Page 57 of Forcibly Sold to the Bratva
“No.” I feel like I can’t believe it, but I know it’s true. The coldness in Ardalion’s eyes when he met me at Faddey’s party suddenly makes terrible sense.
“Viktor tortured her.” Ilariy’s eyes turn cold. “When we finally found her, she was barely conscious. It took weeks for her physical wounds to heal. The psychological ones...” He shakes his head. “She still has nightmares.”
“No!” I cry out, feeling like the wind has been knocked out of me. I keep shaking my head. “No. No. No…”
My hands give out entirely, trembling with no control, and I sink back into the couch.
“Why?” I choke out. “Why would they do that?”
“Viktor wanted to weaken our family and rise within the hierarchy of power,” Ilariy looks at me sadly. “He couldn’t have done it without your brothers’ help.”
I think of Lilibeth at dinner two weeks ago, over at our house. Ilariy’s sisters introduced me to her, included her in our plans, and she never,not once, offered me anything other than friendship.
After what my brothers did to her, how did she find it in her to be so kind, so gentle, so warm?
She never said a word.She never once let on that she knew how evil my family was, never mentioned what they’d done to her.
“Oh God,” I gasp in humiliation. “Everyone knows, don’t they? That’s why her brothers could barely bring themselves to speak to me at Faddey’s party. I asked Tatiana why they were acting so cold around me, and she chalked it up to them being in a mood. But… they were angry for what happened to their sister.”
“Yes,” Ilariy admits quietly.
I sit up and meet his eyes. “Did your sisters know too? When they were taking me to pottery class, having coffee with me—did they know what my brothers did the whole time?”
He doesn’t answer, and that’s enough.
“Everyone knew.” My voice rises. “Everyone knew who my brothers were, what they’d done, and no one told me. I’ve been hanging out with Lilibeth, for Christ’s sake! After what my family did to her!”
A hysterical laugh escapes me. “No wonder people were whispering. I thought I was being paranoid, but they were alltalking about the idiot Sokolov girl who doesn’t have an ounce of compassion in her soul.”
I stumble to my feet, rage, shame, and grief colliding inside me. “You humiliated me.”
“Arina—”
“No!” I scream, hovering over him where he sits on the couch. “You let me walk around like a fool. You let me sit at dinner tables with people whose lives my brothers destroyed. You let me build friendships with women whose sister-in-law was tortured by my family!”
His face turns soft. “I know how much this hurts, Arina. I’m so sorry about…everything. “
Tears burn in my eyes, and my chin trembles with rage. “My brothers are monsters. And you knew. You knew the whole time.”
“Yes,” he says quietly. “I knew.”
“And you never told me,” I begin to sob.
“That’s not fair,” he says softly, but he doesn’t explain why because he doesn’t need to. I’m just so angry that it’s easier to pretend he hadn’t told me my brothers were members of the Bratva.
It’s easier to pretend that I’m here by my own choice because I refused to listen when I could and continued living in a fairy tale.
A fairy tale I could have still been a part of, if Ilariy hadn’t dragged me into this world.
“And you married me anyway. To hurt them.” My voice breaks. “Just like they hurt your family.”
“Oh, Arina.” He rises to his feet and tries to reach for my hand, but I pull away.
“Don’t touch me,” I hiss.
“Arina, listen to me,” he pleads. “I took you to see if I could find out where your brothers were. But things changed. You must know that.”
“Why?” I spit. “Because we fucked? Because you felt sorry for me? Poor innocent Arina, too stupid to know what her family really is.”
