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But not like this …
“I …” I take a deep breath.This is it, Emily.Make it convincing. “I love your grandson.”
Alla’s eyes become thin slits. She leans closer to me, her slim hands running over her defined jaw. “Liar.”
“What?” Panic rises in my throat.
“You don’t love him,” she says. “Trash like you love things about him, but never him.”
Trash.That word sends me spiraling. Alla is talking to me the same way my parents would talk to Olivia. Even the judgment in her eyes is the same. I’m frozen on the spot.
She doesn’t believe me.
Which means all of this is already starting to fall apart.
“You’re only marrying him for the money.” Alla scoffs dismissively. “I can see it in your eyes. I can practicallysmellit on you.” she studies my face more intently, a nasty smile twisting onto her face. “How much is he paying you for this, little whore?”
Whore …
It would’ve hurt less if she slapped me in the face.
“N-nothing …” I say hoarsely.
“A cheap whore, then.”
“I’m not a whore,” I say, feeling panic and indignation squeezing around my heart as Allasneers at me. “I love him! It’s the truth!”
Is it? Do I?
“Don’t lie to me again, whore.” The smile disappears and she closes the distance between us, her aura suffocating and chilling my bones.
Suddenly, I have the awful premonition of her strangling me.
I try to back away, and that’s when she suddenly seizes my forearm, holding me in place with remarkable strength as her talon-like fingernails dig into my flesh.
I bite back the cry of pain that nearly escapes my throat.
She’s just looking for a reaction, and I can’t give her one.
I can’t give her more reasons to doubt this marriage. I can’t give her more reasons to hate me than she already does.
“You’re either very brave.” She chuckles, the sound slippery as oil. “Or very stupid to agree to his scheme. Either way, you can’t fool me. I know what my Kostya is doing. He thinks this will convince me into givinghimcontrol of the Bratva.”
Control? I thought he said this was about an inheritance?Curiosity now overrides my fear, and despite her painful grip on my arm tightening, I don’t try to escape her anymore.
Is … is his inheritance the bratva itself?
“Oh.” Alla’s cruel smile widens. “You had no idea, did you,devushka? You had no idea and you still agreed?” She scoffs. “Not only a cheap whore, but a dumb one too.”
“I’m marrying your grandson because I love him.” I try my best to sound convincing as I repeat myself. “And he loves me.”
Does he?
“No, he doesn’t.” Alla snaps. “He doesn’t care about you. Nobody here cares about you. When this is all over and he gets what he wants, he’ll cast you aside and forget your name like the gold-digging whorethat you are. But I won’t.” She leans in closer and whispers venomously in my ear. “I’ll remember the mockery you helped him make of this family. And I will make youhurt. In ways you cannot possibly begin to imagine.Ponimayesh?”
My hands and feet have gone numb. All the blood has fled to my brain, working to keep me from passing out.
Above all that is something more painful—a spiky knot in my guts that works upward, pressing at the backs of my eyes, threatening to become tears.
