Page 140 of Betrayal and Vows

I was disposable.

I have spent my entire life knowing I was so unworthy of taking over my father’s empire, he tried to kill me.

I was five and he found some major flaw that made him want me dead.

I push the feelings deep down where they’ve been festering for three long decades.

Festering and fueling me.

“He hit her,” I say. “I remember that. I remember hiding under the table, watching her cry, watching him yell. I couldn’t have been more than three or four. But even then, I wanted to kill him.”

She flinches, but not away from me. Toward me. Like she wants to bear the weight of this too.

“My mother tried to protect me. When she died…” I shake my head.

I close my eyes remembering the months and years.

“Where did you go?” she asks.

“There was a woman, Juliette. She was nice. I thought she was going to be my new mom. I was only there for a little while. And then I was sent to the Center.”

“The Center?”

“Bratva training.”

“At five?”

I nod slowly. “There were a lot of boys my age and older. A few girls. Orphans. That’s where I met Dmitri.”

Her fingers slide up my forearm.

"The Center was a fortress," I continue, the words coming slowly. I have never spoken about the place that shaped me. I wasn’t allowed to. Dmitri sure as hell didn’t need or want to sit around and reminisce.

“Tell me,” Lena says.

"Gray concrete walls, barbed wire, guards with rifles. We weren't children there. We were assets in training."

Lena's hand tightens in mine, but she doesn't speak. She knows I need to get this out.

"They stripped away everything that made us human. Our names, our histories, our emotions. I wasn't Alexei anymore. The woman, Juliette, she called me Anton. I didn’t understand it at first, but she told me I was Anton. Alexei was dead." I stare out at the tree line as the memories claw to the surface. "The weak ones didn't survive the first year."

"What did they do to you?"

"Everything." The word makes me shudder.

More memories.

More pain resurfaces.

I feel nauseous.

"Combat training from dawn until we collapsed. Languages, weapons, surveillance, torture techniques. How to kill a man seventeen different ways with your bare hands. How to withstand pain without breaking. How to feel nothing."

I remember the ice baths that lasted hours. The beatings for showing fear.

The way they made us fight each other for scraps of food, turning friends into enemies with calculated cruelty.

"The instructors told us our families had abandoned us. That we were worthless except as weapons. They said lovewas weakness, attachment was failure." I laugh, but there's no humor in it. "For years, I believed them."