Page 66 of Dirty Damage

“I’ll be marrying Sutton as soon as a doctor verifies pregnancy, but our engagement will be announced as soon as possible.That’swhy Candace is here.”

Candace sinks into her shoulders like a turtle. No one wants to be caught in the crossfire when Oksana is in the fight.

My mother lays her red talons on the folder, dragging it closer to her. She opens it slowly, eyes scanning the first page and then the second.

She moves with ominously slow precision through the entire folder.

Then she slams it shut.

“You’ve lost your fucking mind.”

“Is that your blessing?” I sneer through a smile.

“Be serious, Oleg,” she barks. “You need a powerful woman by your side. You want me to support your bid to take over the company and the Bratva? Then find a suitable wife.”

“I already have.”

Her nostrils flare wide. “The woman you’re seen with matters, Oleg. Her reputation matters. She will be the wife of thepakhanand the mother of the futurepakhan.”

“I’m aware.” The words fall from my lips like ice. “Appearances are everything—which is, again, why Candace is here.”

Our publicist peeks over her screen like a prairie dog checking for predators. A decade of handling Pavlov drama, and she still hasn’t developed immunity to the toxic waste dump that is my relationship with my mother.

“What’s real and true doesn’t matter,” I say matter-of-factly. “We manufacture the truth. We create the reality we want. Candace will do that for Sutton.”

My mother opens her mouth, but I silence her with a raised hand. “Sutton has baggage, but that can be spun to my advantage.”

Intrigue flickers across my mother’s stony face. “Explain.”

“She’s desperate and broke—she’ll toe whatever line I ask her to and that’s a hell of a lot more than you can say about any of the candidates you threw my way.”

With my mother, I’ve always been a salesman. She needs to be convinced, and like Candace, I’m good at twisting the truth to my benefit.

But doing it for Sutton feels different.

Wrong.

“Those ‘candidates’ had something to offer besides their bodies. They came from influential families who?—”

“Who had their own motives and agendas. I know Sutton’s motives. I can control her.”

Images of Sutton flash through my mind. One in particular: her with her delicate wrists cuffed to my body, coming apart on my fingers as she gazed up at me like there was nothing she wouldn’t let me do to her.

Thatis control.

Thatis surrender.

I shove it aside as fast as I can.

“At least the women I selected were educated, refined. You could be proud to have them on your arm. Instead, you’re going to have a stupid, useless bimbo raising your children.”

My jaw clenches hard enough to crack.

She’s never seen Sutton with children. My mother doesn’t know how Sutton fights back even when she’s cornered.

She can handle my world and my children; I have no doubt.

But I don’t owe my mother an explanation.

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