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Vasilisa Marshall. You’re Vasilisa Marshall…
Wind tore at my hair as Artur propelled me past the SUV and up the path towards the cottage. I made a show of struggling, my whole body shaking.
“What are you doing, Artur? You’re hurting me.”
He snorted, shoving me towards the pretty, glass-inlaid front door. “Like I give a shit.”
Anger and injustice burned behind my ribcage. It tasted like acid. “Why do you hate me so much?”
I didn’t mean to ask, but I couldn’t help it. I should have buried anything genuine behind shaking, sobbing weakness—the Vasilisa he expected to see. As if I hadn’t borne every hit, kick, and knife-sharp word in stillness and silence.
Vasilisa Marshall wasn’t the only strong one; Vasilisa Ivanov had always been strong I realised. I’d thought my silence was weakness, that it made me complicit. Holding the gun to Damien’s chest in the lift was the first time I’d felt strong, the first time I’d been alive, but I’d been strong all my life.
Typical that it took me until now to realise it.
“Why do I hate you?” Artur laughed, shoving open the front door and pushing me so hard that I fell onto a coarse rug in the sitting room, skinning my palms. “Why do youthink?Because you’re the precious fucking golden girl. His favourite.”
I froze in the act of getting to my feet, and stared at my brother in horror. His small eyes were pinched with hatred now, his expression twisted. He had stubble he hadn’t sported when I saw him in the supermarket, and his brown hair was messy, nothing like the sleek style he’d always worn to emulate Dad. He was coming apart at the seams.
Good,a vicious part of me hissed. I hoped he was terrified of Damien finding him and killing him just like he killed Mark.
I bit my tongue to swallow those words. I wanted to scream in his face that he knewexactlywhat Dad did to me, but Vasilisa Ivanov didn’t yell, she mumbled. I’d swallowed my tongue so many times I loathed the taste.
“I was never his favourite,” I whispered instead, scrambling upright. “I was his punching bag.”
“And now you’re mine,” Artur said cruelly, something like warped happiness in his voice, joy that corroded over time. His fist slammed into my stomach before I could anticipate the blow and brace myself. I bowed over my middle with a sob, arms wrapping protectively. Anger had made my tears dry up but they flowed again at the pain crackling through my ribs. I breathed shallowly through my nose, my jaw clenched as I inhaled, exhaled, and bore down on the pain. I knew this. I could do this. I’d be fine. If the rest of my life hadn’t killed me, this wouldn’t either.
I was a moment away from drawing my gun, my fingers already twitching towards the zip on my side, when Artur said, “I’ll show you to your new room, shall I? Finch is already on his way, so you better make yourself pretty. Wash this whore makeup off your face.”
He sounded just like dad. Pathetic. Artur wasn’t a real person; he didn’t know who the fuck he was. He just emulated a sick, abusive man. I might have been broken and terrified, but I knew who I was.
I was too busy choking back my true thoughts to protest as Artur pushed me past white sofas and sleek glass tables that were more at home in a high-rise apartment than this pretty cottage, and shoved open an upstairs door on a gaudy, pink bedroom that was so extreme even Barbie would say it was too much. Jesus, did the bedreallyneed a frilly pelmet? Or tassels?
“And in case you get any ideas about yourhusbandcoming to rescue you, he’ll be too busy recovering from the blast at the reception—andthe explosion at Marshall House—to care about you. He won’t even notice you’re gone.”
Artur sneered down his sharp nose at the expression on my face. I didn’t hide my loathing of him, but I hoped none of my panic showed. There was an explosion at the Marshalls’ home? Was anyone hurt? Most of the family were at our reception, but what about their staff? I’d met them at family dinners and they were kind; I didn’t want them to be killed because of my evil brother.
“Aww.” He mocked having a heart with wide eyes and a pout. “Did you think the Saint was going to come chasing after you? You won’t even have a husband by the end of tonight. Those two bombs weren’t the only ones we have, and Finch paid good money for you, Vasilisa. He’ll make you a widow and then take you for himself.”
Blood roared in my ears. I’d shoved Artur into the wall across the hallway before I realised I’d even moved, and I followed it up with a punch to his face that hurt me as much as it did him.
“You’re not even human, Artur,” I breathed, so enraged I couldn’t speak above a whisper. “You’re a worm. Finch will kill you too, and you’re a fool if you think otherwise.”
Artur’s dark eyes flashed, my only warning before he charged. This time I braced for the pain, welcomed the fight. My heart pumped fast, adrenaline fuelling me. His palms met my shoulders, throwing me into the bedroom like he threw me into the house, but I hooked my fingers into the shirt he wore—the fabric nowhere near as fine as Damien’s, I noticed spitefully—and dragged him down with me.
We slammed into the floor, no carpet to soften the fall, and my knees erupted with pain as I landed on top of him. Damien had taught me some defensive moves along with training me how to properly hold my gun and how to attach the straps that held it to my thigh, but I didn’t know any offensive moves yet. I drew on the only thing I knew—how to punch—and slammed my fist into Artur’s face, right over the nose I’d already made bleed, and didn’t stop until it was thoroughly broken.
“Fucking—slut—” he roared, his voice thick with blood.
I laughed. I couldn’t keep it inside. The small, harmless routine had popped like a bubble against a pin and my true self poured out. I was the woman I saw in the mirror earlier, wild-haired, smoky-eyed, with smirking lips painted a dangerous shade of red. I didn’t feel the fists Artur slammed into my already bruised ribs, and I ignored the way my world rattled and spun when he grabbed a rough hold of my hair and shook my head, trying to dislodge me. Some of my hits landed on his cheek, his jaw, his neck, but I didn’t stop punching him.
“Slut?” I laughed, twisted and real. The first real laugh he’d probably ever heard from me. “Explain to me how I’m a slut when I was keptpureandinnocentmy whole life so Dad could sell my virginity to whoever had the most money. Explain how I’m a slut when the first experience I had of anything sexual was with men whopaidto touch me, forced me to lay there and endure whatever they did, all under the lie of training me.”
Artur’s laugh was darker than mine, clotted with blood and two decades of violent thoughts. I was still catching up. “You think Saint’s your white knight? You think he’s any different from Dad, from me? He only married you because he didn’t want anyone else having your virgin pussy.”
Insecurity pinched my chest, and my brother took full advantage, grabbing my hands in a squeezing grip that made the bones in my fingers grate against one another.
“He showed no interest in you until he saw your cunt and knew you were untouched.”
