Page 136 of Emerald Malice

My chest feels heavy. It’s hard to breathe. “Oh my God.”

“Misha was kept with the pimps and trained to be an errand boy of sorts.”

“That’s—” I can’t find a word bad enough to describe what I’m hearing. “Despicable!”

Andrey’s eyes soften. “I know it doesn’t seem this way, but Misha was one of the lucky ones.”

“How can you say that?” I scoff. “His mother was sold like a cow at auction! And he was forced into child slave labor!”

Andrey takes a cautious step towards me, leaving the black wraps behind him like shed snakeskins. “When a woman in that kind of scenario is unfortunate enough to have a child, one of two things usually happens.”

I go deathly still in anticipation of what I’m about to hear. I have a feeling it won’t be pretty.

“Either that child is killed. That’s the best-case scenario,” he informs me, taking no pleasure in the information. “Because the children that live get sold to the kind of men who hunt for that kind of thing.”

He lets the information settle between us. He watches me, waiting for my mind to go to the darkest possible reality… because that’s where Misha grew up.

“People like that can’t really exist,” I breathe. “They’re monsters.”

He meets my eyes and nods. “Which is why I’ve done my best to take out as many of them as possible.”

For the first time since I was introduced to Andrey’s wild and violent world, I ask myself if maybe I judged him too harshly. I thought it was all bad guys. Not black-and-white, but black-and-blacker.

Now, though, I’m seeing shades of gray.

Sure, Andrey deals in murder and money, but at least he’s not buying or selling human beings. At least he’s not ripping sons from their mothers or raping innocent children.

He may not be a hero.

But he’s not the villain, either.

“Do you know how Misha’s mother died?”

He shakes his head. “Her trail goes cold after her last purchase. She definitely wasn’t sold again, which means she probably died at the hands of her last owner.”

I drop my face into my hands. It’s all so horrible.

Then a new thought occurs to me, and I bolt up. “The man that sold Misha’s mother… Is he the same man that sent him to spy on you?”

“Yes. Nikolai Rostov.” Andrey’s jaw tightens, but he reaches out to brush the tips of his fingers against my cheek. “Why do you think I wanted you to move in here with me, Natalia? Why do you think I gave you a full security detail and a guard dog? We’re not dealing with some petty threat here. Nikolai Rostov is?—”

“A monster,” I finish for him. I grab his hands without thinking about it. I don’t even care that they’re callused and sweaty. “Don’t you see, Andrey? This is all the more reason we should keep Misha with us! He has no one. We’re all he has.”

“‘We’?”

Another blush creeps up my cheeks, but I don’t care. So what if I embarrass myself? It’s for Misha’s sake. He deserves it. “Please, Andrey. He’s just a kid. A kid who never had a chance. I’ll take responsibility for him, if that makes a difference. I just… I can’t bear the thought of him—” I break off as the sobs I’ve been holding in finally catch up to me. I’m not sure how I ended up sitting on Andrey’s lap, but my cheek is pressed to his shoulder and his hand is on my back.

“Hush now, little bird. It’s okay.”

“It’s not okay,” I mutter through my tears. “None of it is okay.”

“You can’t carry the weight of the world on your shoulders.”

His voice is soothing, but I won’t relax until I get what I came here for. I pull back so I can look in his eyes—so he can look into mine. “He needs someone, Andrey. Just like I did when I lost both my parents to that… that bastard. I can’t turn my back on him. Please don’t ask me to.”

His hand is tracing up and down my spine slowly. “Alright. I won’t stand in your way.”

I’m instantly cautious of the victory. “So he can stay?”

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