Chapter 43
1490words
I've never been so furious.
How dare he? How fucking dare he!
Asher had no right to raise his voice to me. No, you're mad about the wrong thing. The issue is he's still controlling what you do! For him to deny me the right to walk out the front door, to feel the sun on my skin, and to smell the fresh air simply because I desire it—he's being a damn bastard.
I'm not paying attention to where I'm going. Looking up, I find I'm in the main room by the front door. Lately, my subconscious continues to lead me here. Locking my legs, I gaze at the exit longingly. I could do it. Just open it, run outside, and ignore the men who would try to stop me. If I go fast enough, they won't catch me.
Imagining Kostya's face when I dart past him brings me a flash of perverse delight. He hates me. I know it. Making him panic would be so satisfying.
My hand inches toward the brass knob. From the corner of my eye, I sense movement through the window. Jolting backward, I lean closer, recognizing my mother on the other side. She's standing in the same spot she was the other day. Her cigarette dangles from her lips—it's mostly ash, nearly to the filter.
She's not crying this time. I look closer, noticing how she rocks from side to side. My mother is stressed to all hell. I've never seen her like this before. Whatever she's been hiding is weighing so heavily that I worry it will snap her in half.
Stubbing the cigarette out, she puts the end in her pocket. Then she vanishes, appearing again through the front door. At the sight of me, she goes white as the wall paint. 'Camila."
'You're smoking every couple of hours these days, huh?" I ask cynically.
'Not that much," she replies unconvincingly. Shutting the door, she begins to walk around me. I block her path. 'Camila, what are you doing?"
Maybe it's because of the fight with Asher, but my spine is stronger today. 'Mom, you need to answer my questions about Yannick."
She purses her lips together until they're bloodless from the pressure. 'There's nothing to tell."
'Yes, there is. I'm not stupid." I gather myself, then face off with her with my head held high. Think about the risks you've taken. You've earned the right to answers. 'I found the documents. I know you took money from Yannick. For years!"
Her face falls. Then she too begins to crumple. Her body sways like a dry leaf in the wind; the wrong impact will shatter her. 'You're wrong. You imagined that. You're misunderstanding the paperwork?—"
'Stop lying to me!" My voice breaks during my plea. Mom flinches like I've slapped her. I wait for her to deny it as she's done so many times already.
Pinching the bridge of her nose, her chin begins to tremble. She's tight as a bowstring, the way someone might ready themselves to take a punch to the stomach.
Finally, realizing that she can't deny this one, she whispers, 'I made a deal with Yannick. Years ago."
'You what?" I recoil in horror. I wait for her to say she's joking, but of course she won't. She was never the type. My mother hangs her head more, shrinking in on herself. 'Mom … what do you mean? What sort of deal?"
'It was when your father and I first arrived in America. We needed a loan, but no bank would lend to us because we had no credit. So we looked around the community, asked our neighbors, and that's when we were introduced to him." She turns away from me, and suddenly I'm reminded of the way Mila turned away from me in the studio when she told me about her past.
I want to reach out and offer comfort, but I don't. Instead, I give her the space to keep speaking, and she does.
'He offered us money, enough to get the studio up and running. Enough to cover our expenses, and then some." She goes silent, and I know there's more. Her voice is barely a whisper. 'But we should've known. The interest he charged us … We couldn't pay it back, no matter how hard we worked. And one day, he came to collect…" She covers her mouth as tears well up in her eyes. 'And we couldn't pay him back. He threatened to break your father's legs. To take away the only way that we could ever make money."
I fight down a swell of bile. My intuition knows whatever is coming will be awful.
'And then he told us that there were other ways to pay him …"
'Mom, what did you do?"
Her hands cover her entire face, shoulders shaking violently as she sobs. 'What else could I do? What else could I offer but myself?"
Grabbing the wall, I slide down to the ground. My legs don't work anymore. She was a prostitute for Yannick? Just like Mila? The reality is too much for me. I'm shaking as much as she is now.
My mother looks down at me with pure pain shining in her damp eyes. 'I'm so sorry, malyshka. I didn't want you to find out like this."
Shaking my head in a slow arc, I force myself to talk. 'It's okay … I'm not mad at you. You didn't have a choice, Mom."
I can't let her feel shame for this. Yannick is the one who should feel guilty, not her.
She's looking at me as if I'm a puzzle. The furtive way she glances from side to side, then back to me, hands balled at her gut, makes me suspect something else is going on.
'You don't understand." She sounds like she's out of breath. 'There is more. More for me to be sorry about."
'More?" I can't hide the despair in my tone.
She cringes, but to her credit, she doesn't shy away this time. My mother, who has kept her secrets all these years, is done holding them inside.
'You need to know who you really are."
A slow, steady thud begins in my veins. 'No."
'Your father?—"
'No!"
'Is Yannick Grachev."
'I said no!" I yell, leaping to my feet, getting in her face. 'No! You can't tell me that! It can't be true! I refuse to believe it! No!"
Shutting her eyes tight, she waits quietly for me to stop ranting. When I'm left panting, my chest heaving up and down, she stares at me again.
'He raped me, malyshka. He made your father watch as he raped me in front of him that night to humiliate us both. And when he was done, he tossed money at us, laughing as we scrambled to pick it up, and told us that we'd get an extension on our debts to him, so long as this …" She chokes up. 'This arrangement continued. And it did. The same way every time."
'Mom …" The bitterness in my bones melts away. 'I'm sorry, Mom. I'm so sorry."
It's odd that, although I'm expressing pity for her, she's still looking at me like I'm the one who suffered. 'I should have told you sooner, but I couldn't. I wanted to protect you, Camila. That man is the devil himself. For you to have any connection to him … I was desperate to keep it buried." She wipes her eyes, but the tears keep falling.
'And now you're going down the same path that I did," she whispers. 'I failed you, malyshka. I should've protected you from this … And instead, I handed you to another monster. To Asher."
My eyes widen as her words sink in. It all makes sense now. The fighting ten years ago, the money that was coming in from Yannick that suddenly stopped ... I rub my belly absently. Mom's sadness over my pregnancy. She's worried about what Yannick wants from us. If he means us harm, then this baby is also in danger.
But what's upsetting me most of all is the reality that my father—the man with jubilant laughter, kind words, and effortless wisdom—wasn't my father. Asher knew Yannick was interested in me when he started stalking me after my dad died.
Does that mean he knows I'm his daughter?
My hand over my belly presses harder. A terrible idea has struck me.
Asher might not know. In that case, he can't learn about any of this. He wants Yannick destroyed. Learning that he's my real father could make him doubt my allegiance … and my mother's. Staring at her with rising terror, I know the risk to our lives is genuine.
She's right. Nothing is ever settled when the Bratvas are involved.
I thought Yannick was the only one I had to worry about.
That's no longer true.
