep the dangers of the world away from my son.

But now, that strength has completely collapsed, leaving behind a hollow, terrified shell.

I haven’t slept. I haven’t eaten. Every time I close my eyes, I see Ethan’s small, trusting face, and the sheer, suffocating guilt of failing to protect him tears through me like a physical blade. The house is entirely quiet, yet simultaneously deafeningly loud with the constant pounding of my heart.

It’s somewhat bearable when Samuel is here, because he comforts me, and seeing how hard he’s working to find Ethan grounds me. But he left hurriedly this morning after Kaplan called him about a trail.

Now I’m at my absolute breaking point, drowning in a sea of raw, unadulterated fear. Alone.

The front door opens, but I don’t even have the energy to look up from my spot on the sofa, my knees pulled tightly to my chest. I expect it to be another one of Samuel’s stone-faced guards, or perhaps Samuel himself, returning with more empty leads and frustration rolling off his massive shoulders.

Instead, a soft, familiar gasp echoes from the entryway.

“Ashley!”

I freeze. I raise my head slowly, my blurred vision focusing on the figure rushing toward me.

Sofia.

Before I can even process her presence, she’s on her knees in front of the couch, throwing her arms around me and pulling me into a fierce, desperate hug. The familiar scent of her, the sheer, solid warmth of her embrace, fractures the tight, frozen block of panic in my chest.

A ragged, broken sob tears from my throat as I cling to her, burying my face in her shoulder. We hold onto each other, our shared emotions spilling over in the quiet room.

“Sofia,” I choke out, my voice thick and ruined. “How…what are you doing here? You and Lukyan…you were supposed to be out of the country.”

Sofia pulls back just enough to look at me, her own eyes bright with tears as she gently wipes a stray lock of hair from my damp forehead.

“We were,” Sofia says softly, her voice carrying a comforting, steady warmth. “We were deep in the mountains, completely off the grid. You know how Lukyan is when we take our vacations—no phones, no work, just absolute silence. But two nights ago, our emergency encrypted channel started screaming. It only does that if the family is under attack.”

She takes my trembling hands in hers, squeezing them tightly.

“It was Samuel,” Sofia explains, a look of profound, lingering disbelief passing over her features. “He used the private, high-level secure channel to reach Lukyan. He didn’t call to talk about logistics or family business, Ashley. He begged him. I’ve never heard Samuel Rusnak sound like that in my life. He told Lukyan that Ethan was gone, and he begged him to let me fly back immediately because you were drowning, and you needed your best friend.”

My heart aches, a strange, warm knot forming in my chest at the realization. Even in the middle of launching a brutal, city-wide war to find our son, Samuel had stopped to think of my sanity. He had reached across the globe to bring me the one person who could ground me.

“He told us everything, Ashley,” Sofia murmurs, a gentle, half-amused but soft smile touching her lips despite the gravity of the situation. “How you met four years ago…the night in New York…all of it. I’m still in absolute shock. I can’t believe my best friend ended up with a Rusnak and I didn’t know. If you had told me years ago that our lives would be tangled up in the same family, I would have called you crazy.”

The sheer absurdity of our shared reality brings a tiny, fragile breath of laughter to my lips—the first real sound I’ve made in forty-eight hours. The heavy, unyielding bond we share acts as an anchor, pulling me back from the edge of the dark, suffocating panic.

“You’re not alone in this,” a calm, steady voice cuts in.

I look up past Sofia to see Maya standing near the kitchen doorway. She steps forward, holding a warm mug of tea, her expression filled with a quiet, maternal strength. She doesn’t offer empty platitudes or false promises. She just places the tea on the coffee table and sits on the opposite side of the sofa, her presence an unshakeable, grounding force in the middle of the raging storm.

“We’re going to find him, Ashley,” Maya says, her voice low and completely certain. “Samuel and Lukyan are turning this entire region inside out. Every resource of the Rusnak name is focused on one thing: bringing Ethan home. Until then, we’re right here. We aren’t going anywhere.”

For the first time in two days, as I sit between my two closest friends, the suffocating terror in my chest eases just enough for me to take a real, deep breath. I’m still terrified, and the nightmare is far from over, but the walls of my isolation have finally been broken.

Then, my phone vibrates in my lap.

The screen flashes with a blocked ID. I don’t look at Sofia or Maya. I don’t hesitate. I swipe the screen and press it to my ear, slipping away to the quiet corner of the hallway. I’ve been waiting for this call for days.

“I’m listening,” I whisper, my voice raw but fiercely steady. “Where is my son?”