Page 42 of Captured By the Bratva

Fisting my hand again, I breathed through the anger filling me at her heartbroken honesty.

“When all he’d done was trick me. He’d conned me into thinking he cared about my artwork, but one night, I overheard him speaking with my father and my eyes were well and truly opened. He and Steven were arguing about a plan.”

“A plan for what?”

She shrugged. “No details were shared, probably on purpose. Dom seemed to argue that he thought this plan would be impossible to pull off, but Steven said they had to keep their eye on the long-term goal.”

There was my proof. Steven was trying to collaborate with the Rossinis. This wasn’t good news for the Bratva, and I was renewed with a sense of putting out the fire before it could take flame.

“I wanted to leave right then and there when I overheard that call. Knowing that Steven could interfere with what I had assumed was a legitimate interest in my artwork was equivalent to my world crashing down.” She glanced at me, sadder yet. “I had this gut instinct, you know? I justknewsomething fishy was going on, and I didn’t want any part of it.”

“Did you leave?”

She nodded. “I told Dominic that I wanted to go home. That I overheard him and I refused to be associated with anything my father was involved in, that I didn’t trust him, and therefore, I didn’t trust Dominic either. He didn’t take the confrontation well. It was stupid, from an amateur artist’s perspective, to ever talk back to a prospective sponsor. But he didn’t even mentionmy art. He admitted that he only ever approached me as insurance to keep a closer eye on my father, that while I was with Dominic, Steven would have to behave.”

Just like I’m doing with you.She had been a pawn before, but I hated to think I wasn’t any better. Against my judgment, I was falling for her in a way I never had for a woman.

“He scowled and lashed out, telling me he was sick of me, anyway. Sick of pretending that my artwork was good. Sick of spending so much energy to keep an eye on a man who only lied and played games. So sick of me that…” She sniffled, tipping her chin up defiantly. “That he raped me that night before I flew home.”

I tensed. Clenching my fists tight and bracing my legs to stand, I stared at her. “He raped you?”

She nodded, unafraid to look me in the eye now. Almost as though she challenged me to judge her.

“Is Emily the product of that rape?”

Once more, she nodded, but this time, shame filled her eyes as she turned to look away.

16

BECCA

Icouldn’t bear the look in Ivan’s eyes. He was so tense, but I couldn’t pinpoint why.

At first, I wondered if he could’ve been upset that I trespassed into his room and dared to stand there in his privacy while he finished his shower. I’d been too stunned to move then, tantalized by his naked form.

Then once I shared that recorded call with him, I worried that he would react in anger near Emily. I hadn’t felt danger around Ivan since I’d come here, but he had been so upset, so riled up at the sound of Steven’s voice that I couldn’t help but want to cringe.

Now, as I elaborated about how Dominic had used me, he looked furious. Ferally angry.

I warred between two options. Shut up and go to bed or try to explain further. I wasn’t hiding anything else, but something in the way he stared at me suggested that he thought I was still untrustworthy.

Even after I’d shared that call with him. If that couldn’t be the biggest sign of surrendering to him and his plans, I wasn’t sure what else I could do.

“I thought you said you had no connection with Dominic.”

I swallowed, rubbing my hand down Emily’s back both to soothe her and seek my own comfort from her.

“I don’t. He sent me packing after he raped me.”

“You share a child with him.”

I refused to flinch at his hard tone. “I don’t share her with him. He doesn’t even know she exists.”

He arched one brow. “Are you sure about that?”

I nodded, but that gesture now felt like a lie. So many things convinced me that Steven was the one trying to use Emily to get to me, but I felt certain that Dominic didn’t know about Emily. Nor that he would care.

Unless he wanted to use Emily as a way to get to Steven?I dismissed that thought. That would only work if Steven cared about her, and he didn’t. He didn’t care about me, either.

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