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“Ahh,there she is,” he purrs in his thick Russian accent, clearly dulled by vodka by the late hour.
“Hello, Leo.”
He scowls. “You could address me as you should, you know.”
“Which is how, exactly?”
“Asfather, for a start.”
I laugh coldly. “I can promise you, that’s not going to happen,Leo.”
My dad ignores the dig. “Can I assume you’ve come here tonight to finally follow through with your family responsibilities?”
I can only stare at him. “Family responsibilities?” I hiss. “Where the hell wereyour‘family responsibilities’? Like,ever?”
Leo glares back at me. “You were provided for as a child. You had food, clothes, a roof over your head…”
“No thanks to you. My mother did all that.”
He rolls his eyes. “How? By sucking dick?”
My temper flares. “Stop it.”
“If you don’t wish to acknowledge what she was…” he shrugs. “Well, I can’t force you.”
My mother was many things—amongst them, yes, an exotic dancer.
But sheneverslept with men for money.
“The money for your needs came from me,moya doch’.” He sighs, raising a silver-rimmed crystal tumbler and sipping what must be vodka over ice. “But enough. It is in the past. Now, we have the future to look toward, and what it means for you and our family.”
I laugh coldly again. “Ourfamily? I have my family and you have yours.”
He smiles, making a tsking sound with his teeth as he shakes his head. “Blood is blood,moya doch’. And you have something this family can use to advance itself.”
I resist the urge to throw up as he leans forward across the desk.
“I know you’ve never been with a man,” he growls quietly. “This is good, very good. Because a man like Melik Mirzoyan can appreciate a bride who’s never bled for another man.”
This time, I do actually have to choke back the vomit rising in my throat.
Because there it is: the reason for all of this. The reason I went out tonight to do what I did, to rid myself of my freaking virginity, so that he couldn’t hold it over my head anymore.
My father wants to marry me off like some sort of prize cow to the prince of the Albanian Mafia, Melik Mirzoyan, to secure a deal with Melik’s father Serj. Such a deal would allow the Reznikov Bratva to buy out Serj’s empire. But apparently Melik is one of those sacks of shit that is only interested in a virgin bride.
Fuck. That.
Slowly, as the silence grows in the room, I start to smile—wider and wider, until Leo’s brow furrows.
“This is amusing to you?”
“No, but your choice of phrasing just now is.”
It’s now or never. I didn’t intend to be this dramatic with it, nor did I anticipate there being half a dozen other men in the room, including the ultra-creepy Pascha. But screw it, why not.
“What phrasing?”
A man like Melik Mirzoyan can appreciate a bride who’s never bled for another man.
