Page 70 of Purchased

“You could have reported the entire matter to the proper authorities.”

“And in the meantime God knows what would have happened to her, and the odds that the authorities did not already know are next to nothing. The director general of the National Police was there. Sometimes the best way to navigate a corrupt world is to play the game. I don’t keep her prisoner. There are no chains on her limbs.”

Volkov is really giving Armand shit, and not for the reasons I want to talk about. It feels more like he has his own agenda right now, like he disapproves of this entire relationship. Is he trying to split us up? It’s quite literally not possible.

I came in here wanting to scream at Armand, and now I want to defend him.

“He didn’t do anything wrong, and if he did, I don’t care. I do more wrong than anybody else, and I want him. Nobody else could handle me. You couldn’t handle me. Armand is the only person I’ve ever felt loved by, and nothing you say, and nothing he does is going to change that.”

Armand is smiling at me. “Beatrix, I…”

“Shut up, I am still angry at you. That was still fucked up.”

“It was,” he agrees. “And I am sorry. In my defense, I didn’t think you’d find out.”

I stare at him for a moment, then laugh. “That sounds like something I would say.”

“Yes, it is,” Volkov says. He sounds disapproving. Good. I hope he fucking hates our relationship.

“What’s in there, it answers a lot of questions,” Armand says. “Did you read it? I don’t know how much you remember about your past, but it’s all there.”

“I read some of it, and then I got too angry.”

“There was a lot in there about where you come from, and what happened back then. If you ever have questions that you want answered, those pages answer it.”

“You shouldn’t have done it without telling me.”

“I know.”

I look at him, long and hard. “You’d do it again, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes,” he admits. “I would.”

A laugh bubbles up in me. We are cut from the same cloth, he and I, both unapologetic about doing what we feel needs to be done.

“I love you,” I say.

“I love you too,” he says. “And honestly, the information we have now is going to help. I know it is.”

“What’s so useful about knowing why I was fucking abandoned, Armand?”

“For starters, you weren’t abandoned. You were hidden in the orphanage. It was an attempt to save you, and I’d say it worked.”

“Maybe. Maybe my parents just wanted to get rid of me.”

Armand shakes his head vehemently.

“You were one of the last of your line, and your pack was under attack. There is absolutely no chance you weren’t wanted, and they didn’t try to keep you safe. My guess? They planned to come back for you, but couldn’t. I doubt they knew what happened to the girls when they aged out.”

“Do you really think so?”

I have never allowed myself to feel hope that anybody cared about me. The girls at the orphanage all had stories about the reasons they ended up there. I heard a lot of theories about absent parents who were coming back at any moment. I never believed them. I always felt, deep down, that I’d never see mine again.

“Do you remember your parents?”

I don’t know the answer to that question. Memory requires consent. You can’t remember things if you don’t want to, if you think about something else whenever it tries to surface, if you shove it down really deeply.

“I don’t want to talk about myself,” I say. “My memories are for me, not for anyone else. And not for people who ask me and assume I have to answer them. You might have paid for my body, but you didn’t buy my brain.”

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