Page 151 of Shattered Cradle (Makarova Bratva Duet)

The truest answer I can give, the one that comes instinctively to my lips, is that I want to be with him. I want us to be a family, like the one I grew up in. I want us to love each other and support each other and fight for each other and maybe sometimes fightwitheach other, but that’s okay, because the love will see us through and make it all alright in the end.

But how can I even so much as entertain the dream after what I just discovered?

How, even now, could I pretend to cling to the fading hope that there’s a future here?

There’s not.

There’s just more and lower levels to this hell.

Aleks scans me up and down. I clutch my hands together behind my back, as if he’d be able to read through my lies if he saw them trembling.

I can feel the goosebumps forming on my spine. As much as I would like to claim disgust, it’s not that.

It’s desire I’m feeling, even now.

What does that say about me? That I can still feel this for him even when I know now he’s spent all these months lying to me? That beneath the mask of the monster is… a worse monster, and yet I love him anyway?

“Olivia, is something wrong?” he asks.

He doesn’t sound overly concerned. More like… amused. Like he’s waiting for something to happen.

“Everything is wrong,” I whisper. My chin falls to my chest.

He’s close to me now. So close that if I look up, I’ll be confronted with his haunting eyes.

And I don’t want to be haunted anymore. I have enough demons running around inside my head as it is.

“What if I wanted to leave?” I ask. “After the baby is born?”

“Then you would be free to,” he says. “So long as the threat of Hargrove is taken care of.”

“And my child?”

He seems even more amused now. “Your child would stay here with me.”

“A baby should be with its mother.”

“I don’t subscribe to that belief.”

“So if I want to be with my baby, I have to stay here?”

He nods. “We all have to make choices in this life.”

“If you think that’s a choice, then you’re delusional,” I snap up at him.

“What do you want from me, Olivia?” he asks calmly. “You want some bold declaration of love? You want me to tell you I can’t live without you? That I want you to stay, not for the baby, but for me?”

I’m aware of the fact that I’m holding my breath. But I remind myself that his promises, no matter how sincere they may seem, are all lies.

“Answer the question. Is that what you want, Olivia?”

“You know what I want, Aleks? What I really want?”

“Tell me.”

“The truth,” I say, releasing the painful breath I’ve been holding. “I want the truth.”

35

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