Page 74 of Dangerous Beginnings

Isabella recoils at the intensity of my anger, her eyes filling with tears as she shrinks away from me. She holds her chin high. “Fuck yourreputation.”

“Fine,” I growl, my frustration boiling over into anger. The chain rattles in the room, and if it were not the mere fact I restrained myself, I’d be closing her in. She stills, fear. “You see, Isabella,” I say through clenched teeth, my voice dripping with frustration. “I could have sold you off, I could have left you in here torot.” Her eyes widen in alarm at my words, a flicker of fear crossing her features. “But instead, I’m sitting here like a fool, and just started a war over you with a very unsettling moron.” She is biting her nails as she stares at the wall. “Soplease,you have to believe me.” She shakes her head, and I mentally bang my head against the wall.

Another tear rolls down her cheek. I regret what I have done, and I want to make it up to her. I need to. She’s my woman now, mine to protect. And it will only be a harder job if she doesn’t comply. If she doesn’t trust my intentions. I feel the need to hug her, to comfort her. But I’ve forced myself upon her many times, she needs to come at me at her own pace. And it’s not looking like she is ready to be near me at all. At last, she speaks up, shoving my confession aside, something else more important to her.

“Do you…traffic women?” she asks, her voice barely above a whisper, her face facing the opposite direction.

My heart clenches at the question, the weight of her words hanging heavily in the air. I take a moment to compose myself, knowing that this is a conversation I can’t afford to mishandle. “No, Isabella,” I reply firmly, “I don’t traffic women.”

Now she finally looks at me. The relief that washes over her face is tangible, her shoulders visibly relaxing as my words sink in. “But I saw…” she begins, her voice trailing off as she recalls the time in the jail.

“They were transported to a safe house.”

She gapes at me. “But I thought—”

I cut her off, “No, I do not participate in the mistreatment of women. However, I cannot speak for everyone.” I aim at the girls in the conference room. Some men do participate in that world, but I have never. She takes a deep breath in, trying to steady herself, and I feel I might have entered an interrogation room.

Isabella

Whether to believe it, I don’t know yet. However, he is answering questions, and I have so many. I nod at his answer. There is something in me that breathes relief. I now turn my attentiontowards him, moving my body around, facing him. I sigh, it’s bothering me and it’s laying heavy on my chest so here goes nothing. “I went into your office while you were gone.” I purse my lips, expecting a snarl, but I get the opposite.

His face remains unbothered, “I know.” He raises an eyebrow, “I have cameras.”

My mouth shapes into an O. I should have guessed that. I swallow the stomach acid down. It feels wrong to interfere with his personal life, although he has done so with mine in deeper ways.

“What happened to you?” The question leaves my mind fast, no doubt. My mind races back to the pictures inside of the box. The horrors I’ve seen.

Aslanov takes a deep breath before answering, his voice tinged with regret. “The woman in the picture,” he begins, his gaze distant as he recalls the events of the past. “I bargained with my captors, traded my freedom for hers.”

My heart clenches at the thought of what he must have endured, the agony he willingly endured to protect someone he loved. “And then what?” I ask softly, dreading the answer yet needing to know the truth.

He hesitates for a moment before continuing, his voice barely audible. “They tortured me,” he admits, his words heavy with the weight of his memories. “Every method imaginable.”

I gasp in horror, unable to comprehend the cruelty of his captors. “And what about her?” I ask, my voice trembling with emotion.

Aslanov’s gaze darkens with sorrow as he speaks of the woman he once loved. “We were never the same after that,” he confesses, his voice tinged with regret. “She couldn’t bear what had happened, what she had seen.”

I feel a lump form in my throat as I listen to his words, the tragedy of their story unfolding before me. “What happened toher?” I ask softly, dreading the answer yet needing to know the truth.

“She ended her life,” his gaze on the floor as the rough statement waves through the cell.

“I thought it had been my fault, but later I found out that she had been betraying me for a while. She had been woven into the entire plan of trying to blackmail and destroy me.” His voice dripped with anger—pain. “She would have left me there, to die.

“Dominik saved me.”

My chest falls and rises rapidly. The story waves through my veins.

“He saved a monster,” he continues.

The statement rumbles deep into my bones, a monster. Yes, he is. For all that he does, for all that he has done, there is no denying.

“She-,” my mind wanders. The only woman he’s ever let in betrayed him. “She betrayed you? But you knew her, youlovedher. How could she have hidden that; how could one ever do something like that?”

The silence overtakes the cell again. A certain tension spreads between the four walls and us as his next words cut like a knife, “I did…” He pauses while pain hints in his voice, “…but abuse can feel like love. Cold waters can feel inviting when you’re numb from the chill.” My gaze focuses on him now. Is he talking about himself…orme?

“I guess I was freezing.” His gaze now intensifies on me. “I knew, so I saw it in you, I recognized it. You werenumb from the chill.”

It’s the truth. I’ve been numb to love and affection all my life. I’ve never known what it felt like to feel warm, to not crave. It was the raw and bare truth and somehow that made me feel sad. Like someone recognizing it meant for it to be real, to be visible, to exist.

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