Page 95 of Stolen Seconds

Pure terror gripped me at the position I’d found myself in. If I could just talk to my father and explain everything, then maybe I’d have a chance at stopping him.

Instead, I’d become a liability and being useless made it all worse.

“Aurora.” I faced her, watching as the sun beamed across her face, brightening the specks of green in her eyes. “I need your help. Please.”

Her gaze searched mine in defeat. “You know I can’t.”

“Do it for your son,” I said, manipulating the situation like a jackass. “If I stay here, your lives will be at stake.”

“And what will happen to yours?”

Her question caught me off guard, but I masked my surprise. “Nothing,” I lied, the word sitting bitterly on my tongue. The truth was, I didn’t know.

I’d pushed down my emotions into the darkness of my soul, avoiding my reality.

Not only did I fail my mission at bringing Nicolai to Russia but I’d lost my most valuable asset, my beauty. And what happens to assets that are of no use anymore? They’re discarded.

Would my father see me as useless as I see myself?

Nausea twisted my stomach in knots. I’d neverquestioned the dynamic between my father and me before, but sitting with my thoughts in silence the past week had sent me spiraling.

I once felt his rejection when I was younger, trapped in the four walls of my childhood home, and I was terrified to feel it again.

“Irina. . . ” Aurora’s face was closer as she leaned over me, blurred by the sheen of tears coating my eyes. “Where’d you go?”

I felt my face crumble as I curled into a ball at her side, silently weeping for the little girl in me who was had lost pieces of herself and didn’t know how to fix it.

I’d been desperate for affection, desperate for validation and acceptance that I didn’t think twice about maintaining my loyalty to my father and the Bratva.

I choked on a sob, loathing myself for being the cause of my own hurt.

Aurora embraced me in a tight hold, her cinnamon scent cascading around me in a comforting hold.Home.

I tried steadying my breathing, each inhale painful from the heavy weight inside my chest.

If I continued on like this, spending my days in self-pity, it would be my demise. I had cried more in the last two weeks than I had in my whole life. It was uncomfortable and unlike me.

Wiping the excess tears from my eyes, I tilted my head back in time to catch Aurora’s worried expression.

I was a terrible person for stressing a pregnant woman.

“Is this where you tell me what’s going on in that blonde head of yours?” Her attempt at easing the tension was awkwardbut admirable.

The woman was harboring enough already, with her spiraling brother, her pregnancy, and Nicolai’s recovery.

My brother had woken up two days ago and the thrumming urge to see him was intense, but Iwasn’t allowed.

Not that Luca would even give me the opportunity to escape. It didn’t come as a shock to find out Roman was the one who refused to let me visit.

“Not today, but I do need you to do something for me.”

“Anything.”

Ten minutes later, we were standing in the bright bathroom.

Aurora brushed the wet strands of my hair gently. “I’ve never done this before, but I’ll try my best.”

“It can’t be worse than what it is now,” I laughed halfheartedly. Whether it turned out good or not, didn’t matter anyway, considering I was still unable to look at myself in the mirror.

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