Page 50 of Ruthless Vows

He arches an eyebrow. “That’s morbid, Lucia. Why do you want to know?”

“I’m just curious. You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”

He thinks it over for a couple of seconds. I can almost see him weighing his options, deciding if this is really something he wants me to know.

Finally, he answers on a sigh. “The answer’s going to open up a pretty long story.”

“I have time,” I assure him. “You can tell me, Ivan.”

He looks into my eyes for a second and I don’t know what he sees in there before he’s nodding and looking away. He keeps his gaze fixed on the pool in front of us as he starts to speak.

“The first person I ever killed was my father.”

I have to fight very hard not to visibly react to that, but my heart clenches at the thought of him murdering his own father. I wait for him to continue, to explain.

“I moved to the U.S. when I was about eighteen years old. Alexei was eight, and before then we’d been living with our father, who was a pretty violent man. He’d get drunk at times, belligerent, hitting me and generally making our lives hell. For the most part, I could take it. I tried my best to take it because I was the only one going through it. He mostly ignored Alexei back then. I was much older than him, so naturally he was my responsibility.”

His words remind me of my sister and how fiercely protective she was of me. And still is, in fact. Older siblings and their continuous self-sacrifice.

“He hurt Alexei?” I ask, because usually people in his position will take anything directed at them—but come after the people they care about and all bets are off.

“I got home one day from school and found my little brother cowering in the corner with a gash on his head. He was terrified and my father looked proud of himself. I beat the shit out of him and warned him that if he ever did anything to hurt my brother again, I’d make sure it was the last day of his life. I regret not killing him that day. Because he didn’t deserve that mercy. And people like him make a habit on preying on those weaker than them. The next time he hurt Alexei, my brother landed in the hospital. I kept my promise. I made sure that was my father’s last day.”

The words are delivered coldly, unflinchingly. Sympathy tugs at my chest because no one should ever be put in that position.

“What about your mother?” I ask softly.

His expression tightens. It doesn’t escape my notice that talking about murdering his own father seemed to have no effect on him, but one mention of his mother does.

“She abandoned us. Stuck around for the first eleven years of my life, but after she gave birth to Alexei, she just left. She wanted to make a better life for herself, so she left her two sons in the hands of a monster. I hate her even more than I hate our useless excuse of a father.”

“Where is she now?”

“It’s funny how selfish people can be. She crawled out on her own. I’m not sure how, but she must have heard about me making a name for myself in the Bratva. I’ve always known where she was, married to another useless piece of shit, I just didn’t care about her. In my mind, she doesn’t exist. Anyway, she reached out to me, and I ignored it. And then she just appeared in Chicago. She seemed to think she was entitled to some part of my wealth simply because she birthed me. I made it clear that she had no right to even a penny. She chose to leave and I chose to forget her. It’s as simple as that.”

“She hurt you,” I say gently.

His eyes meet mine with a glare. “No, she didn’t. I told you, Lucia. I don’t give a fuck about her.”

“It’s fine if you do. I think mothers cause the most damage, especially in their absence. Because of it. I miss my mom every day and most of the time I don’t even remember what she looks like.”

His eyes soften. “I’m sorry for your loss,milaya.”

“I used to think it was selfish of me to grieve someone I barely even knew. My sadness always seemed inconsequential in the face of my sister’s and especially my father’s. But Aurora taught me that it’s okay to grieve her because she was my mother, too. I could grieve what I could have had, had she lived. It’s fine if you want to grieve your mother, too.”

He’s listening intently, brown eyes fixed on mine.

“I’m not asking you to forgive her; I don’t think she deserves forgiveness. You don’t ever have to see her again. I’m just tellingyou it’s okay to be hurt. And it’s okay to care. If you didn’t care at all, I think you would have killed her when she showed up back then.”

“What makes you think I didn’t?” Ivan questions, a challenge in his gaze.

“You didn’t,” I say assuredly, reaching for the glass of orange juice on the table beside mine.

He doesn’t confirm anything but I can see it in his gaze that I’m right.

“Unfortunately, I don’t think you’re a monster, Ivan,” I find myself saying.

It’s a damn shame, really, how human he is. Makes it hard to hate him, although I doubt I ever really did.

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