Page 74 of Forgotten Vows
I am not yours at all!
I am my own woman. And I’ll be damned if you try to act like you will ever be my father again.
“I order you to bring Ivan to me. With your bastard spawn. I order you to bring that pathetic Dubinin with the child he put in you when he had no right to even look your way. And if you don’t, I will expose your adultery and sins for the world to see. I will ensure your bastard child will be the star in the middle of a full-scale war among all the Bratva families.”
“Fuck you,” I whispered hotly. Tears gathered at my lids, but they collected there from anger, not fear or sadness. He spoke of such cruelty, but I knew better than to dismiss it as insanity. He was capable of it. He was despicable enough to want to pull this off. I was fully aware of how manipulative and evil he was. All this time people wondered if he had been killed or not was the time he’d used to build his effort and seek out a strategy to make Luka Dubinin suffer. To make Ivan pay for ever claiming me as his.
But he won’t win.
He can’t.
Ivan would protect Lev with his life. I was secure here, and our son would never be lost. I’d seen firsthand how true to his word he was—about everything he promised. Ivan wouldn’t let this happen, and I frantically tried to see a way that I could prevent this hell too.
“Raisa?” Ivan entered the room, frowning as he noticed my attention. He’d jarred me, coming in here as I was stuck watching this ultimatum from the father I’d wished dead so many times that I’d lost count of those morbid thoughts.
“What’s—” He hurried toward me, clearly seeing how upset and distraught I was. “What’s going on? Lev is sick and asking for you. I think he ate something at school that didn’t agree with him and…” He furrowed his brow some more as he approached.
“Oh, God.” I stood, staggering from the chair. Lev needed me and I would always be there for him. As I stumbled to leave the room and go to our son, I pointed a shaky finger at the monitor. “Help. I’ll help. I mean I’ll help. Not him. Lev. I’ll go help Lev, but help me with—it just came in and I saw and— Tell Luka. Send that to him. Have your cyber team track that thingright nowand?—”
“Raisa.” He grabbed my arm, bewildered. I never stuttered, never lost my cool. But seeing my father in that video was like encountering a terrible ghost from the past I’d run away from eight years ago. “Whatever it is, it will be all right.”
I wasn’t sure how.
“Help Lev,” he said gently but sternly, taking charge. “And while you help him, I’ll handle this.”
I nodded jerkily, almost running from the room before I would join my son in being sick. Nausea hit me as I hurried out of the room, desperate with the wish that Ivan really could just fix this situation.
31
IVAN
The first time I watched the video Konstantin had sent Raisa, I was detached and calm. I listened to every stupid word. I looked for clues. I observed his mottled face and slow speech of hatred. Like collecting intel and marking this as evidence, I played it once.
The second time, I felt numb, like this was an otherworldly experience of someone we’d assumed was dead was speaking in a medium, like an apparition.
The third time, anger lit a fuse within me and I gritted my teeth to get through playing it.
“Ivan?”
I didn’t tear my gaze from the screen on the laptop. In the back of my mind, I knew it was Gabriella at the doorway, saying my name, but I couldn’t face her. Sucked into watching Konstantin spew his threats, I fumed and plotted a grisly death for this man who’d dared to ruin my life and Raisa’s life once before.
“Ivan? I think you might need to come downstairs. Lev is puking and it seems like Raisa is in shock or something. I don’t know what’s going on but?—”
“Get Emil and Luka. Now.”
In my peripheral, I registered that she nodded. Then she was gone. The sound of her light footsteps went further from me, suggesting she was sprinting. The lethally serious tone of my voice probably did the trick.
Within a couple more minutes, Luka and Emil showed up. They ran into the room, not bothering to ask any questions. Seeing me at the laptop, they stood behind me as I moved to pressplayagain.
They watched.
Luka swore. Emil did too.
“Again,” Emil said.
I played it once more.
After a few more times, I turned to face them. Both of them wore stony expressions. But Luka snapped out of it first. He didn’t like dealing with strong emotions, preferring to stay logical and always in control.
