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“This Bratva is built on the vows we make. The vows we keep. As its heir, you can’t break your vows, Valentina.”
I summon all the courage I have and push my chair out to stand. Andrei doesn’t make a move, but his jaw visibly tics. “Watch me.” I make it halfway to the door before Andrei calls out.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
Sighing, I glance at him over my shoulder. “Why? Because you’ll punish me for it?”
He cuts into his steak like this is the most casual conversation in the world. Lifting a piece to his lips, he takes it into his mouth and makes me watch him swallow. My stomach clenches painfully. I’m tempted to march back over there and take my plate to-go, even if it does piss him off.
“I’m thinking of paying your grandmother a visit. I’m sure she’d love to see me after all these years.”
Ice splinters inside my heart. My grandmother is all the family I have left. She made a point to stay far, far away from the Bratva after we left.
I thought it was to keep my father’s men from finding me, but now that Mikhail has so graciously informed me that people who try to leave, die trying . . .
Maybe she was saving her neck as much as mine.
“You don’t know where she is.” I clench my fists to keep them from shaking. “You won’t find her.”
“We will, soon enough.” Andrei’s confidence radiates from his entire body, his presence filling the room from floor to ceiling. I used to find his strength alluring.
Now, it’s suffocating.
He stands from his seat and rounds the edge of the table. “When I see her again, will I have good news, Valentina? Or bad?” I’m frozen to the spot as he closes the distance between us. I forget how to breathe.
This is fucked up. This is seriously fucked up.
I’ve always known that my father cavorted with unkind people. But I held a belief that he, himself, remained good. He didn’t steal. He didn’t murder. He stayed above the law as best he could, given the nature of Bratva business.
My world view is crumbling before my eyes, and the truth is pitch black.
Andrei stands in front of me. He doesn’t touch me. But the way he looks at me is complete possession, like I’m already his.
Like I always have been.
“What will it be, Valentina? Good news, or bad?”
My mother’s face flashes to mind, the golden crown I used to admire now heavy over her head. Did she have to make these decisions, too? Was her life, or mine, or her mother’s, threatened if she didn’t obey?
But Andrei won’t kill me. He needs me. He’s said so himself.
And, my grandmother is a tough, old Russian woman. If Andrei’s men find her, she won’t go down without a fight.
That makes my decision easy. After this particular display of cruelty, I take my metaphorical knife and not only stab Andrei in the heart, but I twist it, too. I place my palm over his chest and feel the steady beat of his heart.
He may have spent the past five years bleeding, but he can withstand a little more pain.
“I’d rather die than marry you.”
Anger flashes like lightning in his sapphire eyes. “You are mine.” His hand wraps around my throat, warm and solid, as he drags my chest against his. I fight his grasp, clawing at his fingers, but it’s no use. I might as well be a rag doll with how easily he throws me around.
“Your life, your death, your soul. All of it is mine.” He squeezes my throat tightly, panic ripping through me as he cuts off my air. My heart beats frantically in my chest, begging for life.
“You will marry me, Valentina Baranova, because I won’t settle for less.” There’s a hunger in his eyes, and then his mouth descends, crashing over mine with such force that my body succumbs. My knees buckle, and he groans as I fall into his arms.
Black spots dance in my vision. Not only is he choking me, but he’s not giving me any room to breathe, even if I could. A whimper catches in my throat, and he drags me to the dining room table. Sitting me down on top of it, he looms over me, holding me upright.
The moment he releases my throat, I gasp for air, each breath burning in my lungs. As I inhale deep, he descends again, groaning as he steals more from me. His fist tangles in my hair and holds me in place.
