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“I didn’t expect our marriage to be all sunshine and roses. It was always a marriage of convenience. One that I didn’t want, either,” I remind her. “It’s as good as it’s going to be.”
“You know—” Sofia takes a breath as if she’s worried that I might not like what she’s going to say next. “I never thought I would be happy with Luca. I didn’t think I could even bear to marry him, let alone fall in love with him. The things you told me about it being a choice helped a lot. I thought I hated him, that he was a monster—”
“Do you know what Viktor’s business is?” I cut her off, a sudden bubble of resentment welling up in my chest and clogging my throat. I can’t tell her about what Viktor’s done, but the truth is that there’s so much more than that. Even if he really were the man who had cared for me in the cabin, the one who had whispered sweet things to me and told me how beautiful I was, itstillwouldn’t matter because he would still be a man who sells human beings, who traffics women and gives them over to other men for pleasure. I can’t love him, no matter what different sides there could be to him.
Sofia frowns. “No. But all men in this line of work do some things that—”
“He traffics women.” I blurt it out, my fork gripped tightly in my hand. “Sex trafficking. That’s what my husband does. He brings women in from Russia—and maybe other places, who knows—and he sells them to the highest bidder.”
I hear a small gasp from Ana, and Sofia’s face pales a little. She swallows hard, looking down at her plate for a moment.
“Have you talked to him about it?” she asks quietly. “Have you asked him why he does it?”
I shrug. “He said something about it being a better life for them, that they would be impoverished or working in brothels in Russia, that this way they live a life of pampered luxury with men who pay hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars for them. I guess that’s how he justifies it.”
“And do you think it can be justified?” Sofia looks at me, her face very still. “Or is that why you’re so unhappy?”
“I don’t think so, no.” I bite my lower lip. “I’m supposed to give him an heir, a son to inherit all of this. I’m supposed to raise two daughters who love their father but don’t know that he sells other men’s daughters.” I glance at Sofia’s stomach, pushing away the thought of what the doctor had said, that I would likely be unable to have children now. “You had a hard time thinking about giving Luca a son, too.”
“I came to terms with it,” Sofia says quietly. “It’s a difficult life, and not always a black and white one. There’s a lot of moral grey area in the men we marry. There are things that Luca does that I don’t always agree with. But I know that he’s a good man who will do his best to raise his children to be good too, to have a moral code. It’s the best I can ask for, and I—I love him.” She lets out a sigh. “It’s not always easy. But it is worth it, and that’s what I decided, in the end. That’s what I chose.”
I let out a small, short laugh. “I remember telling you that. I don’t know if it’s the same, though.” In fact, I know it’s not, not after what Viktor did to me. But I can’t say that out loud to her.
“You’re not always going to agree with your husband, not in this life that we lead,” Sofia says quietly. “But if you can separate the man from the things that he does, maybe you could be happier.”
“Maybe.” I don’t know what else to say because even if I could separate Viktor from his business, love the man and not the things he does, I can’t erase the things he’s done tome. And that makes it impossible to fix anything else.
“I wish I could find love with anyone at all,” Ana says suddenly, her voice small and soft. “I don’t think I ever will, now.” Her fingers tap at the edge of the table, a nervous tic next to her full plate of food. “I don’t even remember what I used to be like anymore.” She looks up at Sofia then, her face paler than I ever remember seeing it. “That girl who took you into an underground club and talked back to a Bratva man? It’s like she was someone else. I barely even remember what it felt like to dance—and that wasn’t all that long ago.”
The table is very quiet, and Sofia reaches out, touching her best friend’s hand, her own eyes glistening. “It will get better, Ana, I promise,” she whispers. “Things will turn around.”
Ana smiles tightly, her lips pressing together. “I don’t see how,” she says softly.
And then, just as quickly, she clears her throat, looking over at me with an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry, Cat. We were talking about you. I didn’t mean to steal the conversation.”
“It’s okay.” I touch her hand too, not saying the thing that comes immediately to mind, which is that I’m glad for the distraction from talking about my life. It’s too complicated, too difficult, and I don’t want to discuss it any longer. There’s no point when I can’t tell the whole story.
The sound of footsteps interrupts anything else I might have said, and the three of us look up to see Viktor and Luca, both sharply dressed and stern-looking, walking into the dining room. “Liam will be here shortly,” Viktor says, his gaze sweeping over the table without quite meeting mine. “If you ladies would like to join us to greet him.”
“I’ve never actually met Liam,” Ana says quietly as Sofia comes around to help her back into her wheelchair.
“He’s nicer than a lot of the other mob bosses,” Sofia says with a laugh. “Funnier, gentler. He wasn’t meant to inherit. He had an older brother, so he wasn’t raised to be the heir.”
“What happened to him?” Ana asks curiously.
Sofia shrugs. “No one knows. He was in Ireland, Luca said, but no one could contact him or find him. I guess there was an effort made after Conor was executed, but there wasn’t time to leave a hole in the Boston leadership. It could have caused problems that would have been so much worse. So they made a choice to simply have Liam take over.”
Executed.The word sends a shiver down my spine, and I try to hide my expression as I follow Sofia and Ana out of the dining room. It brings back the memory of the cold metal of a gun against my palm, the kick of it as I fired, the squeeze of the trigger, and the way a man’s forehead opened in front of me, his life extinguished in a second.
I’ve executed a man. One who was following Viktor’s orders.
It should have been Viktor kneeling in front of me, begging for mercy.
I can barely keep myself from trembling when I go to stand next to him as we wait for Liam. He doesn’t look at me, barely acknowledging my presence, but I want to scream at him.
I think I just want to scream, in general.
The front door opens, and three bodyguards walk in, stepping to the side as Liam enters. I’ve met him before once or twice—he’s young, in his late twenties, I think. He has messy dark hair that makes him look more youthful and a clean-shaven face and a habit of perpetually smirking, as if everything in life is just a little funny, no matter how dark. The most serious I’ve ever seen him was at Franco’s funeral.
