Page 207 of Cashmere Cruelty

“Or what?” I challenge him, though in truth, I didn’t even realize I’d stood. “You’ll find a smaller cage to lock me into?”

“Don’t test me.”

I can’t believe I ever fell for his act. Can’t believe I let this man fool me for as long as I did. Right now, every word out of his mouth is confirmation: all he wants is power over me.

All he wants is control.

That’s not true, a quiet part of me whispers at the back of my mind. It’s the part I buried, the part that’s still licking her wounds, bleeding from the gash in her heart.He cared for you once. Maybe he cares still.

I silence that voice and fix my stare on Matvey. “Test you?” I echo. “Why? What can you possibly do to me that you haven’t already? You put a target on my back from day one. Thanks to you, I got kidnapped, cut off from everything I’ve ever loved, assaulted in my own home. I stared down the barrel of an assassin’s gun, challenged the whole mob in handcuffs, and even had to pull a freaking heist.For your fiancée, might I add.”

“April, the wedding with Petra?—”

“Donotsay her name!”

The scream surprises me. I didn’t think I was capable of this: this unbridled anger. The fury of a broken thing.

But broken things have to take on new forms to survive.

“Don’t say her name,” I repeat, this time in a whisper. “Don’t talk to me about your wedding. Don’t talk to me about ‘family’ when all you’ve ever done is scorn ours.”

“April—”

“You never wanted me. You never wanted our child. You took us in out of sick jealousy, just so no one else could have the toys you didn’t care to keep. Because, even broken, they wereyours.”

“Youaremine,” he snarls, rising to meet my eyes from above. “Both of you are mine. That will never change.”

“And that scares me half to death.”

Matvey reels back as if slapped, but I can’t stop now, not even if I wanted to. With the floodgates finally open, everything has to come rushing out. Even the dirt at the very bottom. All the black and rotten and bloody things I always kept to myself, hoping no one would ever see.Mydarkness.

“You ruined me, Matvey Groza. You ruined my life—and now, you want to ruin my child’s.”

“April, I would never?—”

“But you already have!” I half-laugh, half-sob. “Look at what happened the other day. I was in a hospital, Matvey, not knowing whether my baby was still alive inside me. All because of your Bratva. Because of you.”

Matvey clenches his jaw. His lips press into a tight line, but he doesn’t say a thing. Doesn’t seem to have a single argument to defend himself.

Once again, he chooses silence.

So I speak for the both of us. “Ever since we met, you’ve done nothing but force me into a life I didn’t want.”

“I never once forced you, April.”

“Maybe not,” I concede. “Maybe I was so lonely that I just let you.” I take a step forward. “But I won’t let you anymore. Not if you want me to be even more alone. Not if you want our child to grow up alone like I did. Likeyoudid. Not if you intend to turn into…”

The words get stuck in my throat. I’ve said a lot of horrible things today, but this—this is too sharp. Too evil.

And yet, it’s also true.

“Say it,” Matvey growls, as if reading my mind. “Say what you’re thinking.”

I hesitate. “Into…”

“Sayit, April.”

It’s his tone that gives me the final push: aggressive, scary, cruel.

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