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“You were a good father,” I tell him, which is true. He was a good father. Attentive, dutiful, mostly kind. He could be strict and impatient, but he made sure we knew he loved us. “What happened?”
He stares down at his hands. “Nothing changed.”
“Something did. You made Liliya marry Rustik. The Papa we grew up with never would’ve done something like that. Looking back, I can almost remember the day you came home and were different.”
His expression hardens. “You wouldn’t understand. Liliya was difficult, but she accepted the arrangement.”
“Why?” I press. “Why didn’t she fight it? Why didn’t she run away? I don’t remember her saying much, only that arranged marriages happen all the time. She was optimistic it could work out. Why did she do it?” My sister was never the sentimental type, but I’ve still always wondered why she went through with the marriage, and now that I’m sitting here with a baby growing in me, I feel like I need answers more than ever.
“She did it to help me,” he admits, sounding morose. But it hits me like a truck.
“What do you mean, to help you?”
Papa wilts slightly. He stares at his hands. I don’t know why he’s telling me this now, after everything. Maybe it’s because I made him remember that he actually used to love me and Liliya, once upon a time.
“I owe Rustik a lot of money.” His voice comes out soft. Shame drips off him like wilting flower petals. “There were some bad business decisions. When I purchased CashOut Limited, I did it with borrowed money.”
My eyebrows raise. CashOut was a small vaping company that specialized in marijuana equipment. Turns out, their technology was trash, and the purchase was a terrible loss. Papa’s company survived it, but barely. I remember how stressful that was for him, and it happened only a couple years before Liliya married Rustik.
“That’s why?” I ask, leaning back in my chair. “She did it to pay your debts?”
“Yes,” he says, unable to look me in the eye. “She understood what it would mean to me. And to you. She kept saying you were the future of the business, and if she took care of it, she’d be taking care of you.”
I blink at him rapidly. Tears form in my throat. Liliya married Rustik for me? To pay off the company’s debts? She never said anything about it, only kept insisting that Rustik was an acceptable match.
But now it made so much more sense. She wasn’t marrying Rustik because she wanted to be a Bratva wife; she did it to help her family.
That was Liliya, always putting others first, always sacrificing.
Anger swells in me. I lean forward, glaring at my father. “How could you let her do that?”
“I didn’t know what would happen,” he says, glaring back. “It made sense at the time. Rustik wanted our families to move closer together, to bring the whole supply chain in sync, and erasing my debt was a beneficial side product of the match. I had no clue—”
“You should have.” All of a sudden, I remember why I’ve been so angry with Papa. My pregnancy is forgotten, or at least diminished, as my anger flares up again. “You knew what Rustik was and you got involved with him anyway. Then you let your daughter clean up your mess. You sold Liliya. You got her killed.”
“I made a match,” he says through his teeth. “I didn’t have any idea—” But he stops talking abruptly. His face goes pale as he stares over my shoulder toward the door.
I want to scream at him. I want to punch him in the face. How could he do that to Liliya? It’s so much worse than I ever pictured. The selfish bastard—he made the match, and he did it for money.
A hand squeezes my shoulder, and a cold jolt of fear runs down my spine.
I look back, expecting Rustik.
Instead, Liam stands by my side, staring at my father.
“Alisa,” Liam says softly. “We’re leaving.”
“Liam. I thought—”
“I came home early.” He glances at me. “Get up. We’re going.”
I slowly rise to my feet.
Papa doesn’t move. He looks horrified. “Liam. My daughter. She called, and I just—”
“If you say one more word, I’ll have your ankles broken.”
Papa’s mouth shuts with a click.
I move away from the table. Liam steers me to the door. I move like I’m dragging myself underwater, digging my feet into the silty bottom of the ocean. Once we’re outside, his grip on my arm tightens, and his lips move closer to my ear.
“You should’ve hidden the tests.”
Chapter 21
Alisa
There they are, the pregnancy tests, lined up on the kitchen island like sandbags stacked against a storm. Except this time, the hurricane is Liam, and I’m the poor beach about to get battered.
He paces across the living room, hands behind his back. He won’t look at me, and I’m terrified of what he’s thinking. I didn’t ask for this pregnancy—if I could go back, I’d make him put on a stupid condom. Better yet, I’d never sleep with him to begin with.
