Page 160 of Sin & Sapphire

“Show me,” I growled. “Show me you’ve kept your end of the deal.”

“Or what?”

I’d never hated anyone as much as I hated him in that moment.

“Or you’ll have to kill me in public when I refuse to marry you at the altar,” I said simply. I had nothing left to lose. My skin was shredded. My dignity was gone. Last night, I’d begged him to kill me, to end the pain, only for him to laugh at me and tell me that I’d be enjoying his sadism for the rest of my life.

He shoved me into the car, careful not to muss my hair, less careful about slamming his hands against the bruises on my arms. “I’m a man of my word.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it.”

Boris cocked his head, staring at me with ice-blue eyes that penetrated my very soul.

No.

He couldn’t see my soul.

He couldn’t have it.

He’dneverhave it.

Whether today went to plan or not, I was my own woman. And I always would be.

Part of the deal Boris made with Angelo and Valentin was that they would meet their parents, ensuring they wouldn’t be in Yorkfield to interfere with our wedding.

And to my utter heartbreak, they’d each agreed with alacrity.

Luca, at least, I could count on to stand by his father’s side. He may have offered to marry me, but when push came to shove, he’d keep the peace.

Boris leaned his hip against the side of the car, looming over me menacingly, and showed me the video feed on his phone of an elegant Black woman, her hands in her lap, sitting on a shabby couch.

“Let her go,” Boris commanded.

“Lève-toi,” the invisible interlocutor commanded. Get up. The woman stood and held out her hands, her posture imperious, the command clear.

The man holding the phone laughed and said in French, “Your asshole son can deal with your hands.”

The door to the apartment opened, and he shoved the woman out, his gun pressed against the small of her back. I couldn’t see her face, but I could feel her calm presence through the line, as if the guard was beneath her.

The signal flickered as they descended inside the elevator, only to return when they arrived in the lobby of the building. The man marched her outside and continued to film in the blinding sunlight.

Valentin—my love—his face stricken, dashed to his mother and fell to his knees in front of her, hastily attacking the bindings on her wrist with a knife before wrapping his arms around her waist and pressing his face into her stomach.

I couldn’t hear what they said, but she caressed his head, and longing streaked through me. I’d never run my fingers over his curls again, never feel the stroke of his five o’clock shadow against my thighs. Never hear him praise me for being a good girl.

My stomach hollowed out as he stood and led his mother away from the building.

His eyes caught on the bodyguard filming, and he bent down to whisper in his mother’s ear before dashing back to shove the man against the wall, grabbing the phone out of his hands.

“Let her go, Tchérnov,” he snarled, and I whimpered, missing him more than life itself. When he realized it was my face on the screen, his face softened. “Ana?”

Boris turned the phone away from my face, raising it to his. “She’s fulfilling her end of the bargain.”

“Ana, you don’t have to do this,” Valentin said.

I wanted him. I missed him. I needed him.

And I would never have him again.

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