But in this case…
Fuck. They have a point.
I was so blinded by my obsession with her and how smart and dedicated she was, on top of how unbelievably gorgeous she was, that I couldn’t stand the idea that I didn’t have her.
Not from a transaction, but as a woman I wanted in my life.
She had me.
But repeating that in my mind forced me to understand that it wasn’t like that at all.
I had her, because her father gave her as a payment of debt, but I hadn’t let it get deeper between us. Not once had I actively and deliberately given her the illusion that she was my woman. Or my friend. Or my lover.
I’d only outwardly viewed her as an asset. A smart accountant who could handle any task in front of her. I had brought her here to my property with an overarching expectation that she would stay here, more like a prisoner who turned into an employee I needed.
Thinking it over and trying to test out a foreign concept like seeing things fromherperspective and not mine, I realized how it had to look to her.
She was a debt paid by the man I’d just killed.
A man who, for better or worse, represented the last semblance of her family.
But isn’t there any hope and truth to the concept that she couldchoosea family with me? With the Volkov Bratva and the future of my leading us past the imminent death of our Pakhan?
I hung my head and sighed at how difficult this had to be.
26
ELENA
It seemed pointless to hope for a new “normal”. Settling into a routine was supposed to be a creature comfort. As someone who didn’t like changes or having to plan on different agendas—a homebody at heart—I needed some stability to my life again after Adrik killed my father.
I was stuck, though. I just couldn’t feel like there was any spark to living anymore now that I knew, without a doubt, how truly little I mattered.
Processing the loss of my father became easier over the course of the week. He was gone, and that was, in a general sense of the concept, sad. Death was a “bad” thing, and I wasn’t able to change my personality or beliefs to wish him ill. I didn’t have it in me to ever wish anyone ill—or dead.
Yet, as I remained at the Volkov estate as Adrik’s thing, as my father’s payment that preceded his payment with his life, I realized how little it mattered what I thought, how I perceived it, or what I could intend to do with my life.
Because… he deserved it.
That line had become a mantra in my mind.
I’d been reiterating that fact over and over again every time that this funkiness of doom and gloom, grief and sorrow, started to creep in.
He deserved it.
No one forced him to plot some kind of situation to mess with the Volkov accounts.
No one decided for him to screw around to the point he’d clear out funds here and there and plan to leave the country.
He chose to do those things.
That was on him. Not me. Not anyone else.
I swallowed hard and resisted a grimace at how upset my stomach was. This spell of semi-grief was taking a toll on me, and I wasn’t too steady with my appetite, especially in the morning.
While telling myself that I had no role in his death and no power over it happening or not helped me to reach a new normal in my mind, there was no changing the fact that he’d messed up my life. I’d lost so many years, so much time, being his daughter. Even before he’d sicced those top-secret accounts on me, expecting me to do the dirty work for him, he’d bossed me around and expected me to be his employee. Due to how badly I wanted to please him and how desperately I sought his approval, he’d been able to string me along. After all, for so long, I was convinced that hehadto care about me, that he did like me and value me. He was my father, and wasn’t any parent supposed to harbor unconditional love for their children? Wasn’t that a standard of humanity?
It hadn’t been.
