Page 160 of Cashmere Cruelty

I shudder. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be.” His grip grows tighter, tighter. “He’ll pay. With his fucking blood, he’ll pay. Until the last goddamn drop.”

He’s hurting me a little bit with how hard he’s squeezing my fingers, but I don’t say anything. Right now, I want to feel this. Want to share in his pain in any way I can.

Wordlessly, I start rubbing circles into the back of his hand. My thumb presses into the tense muscles until, eventually, it manages to pry them loose again.

“That’s why you became Bratva?” I ask. “To make him pay?”

“Yes,” Matvey answers without hesitation. “But not only that. My grandfather used to be Bratva. He’d founded his own organization when he was orphaned. By doing that, he survived.” He pauses. “I needed to survive, too.”

“And then you met Yuri.”

“Yes. He’s the only family I have left.”

I thought it’d hurt less to hear him cut me out like that. Now that I know where the venom comes from, I shouldn’t fall to it so easily.

So why do I?

“Thank you,” I breathe in the end. “For telling me this.”

Matvey doesn’t say anything, but I don’t need him to.

And then, as I’m heading back into my room, suddenly, I stop. I turn. Matvey’s still there, looking at my retreating back. Our eyes meet over the table between us.

I should go back to my side of these dark waters. I shouldn’t make this messier than it needs to be—messier than it already is.

I’m not family. I’llneverbe family. But when has that ever stopped me before?

I linger on my doorway. Twenty-three steps between us, and they feel like an ocean. But my grandmother taught me that oceans can be crossed. And someone else taught me that, if you really want something?—

Take it.

“Are you going to make me sleep alone?” I ask.

And, for once, Matvey doesn’t.

49

MATVEY

In my life, I’ve never lost a battle.

I couldn’t afford to. I still can’t. In my world, it’s eat or be eaten; kill or be fucking obliterated.

And yet, a few nights ago, April handed me my first defeat.

I’ve stopped sleeping in the guest bedroom. I can’t bring myself to. It doesn’t matter how much I harden my heart of stone—because, after dinner, April will stand up and look at me. Justlookat me, her hazel eyes wide and filled with hope.

That’s all it takes.

It’s pathetic. I’m supposed to be heartless, hardened. A beast in the skin of a man. A killing fucking machine, ready to gun down whoever’s in my path without the slightest hesitation.

So why can’t I say no to her?

Worse, I’vetoldher things. Things I’d never shared with anyone. Even Yuri doesn’t know the extent of it—what my life was likebefore I found him. Only that our father will pay for what he’s taken from me.

But I told April all of it.

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