Page 12 of Bought to Bear Bratva Heir

I swallowed down the terror at the sound of Mr. Popovitch's smooth voice. He swung one leg out of the car and then another, but he didn’t stand. He just stared at me with the same blue eyes as his grandson, but without any of the warmth.

"How are you feeling?"

I blinked at him in shock. Out of all the stupid things to ask a woman who had just gone through a traumatic birth, that was top of the list. "Where is my baby?" I answered his question with one of my own.

He stared at me and then nodded once and got back into the car. "Get in," he said before slamming the door with a thud that echoed around the underground lot.

Was he serious? I was just hours out of surgery. I couldn’t even feel my legs yet, and he expected me to get up and climb into the car?

I didn’t have to worry. I was picked up, not gently, and put in the back seat next to him.

"Where is my child?" I asked again into the cool darkness. "Where is Ilya?"

The car pulled smoothly away. I watched as we passed car after car, blinking as we finally came out onto the busy New York street.

"Where are you taking me, Mr. Popovitch?" My voice cracked because I already knew. Deep down, I knew.

He sighed. "I am taking you to the airport. There you will be met by a doctor who will take over your care. Once you are—"

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him study me. His lips thinned until they had disappeared altogether. "When you are fit to fly, you will be going to London. You are going to study in England."

It had always been my dream to study there. But that had been before. I had different dreams now. "My baby?"

"My grandson," his voice turned cold, "is with his father. Everything is as it should be."

A single tear slipped down my face. "Please, may I see them?" I whispered.

"No."

I knew it was coming, but that one word gutted me. A sob ripped its way out of my throat. A raw, ragged sound that seemed to echo. "Please," I begged. "Ilya would want—"

"Ilya has what he wants from you, Daisy." The old man’s voice turned cruel. "I know my grandson can be charming when he wants to be, but did you really think he thought of you as anything but what you are? An incubator and a warm cunt." He chuckled. "Oh, you did, didn’t you? Foolish girl, did you fall in love with him? Ilya never loved you. He used you. And now he has what he wants; he has no use for you."

His words ripped my heart apart. It was like every fear I had was coming true. "Please," I whimpered. "Please, just let me see my son."

"You don’t have a son, Daisy. Ilya does, and of course, he is making sure you will be looked after. As per our contract, with a little extra as you gave him a son." An envelope was waved in front of me. I didn’t reach for it, so he tossed it onto my lap. All I could do was stare at it and cry.

I didn’t want to believe this was happening. It was just a nightmare. A horrible dream I would wake up from. Ilya loved me. I knew he did. He had to. "He—" I dissolved into tears.

"Ilya and the Popovitch family offer you their thanks, Daisy. I hope the rest of your life brings you happiness." Grabbing my chin, he yanked my head around to face him. "I hope it brings you happiness far, far away from here. It would hurt Ilya to have to—" He rolled his lips under his teeth. "Dispose of you. You are never to come back. You are never to look for your son or try to contact him. Do you understand?"

I couldn’t talk, so I nodded. I’d been such a fool. Ilya never cared about me. Not once in all the time we had lived together. This was always what he wanted. To make me love him and then rip me away from our child.

He was the man I had first met. The cold, heartless man who had taken my virginity with not even a kind word. And now he had ripped something so much more precious from me, and I knew I would never see my child. If I tried, Ilya would kill me.

That’s how much he loved me.

Slowly, the sobs subsided, even when the tears still fell. They were still falling when the airport came into view.

I’d be on one of those planes soon, and I'd have no choice but to let it take me away forever.

Chapter Five

Daisy present day

It was raining.

Which explained the water running down my face. It wasn’t tears. Although I knew I should probably cry for my father, I just couldn’t bring myself to.