Page 34 of Broken Sins (Volkov Bratva 3)

When my breathing slows down, I hear muffled crying on the other side of the mesh-and-wood partition.

I recognize those tears.

“Anastasia?” I gasp. My throat is hoarse from inactivity, so the words coming out of my mouth have unusual jagged edges.

“Milly?” she whispers tearfully. “Oh my fucking God, Milly!”

I touch the mesh screen and feel her press her hand up against the other side. That tiny bit of friendly human contact is enough to make me cry. And when the tears start, they don’t stop for a while. In between sobs, I can hear Anastasia crying, too. We’re both wailing like widows at a funeral.

I have a sudden flashback to watchingTitanicin her apartment sophomore year. We both bawled our eyes out back then. Pretty sure we used a whole box of tissues. That doesn’t hold a candle to the crying we do now.

It takes a long time for me to calm down. I don’t move my hand even once. Neither does Anastasia. I need to feel her warmth through the screen, no matter how pitiful that seems. It’s the only thing letting me know that I’m still alive.

After we have both calmed down, I don’t know what to say. Anastasia must not know either, because she has stayed just as quiet.

A million thoughts are racing through my head. They must’ve captured her, too. Why, though? If they know who I am and who my father is, what good is Anastasia? Is she hiding secrets like I was? Why are they letting us see each other?

“Are you okay?” I ask her.

“Yeah, I’m okay,” she whimpers. “Are you?”

“I’ve been better.”

She laughs at that, the kind of snotty laugh you do after you’ve been crying heavily. “Did they hurt you?”

I think about it. In so many ways, the answer is yes. I feel like I’ve been beaten into a thin sheet of tin. “No,” I decide to answer. If she is locked in here with me, she needs me to be strong for her. Just like I need her to be strong for me. “Did they hurt you?”

“No,” she says at once. She says it kind of strangely. Then again, this whole situation is strange, so maybe I’m reading too much into it. “Milly, I’m sorry.”

I’m sure she’s talking about running off with Kyle and leaving me alone on this whole nightmarish ordeal. Or maybe it’s just an “I’m sorry” like “I’m sorry you’ve been drugged and kidnapped by sexy murderers.” That would make sense too.

“It’s okay,” I tell her, even though of course it’s not, because none of this is. “Kyle’s hot, I get it.” I’m doing my damndest to make light of the whole situation. How else can I stay sane? Sarcasm has always been my coping method.

“No,” she corrects immediately. “That’s not what I’m talking about.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m sorry for doing this to you.”

My blood runs cold. “What? What do you mean?”

She starts to babble, the kind of nervous Anastasia chatter that I’ve only seen her do a few times. It’s like a little kid telling a story but she doesn’t know where the story is supposed to start or end or how a story is even supposed to go. But each and every word adds another layer to the chill consuming me.

“They came and found me, I don’t even know how … made me promise I’d bring you out—I didn’t even know what they wanted—said I could either take their money or they’d hurt me, it was my choice—made me give them the hotel and everything, I had to text them when we got there so they could—shit, Milly, I’m so sorry, I’m so fucking sorry, I didn’t know any of this was going to happen.”

I’m dumbfounded. “You gave me to them.”

“I didn’t have a choice! They said they were going to kill my parents if I—Jesus, I’m so sorry.”

She’s crying again, but I don’t join her this time. I pull my hand away from the mesh and take a slow step backwards, though there isn’t far to go before I bump into the opposite wall. I’m cold all the way down to my bones now. I try to wrap the blanket tighter around me to wring some more warmth of it, but it feels like the chill is coming from within.

“You sold me out,” I say again in a numb, hollow voice.

I’ve never felt more alone.

This was all planned, long in advance. This wasn’t a mistake. These men singled me out. They chose me. Not just because my father is rich, but because he is Luka Volkov.

That means I’m not just a young girl kidnapped by some pretty bad dudes.

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