Page 37 of Sold to the Russian
“You’ll have to be a little bit more specific than that. You’ve done a lot of things.”
Fedya almost smiled. “This was your first Bratva event, was it not?”
Maeve blinked. “Of course not.”
“Your face gives you away,zhena.”
She shifted in her seat. “Fine. Yes. Why does that matter?”
“Because it was ruined. It was ruined because of me.”
Maeve closed her eyes and pinched her nostrils for a moment, debating whether or not she wanted to say the next words. Then she sighed, turned fully to him, and said, “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but it was actually a fun night. Before the testosterone battle, of course. Your siblings are… fun.”
Fedya’s lips twitched. “Fun?”
“I won’t repeat myself.”
“And I’m not fun?”
She scoffed, but it lacked any real bitterness. “You’re like the opposite of fun. A far cry from fun. In all honesty, you kill all my joy.”
“That’s a bit of a stretch, isn’t it?”
“Your siblings,” she said pointedly, “are much better to hang out with than you.”
“I will do better.”
Maeve laughed, but he meant it. “Yeah, right.” Then she paused, looked at the window, and said, “They make me wish I had siblings.”
“You grew up alone,” Fedya noted, silently drumming his fingers against the steering wheel. Touchy subject, he assumed, so he didn’t want to push.
Surprisingly, she answered. “Yes.” She was still not looking at him. “When I turned eighteen, my father sent me to the UK to study business. That’s what he told everyone, what he told me to do. But I wanted to be an artist, not that my choices mattered to him anyway.”
Fedya perked up in his seat. “Artist?”
“Painting mostly,” she said. She wore a small, wistful smile. “Drawing as well. But he didn’t want that. He thought it was stupid, a waste of time. So I forced myself to learn about stocks and logistics and how to draft fucking board memos instead of doing what I loved. He’d cut me off if I did something he wasn’t in support of, and I knew no one in the UK to run to even if I wanted to branch off on my own, so I did as he asked.”
Fedya didn’t speak, but his knuckles were pale against the leather wheel.
“And when I came back,” she continued, frowning at herself as she recalled the story, “he barely told anyone, barely let me reconnect with my friends from high school. He just kept me in the house, gave me a daily schedule, a driver who was constantly monitoring my movements and reporting back to him. I used to think it was because he loved me, because hewanted to protect me, but the older I got, the more I realized that he just wasn’t proud of me. Wasn’t proud enough to show me off as his daughter, I guess. He’d always wanted a son anyway; he’d told me multiple times growing up. Every time I screwed up, he’d remind me of that.”
Then she blinked hard, her brows furrowing like she was trying not to cry. She leaned back against the chair and shrugged. “It’s fucked up, I guess. Makes sense he’d trade me like property.”
“Do you love him?”
Of all the things he could ask, that was probably the last one she was expecting, the one he knew very well she couldn’t answer but asked anyway. Cormac was a horrible father, and Fedya despised him even more for the way he treated her. But at the end of the day, he was still her father, still her blood, and he knew her loyalties had to be torn at some point. It was inevitable, but he wanted her for himself, wanted her loyalty solely to him and no one else.
Cormac would never take care of her. He would never be a good father, would never treat her right. It wasn’t like Fedya himself was particularly skilled at the art of treating women right, but he was more than willing to try. He was more than willing to be anything for this woman, this one he was so quickly drowning in.
For a long time, she said nothing. Didn’t answer his question. And when he glanced at her again, he found her head leaning against the window, her eyes shut, fast asleep. But her cheeks were wet with tears he hadn’t known were falling down her cheeks, and even in her sleep, he could feel her sadness, her uncertainty, her pain.
And that was all it took for Fedya to come to the staggering and paralyzing realization that if he could, he really would burn the whole world down if it meant she’d never look like that again.
Chapter 12 - Maeve
Maeve had tossed and turned fifty consecutive times before she came to the conclusion that she couldn’t sleep.
Her eyes were wide and sharp as they stared at the ceiling above. Her heart felt like it was pumping more blood than normal. Her nerves were awake and alive, sending zings of electricity each time she remembered their kiss.
