Page 70 of Forced Bratva Bride

“And we had to move quickly to set up another device at that location as well.”

“You and Stefano…" I breathe heavily, hoping that I am misunderstanding him, but my intuition is screaming at me to hear the truth.

“Ha. Stefano? That idiot. He's a hot-headed bulldog. He's just a pawn to push around.” My father’s face changes, and now all I can see is the man I saw standing over that stranger, torturing him. I don’t know him like this, but right now, in this moment, I am beginning to see for the first time that this is the real him.

He steps closer to me, and I move away, scooting along the edge of the bed.

“Stefano was a piece in the puzzle of revenge that I was building. He had no clue. He's too stupid to understand, anyway. It was easy to manipulate him.”

My father pauses and runs his hand through his thinning hair.

“Why, Dad? Why have you done all of this? All of those people who died in the explosions. You killed everyone.”

“I didn’t start this. They started it. That fucking Baranov Dubrov, he started it when he fucked my wife. Your mother. That whore. She ran off with Baranov Dubrov, insulting me, tearing my family apart. She deserved what happened to her. I made sure she suffered the same way that she made me suffer. I couldn’t get to Baranov, but she was an easy target.”

My chest is too tight and the air too thick to breathe.

“You killed my mother.”

“Of course I killed that bitch. What do you expect? Do you think I was going to let some slut fuck around behind my back and make a fool of me like that? Not a chance, sweetheart.”

I press my hand against my chest, fighting the panic surging through my body.

“Your mother betrayed me and paid the price. But that Dubrov family is so powerful, I couldn’t get to Baranov. He had to die, too. I needed to kill him. But I couldn’t. Honestly, I felt lost. I felt helpless and consumed with anger.”

He chuckles, that same sick laughter I’ve heard before. I don’t even recognize him anymore. This man standing in front of me is not my father. He is someone else. He can’t be my father. My mind refuses to accept that my own father would have taken my mother from me.

“Then, luck turned in my favor. I found out that Baranov was also having an affair with Stefano’s mother. This asshole had no shame when it came to sleeping with the wives of other men. So I seized my chance. I killed Stefano’s father, framing Baranov. It was the perfect plan. Because everyone knew his wife was fucking Baranov, when he turned up dead, Baranov was the most obvious suspect. Your husband’s uncle was easy to frame.”

“But you married Stefano’s mother,” I stammer.

“I did. We became close as I offered condolences to the family, and guided them to the conclusion that Baranov was the murderer. I spent time around her and her son, and we got on. So I asked her to marry me. My revenge was finished. I got what I wanted. My cheating wife was dead, and Baranov was the suspect. I thought I had found love again.”

He shrugs, clenching and unclenching his fists.

“But all women are the same.”

I bite my lip, searching the room for a weapon, but finding nothing.

“That bitch, I don’t get it. I took her in, and I treated her son as though he was my own. But she never loved me. There was always something that felt wrong about the way she treated me. Then one day I overheard her talking to Stefano. She told him she would never stop loving Baranov, and her heart would never get over how he made her feel. That stupid whore was still involved with the man who I framed for her husband’s murder. She didn’t even care that he had supposedly killed Stefano’s father. She still loved him. I couldn’t take it. I had to kill her as well.”

“You took Stefano’s mother from him.”

“I made him believe it was Baranov then, too. That boy started to hate the Dubrovs as much as I did. It was perfect. It wasn’t my original plan when I married his mother, but hey—things change. He hated the Dubrovs so much that he became the new plan. I started planting bombs, sabotaging our own shipments along with the Dubrovs'. All the while I whispered to Stefano that it was Maxim and his brothers. I knew he would eventually take matters into his own hands and cause trouble himself. He is such an ill-tempered boy. All I had to do was keep pushing him, and when shit hit the fan, my hands would be clean. Everything would be blamed on Stefano.”

My mind is racing with the madness of what he is telling me.

“If you hated the Dubrovs so much, why did you make me marry one of them?”

He laughs. “To piss Stefano off, obviously. That boy hates them to the point of insanity. He's blinded by it. I just had to keep doing whatever I could to push him over the edge. When he found out you were going to marry into the family, oh, wow, did it fuel the fire inside him.”

“But Stefano was targeting Maxim and his brothers. They weren’t involved in the affair,” I try to reason with my father, still hoping that the person I know is in there somewhere.

“The entire family needs to burn. I hate all of them. I don’t give a fuck who they are or what they were involved in. They all carry the name, and that name needs to end.”

“You had me marry Maxim, just—as part of your plan?” I say softly, beginning to accept the truth. Really accept it.

I let the idea of who my father really is soak into me. It fills me up, shattering everything I have ever believed about him. He is not, and never was, the man I used to know.

---