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“Their deaths haven’t scared anyone into talking,” adds Natasha, sitting in the chair closest to the desk. She doesn’t flinch when I give her a sharp look.
“Then maybe we need to look for someone that ranks higher,” I reply grimly.
“We’ve looked, Andrei Vasilyevich,” answers Dmitri. “Younger men have replaced the older.”
“Find someone who will talk,” I bark.
They leave the office. And again, I picture the triumphant smile on Paige’s face when she yanked the ring off the severed finger. My lucky girl has changed because of me. Power corrupts, and why was I so naïve to think it wouldn’t corrupt her? I brag about my power, and now, Paige has a taste for it.
I know that feeling. That rush. It’s hard to not want it once you’ve had it.
But the image is replaced with another—her glowing face as she admired all the baby clothes. Laughing over names with Sonya.
She’s still Paige in her heart. Little Ms. Lucky is not gone yet.
Maybe the need for revenge will pass. If it had been Eva, I’d have punished the world to heal her pain. I didn’t grieve over my father. And I never will.
Paige means even more to me now. She will be the mother of my child, and I want it to be her. A woman that is loyal to her family will love her child. She loves the child already, or she wouldn’t have protected it by not telling me about her pregnancy.
She will never trust me until that one thing between us is out of the way.
I head upstairs toward Gerald’s room and swing open the door. The guard rises to his feet instantly, and I tell him to wait outside the door. Gerald lies in his bed, breathing heavily, the oxygen tube underneath his nose. The man looks weak, but then he glances over at me with a hatred that could kill. He may be weak of body, but he’s still strong of mind.
“Tell me the truth about your wife.” I confront him, looming over his bed. “I know she’s not a whore. What did you do to her?”
He looks at me but refuses to respond. I know he can hear me.
“You lied to your daughters and let them believe the worst of their mother. But you were the one who agreed to pimp her out, weren’t you?”
“Why do you care?” he whispers harshly.
“Your daughter cares. She’s going after the men thatyouwhored your wife to. Picking them off one by one until she reaches a murderer. She’s turning into me.”
“And what am I supposed to do, Andrei Vasilyevich?” he asks rhetorically.
“Tell me what I want to know. Tell me where you’ve hidden the money. Or you die.”
“Is that all you can threaten me with?” Gerald tries his best to laugh. “Haven’t you realized by now? Iwantto die, and you already have both my daughters. My wife is dead. I have nothing else left to lose. Unlike you.”
He smiles because he knows he won.
“You’re in love with my Paige,” he continues, “The same way I was in love with my wife until the Bratva came for me and broke her to teach me a lesson. She cried and claimed she didn’t enjoy any of it. But I can still remember her moans.”
I stare at him. “You’re a piece of shit.”
“I also know that you won’t take that money from my girls. Taking it would admit that you never loved my Paige. Maybe you didn’t at first, but I know you do now. And hurting Emma will only turn Paige against you. In the end, I’ll get what I want, and you get nothing.”
The longer he goes on taunting me, the more my anger overwhelms my reasoning. I want to wrap my hands around his throat, but he’s right. Hurting him will hurt Paige, no matter what I do. I have nothing to threaten him with or even to bargain with. I thought my worst adversary would match me in strength and bravery, but here I am, facing off with a twisted, wrinkled, sick old man.
But I have one thing. “She’s pregnant with my child.”
Gerald’s gaze settles on the wall ahead of him as he takes labored breaths. “You’ve turned my darling daughter into a whore like her mother.”
My rage takes over as I grab the old man by his arms and shake him. “What else are you hiding, Sava?”
His mouth goes slack, and I let him go. A chill races through me. I shouldn’t have touched him. I shouldn’t have done that. I went too far.
“Sava’s secrets belong to Sava.” His eyes crinkle though he’s too weak to laugh. “And Sava died ten years ago.”
