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“I said no because I was also scared. She was proposing that we trade places. Everyone knew that Vasily took me as his mistress. But I didn’t want to leave my life to be shackled to your father. So, I told Eva to stay. I was selfish. I lied to her that there was no way out, and that everything will be okay. I lied to her that Vasily can change, even though I know that monster would never. And Eva, poor woman, she listened. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about how my selfishness doomed someone as innocent as her.”
“He beat her, Zhanna.” Hate rises in me, turning my gaze cold. “He tried to beat her to death with his hands when she was pregnant with Sonya! He spent decades finding new ways to hurt her. All because of you.”
“Do you imagine she was the only one?” Zhanna’s eyes harden at my accusation. “Do you imagine that any of the Bratva women’s lives are that different? I was foolish enough to think that I was my father’s princess. And being a princess, I could choose who I wanted to marry.” Zhanna rolls up the sleeve of her voluminous jacket and reveals a tattoo of a rose with thorns. “The thorns are where he burned me until I said yes to whomever he picked.” Zhanna sighs. “I asked Paige if she had any marks…”
“I don’t hit my wife.” I’m on my feet again. Damn the guards and the dogs. “I don’t beat women.”
“But you’ll shoot them and think yourself better than men like our fathers.” Zhanna scoffs, lifting a brow.
“It was an accident,” I say quietly. “I didn’t mean to shoot my mother.”
“And yet you still did.” A single tear finally breaches the edge of Zhanna’s eyes. “I doomed Eva with my words, butyoupulled the trigger, Andrei Vasilyevich. These are the sins that both of us will forever carry in our hearts.”
Her servant reenters the room with Skol Vodka on a silver tray. He gives Zhanna a questioning look, and she waves her hand, indicating yes. He fills two glasses and leaves as silently as he comes in.
“I vowed to never make that mistake ever again.” Zhanna picks up her glass but does not drink from it. “So, when your wife came to me, pregnant and scared like your mother was, I helped her. Selfishly, I wanted her to survive for the sake of my own conscience.” Zhanna raises her voice. “The abuse your father dealt your mother was visible, but what about the abuse you’ve dealt to the ones you say you love?”
I open my mouth but Zhanna hold her hand up to stop me from speaking.
“You corrupt everything good, Andrei Vasilyevich.” Zhanna shakes her head. “Into a twisted version of yourself. It’s how you survive as a pakhan. I don’t fault you for that. But not everyone can be that way.”
Zhanna’s words echo Talia, and the bitterness starts to seep in.
“If you want the love,” she continues, “and I believe you want it, you can’t keep dragging her back.”
“I’ve left her alone,” I protest.
Zhanna shakes her head, and sadness exists deep in her cool eyes. Her mask slips enough to reveal her emotions as she drinks from her glass.
“You’re like every other man.” She sets the glass down. “You hear, but you don’t listen. Physically, you’re not touching Paige. But your actions still reach her. She watches from a distance at what you really are …”
“Without her …” I start but stop when Zhanna shakes her head. She’s heard enough from me.
We sit in silence as I grip the glass of vodka tightly before placing it down.
“If you speak to your wife again …” The shadow over Zhanna’s expression softens into grace. “Give her my thanks for returning that which was stolen.”
“What?” I ask.
“It seems her father cheated me of a sizable amount of money, and she’s returned it to me. I’d thank her myself, but it was returned with the caveat that she be left alone.”
“Did she return it herself?” I ask, hopeful.
“No, Anatoli Popov stopped by a few days ago with the information.”
My heart falls. Paige has found a way to leave the Bratva.
To leave me.
I grab the glass and empty it before I stand up to leave. It’s not enough to dull the hurricane of emotion lashing at my heart.
“You and your meddling cost me my wife,” I say bitterly. “Paige wouldn’t have left until you poured that poison in her head.”
“No, Andrei Vasilyevich.” Zhanna closes her eyes, scoffing. “You do not get to blame her or anyone else for the consequences of your hate. Your hate is more powerful than her love. You don’t trust love and that’s why you’ll never truly have Paige as a wife, even if she’s beside you in bed. You will onlypossessher because love is foreign to you.That’swhy you’re like your father.”
***
I stagger out of the house and to my car as if Zhanna has gutted me. The hag has done it with cruel and heartless words. The only way a hag knows how to fight.
