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“Her name is Alabama. You’re only pissing her off more by refusing to use her real name,” Lev bites out. “And I thought the whole point of this conversation was to figure out how to stop her feeling like a prisoner?”
“Did your grandfather and father control their wives?” I blurt, wondering why I’ve never asked this before.
“My grandfather was a fucking asshole. He beat my grandmother black and blue if she dared to step out of line. My father refused to be the same kind of man, he and my mom are close, a team, but I suppose in most things she probably naturally defers to him, but it’s not because she fears him, it’s because she knows he’s always thinking of her,” Lev says, the pride for his parents evident in his tone.
“What about yours,” I ask Dimi.
“My grandparents had a good marriage, Dedushka led and Babushka followed, because he was the man and that was his role. My parents were not a good match, Mama refused to follow, and Papa refused to accept this about her. Instead of compromising, they fought.” Dimi shrugs.
“My parents and grandparents practiced domestic discipline,” I confess.
“They what?” Lev asks.
“We’ve never discussed it, but from what I saw growing up, the men had rules for their women and if they broke them, the women were corrected using corporal punishment.”
“What kind of corporal punishment?” Lev asks cautiously.
“Spanking mainly, I think, but mouth washing sometimes, and some mild humiliation with corner time and such. I walked in on my grandma over my grandpa’s lap a few times. Honestly, I never really thought much about it until today.”
“And was it… was it consensual?” Lev cringes.
“I don’t know about my grandparents, but you’ve seen my parents, they still seem sickeningly in love even after all these years. If he’s doing stuff she doesn’t want, she’s either brainwashed to think she does, or she’s a really fucking good actress.”
“You’ve always known?” Dimi asks.
I nod.
“You’ve never mentioned it before.”
“Honestly, I thought it was just a kinky throwback from their Bratva days. I assumed all of our families had the same kind of relationship.” I chuckle.
“Would you want that with Alabama?” Lev questions.
“I don’t know. Maybe. I assumed if I ever found a woman, I’d want something similar, because it was just what the men in my family do. But until a year ago, I never thought I’d have a woman, or that I’d share her with you pair, or that she’d hate my fucking guts,” I scoff, self-deprecatingly.
“She hates us all, not just you,” Dimi says.
“I don’t think she hates me.” Lev frowns.
“She hates all of us, we just have to figure out how to change her mind,” Dimi says, slapping me on the back as he fills a glass with whiskey and leaves.
CHAPTER 17
alabama
After my epic speech, I stomp out of the room, climb the stairs to the bedroom, then throw myself down face first onto the bed and scream into the comforter, like a teenager whose parents have just grounded them. Only I’m the one who grounded myself and I honestly don’t know why.
No, that’s a lie. I’m containing myself to this fucking room to prove a point. Except I don’t know if the three sexy stooges downstairs have any idea what my point is. They keep talking like we’re in the middle of a romantic comedy, not a war film, and I don’t know how to handle that.
Dimitri is clearly the one in charge, he’s calm to the point of aloofness. Except for this morning when he threatened to drag me out from beneath the table if I refused to drink the bottle of water he brought me. Now I know the full reason why I’m here, his reaction makes sense. You can’t use a dead hostage.
Viktor is a fucking psycho. He’s clearly the wildcard, not afraid to physically intimidate me to get what he wants, and capable of switching from flirty and sweet, to violent and terrifying in the blink of an eye.
Lev, so far, seems to be the peacemaker. He’s always the one reminding me that they want me here, that they’re not just using me, that me being here doesn’t have to be awful.
What bothers me the most, is that I don’t know if the personalities they’ve shown are really who they are, or if they’re just playing a role to make my kidnapping go a certain way. My body is hyper alert but exhausted at the same time, and I glance at the closet and wonder if I should try to hide under the vanity again tonight.
Sleeping out here in the open is still unappealing, but am I any safer in the closet, when they could just as easily come in there to hurt me if that’s what they plan to do? Despite everything I said at dinner, I doubt me informing them that no means no, will stop them from holding me down and raping me if they decide to.
