29. Tatiana

29

TATIANA

M y brothers held the same expression… one I'd seen before when they lost control of their rational thinking and sanity.

This was bad and would only get worse once the three of them went on the offense.

Nikolai lunged first. My brother was fast as hell and actually landed a blow, his fist connecting with Gio's jaw with a sickening thud. Or maybe Gio let him throw the first punch. I questioned that as I stared in shock at his now bloody and busted lip and the grin he sported.

Gio wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand, his eyes narrowing as he looked between my brothers .

Before I could react, Dmitry was on him too, and the shower room erupted into a brutal, chaotic fight.

Oh God . I covered my mouth with my hands as I watched the ruthlessness.

"Stop it!" I screamed, but my voice was drowned out by the sounds of fists meeting flesh, grunts of pain, and the harsh breathing of the three men I loved more than anything else locked in a battle.

My heart was racing, pounding in my chest with this achingly hard force. My own battle waged inside me between needing to protect Gio and not getting involved because I'd known this would be the outcome.

This is all my fault.

But I knew there was no stopping this, not unless I threw myself into the mix, and that wasn't going to happen.

Gio fought back with a ferocity that matched my brothers, his eyes wild with fury. He landed a solid punch to Nikolai's temple, causing my brother to stumble. But Dmitry was on Gio then, and he was relentless.

"Please, stop!" I cried, tears now streaming down my face.

My hand instinctively went to my belly, and I gently curled my fingers into the soft flesh .

Dmitry staggered back, wiping the blood from his mouth before he dove back in. For it being a two-on-one fight, Gio was holding his own. But I wasn't surprised.

I screamed for them to stop, but it all fell on deaf ears.

The fight was inhuman, three alpha wolves battling to the death, and the tension in the room was so suffocating I gasped for air. All of the men momentarily stopped their fighting. Nikolai and Dmitry stood on either side of Gio, their eyes blazing with anger and something else… something twisted and ugly.

Dmitry took a step forward, his gaze never leaving Gio's. "You think we wouldn't find out?" His voice was low, dangerous. "Did you actually think we wouldn't know that you're the one who took out the bastard who assaulted our sister?"

Blood dripped from their faces. Dmitry's knuckles were raw and bleeding, Nikolai's eye was already swelling shut, and Gio's lip was split open. All of them sported splatters of crimson.

The sight of their violence, the brutality of their rage, was too much for me.

Fuck. I shivered from the adrenaline rush and my sopping-wet clothes sticking to my body .

Gio's expression never changed from a mask of hardened determination. He said nothing, but his jaw worked as he ground his teeth.

"You thought you could keep that truth from us?" Nikolai's voice was sharp. "You should have come to us right away. You should have told us what the fuck went down, so we could have reacted the way we fucking saw fit."

"You would have rather I let that fucker hurt Tatiana?" Gio's voice was icy cold and even. His eyes narrowed. "I didn't do it for you or to get your fucking approval," he said, his tone rough. "I did it for her because the thought of her getting hurt twisted my gut into something ugly and painful."

Something shifted in the atmosphere.

"And Maksim?" Dmitry asked through a clenched jaw. "Was that for her, too?" The sarcasm was thick and laced with venom.

I felt the room grow colder, heavy with the weight of what was about to be said.

Nikolai was the one to speak. "You must think we are fucking morons. You thought we wouldn't hear about that either?"

Gio's jaw tightened. "Maksim was a threat." I could hear the strain in his voice. "He was working against you—against your entire family. "

The looks on my brothers' faces told me they knew. But this wasn't about that. Gio had come onto their turf and taken out one of their men—it didn't matter that he was betraying them.

"And who are you to make that call?" Nikolai snapped. "He was Bratva, and that means he was ours to deal with."

Gio didn't back down. "I did what I had to. I didn't sit around and wait for the next betrayal."

For a moment, the room was deathly silent, and the space between all of us crackled with tension, as if the anger radiating off these three males was poisoning the air.

"You think taking out a traitor makes you an ally?" Nikolai sneered as he spat out the words.

"I'm not asking to be your ally. I did what had to be done." Gio left it at that.

Nikolai and Dmitry let out twin harsh laughs.

"You don't get to ‘do what has to be done' in our world, motherfucker." Dmitry's gaze locked onto Gio, and I knew that, although he was family, my brothers didn't let anyone who went against them live.

I knew what would happen, and I only had a split second to make my decision to change the course of this .

"You might have saved our sister," Nikolai said quietly, but there was acid in his voice because he was no doubt thinking and remembering how he'd just found us, "but you can't undo what you've done. You know how we alone handle who fucks with us."

In a moment of desperate clarity, I did what I had to do—just like Gio. "I'm pregnant."

Those two words made everything freeze.

Long seconds of silence passed.

None of them even blinking as they just stared at me.

All three of them.

Nikolai was the first one to speak.

"What?" My brother's voice was hoarse and laced with disbelief.

I looked between the three of them before settling on Gio. "I'm pregnant," I whispered. I didn't need to say by who for them to know the truth.

I couldn't read Gio's expression. He kept that emotionless void in place, but the longer we stared at each other, the more I saw something… awaken in his eyes.

"You're pregnant?" he prompted, low and deep. His voice was barely audible over the pounding of my heart that filled my ears.

I nodded, tears blurring my vision. At that moment, we were the only two people in the shower room."Yes," I whispered back. "I'm pregnant."

"What in the actual fuck?" Nikolai muttered and huffed.

"Un-fucking-believable," Dmitry said, and I looked over to see my brothers still staring at me with shock.

The anger between the three of them was momentarily over, replaced by the weight of my revelation.

And then Gio moved toward me until he was close enough to touch. He reached out and gently placed his oversized hand on my stomach.

"И я думал, что это я в семье сумасшедший." And I thought I was the crazy one in the family.

I wanted to laugh at Nikolai's words, but I was locked in this overwhelming moment with the man I loved.

"My baby," Gio said, quietly enough I knew I was the only one to hear.

"Yes." I smiled, placing my hand over his. "I am," I quipped and saw his lips twitch in amusement.

Gio's eyes shone with a fierce determination. "'Bout fucking time, baby ."

I felt my eyes widen and snapped my head toward my brothers, who looked thoroughly disgusted.

"Well, shit, we can't fucking kill him now," Dmitry grumbled.

"I mean… we can ." Nikolai shrugged.

"You can try , motherfuckers," Gio inserted, but he wasn't looking at them. He seemed transfixed by the sight of my much smaller hand covering his.

"You're mine, Tatiana."

I smiled, holding back my tears. This certainly wasn't how I wanted to or planned on telling Gio, but things didn't always work out how we saw them in our heads.

"I know this is far from over," Gio said, addressing my brothers. "But right now, I want to be with my girl. So, respectfully, get the fuck out."

I closed my eyes and laughed incredulously. I expected my brothers to fight with him again, but after muttering under their breath in Russian about what a pain in the ass Gio was, they left the locker room and gave us privacy.

The room was silent as we stared at each other.

At that moment, the only thing I could hear was the promise of our future.

The three of us.