“What happened to him?”
Her eyes snap to mine, and again, the way she looks at me is unnerving. I wish she’d just blink a little more. Maybe I just want her to because it would remind me that she is, in fact, human.
“He was murdered. By your grandfather, actually.”
Again, I wait to feel something. Shouldn’t the tragic story of the death of the father you never knew make you feel something?
Maybe I’m just too pregnant to feel anything at all. Maybe all I’m capable of being is tired.
Or maybe it’s the way Anya says it. She delivers the fact without any sense of delicacy. No warning, no disclaimer. Just bang in my face. I stare at her for a long time, but she never offers me anything else. Not even comfort.
“Why?”
“My father had other plans for me,” Anya explains. “He wanted me married off to another man. It was already arranged and I ruined things by sleeping with one of his men. My father was furious. And, if I’m being honest, that was the whole point.”
“Did you know he’d kill him?”
She frowns and for the first time, I wonder if maybe there’s a heart buried in there after all. “I was young and na?ve enough to believe that it would be a fight that I could win. I usually won my fights, anyway. I didn’t think this would be so different.”
“Losing him must have been hard for you.”
“I was angry for a long time. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever stopped being angry.”
That’s the first vulnerable thing she’s said to me in months. It doesn’t really make me feel close to her, but it does give me some hope for the future.
“Is that why you have such a bad relationship with your father?”
She shakes her head. “That happened long before Mattias, but it certainly drove in the wedge that broke our relationship. He expected me to just dust myself off and move on. Be the good Bratva princess he expected me to be.”
“But you stayed with him afterwards.”
“After I gave you up, I came back,” she confirms.
The fact that she glosses over the part where she gave me up and just returned to her life doesn’t affect me as much as I would have thought. I’ve come to manage expectations where Anya is concerned.
“Why?”
“Because I knew I would leave one day,” she says. “And I needed resources. I needed money. I needed men. The Bratva is built on loyalty, so I needed to build a group of men who would follow me one day instead of my father. And I knew that would take time.”
“But your father didn’t suspect anything?”
“He was too busy trying to marry me off to a suitable man who would expand his business interests and make his Bratva stronger.”
I frown. “You’ve been married, haven’t you?” Leo told me about it, but I want to hear the story from her.
“Twice,” she says. “Both to men my father picked for me.”
I already know what she’s about to tell me. Even though my chest tightens a little, I don’t feel the horror I probably should. More than anything else, that’s what alarms me. Am I already getting used to the brutality of this world? Does that mean I’m becoming a part of it?
“I killed them both as soon as I could,” Anya tells me. “I don’t think I made it to a year with either one.”
The way she says it makes me shiver. There’s pride in her voice. And even if I doubted that, the pride in her eyes is hard to ignore. “How could you have done it?”
“Well, with Oleg I drugged him first and—”
“No!” I say, horrified that she assumed that was what I meant. “I’m not asking you how you murdered your husbands. I’m asking… how could you?”
She raises her eyebrows. Pride gives way to disappointment.
“You think I should feel guilt? Remorse?”
“Either,” I say. “Both.”
“Why?” she asks coldly. “He probably never felt it when he killed or stole or raped. So why should I?”
“Because it’s the sign of a decent human being,” I snap.
Her eyes flash for a moment. Then they drop to my belly and she swallows her indignation. “This is the Bratva. None of us are decent human beings.”
“I’m not Bratva.”
Her eyes are cold even when she smiles. “Does that sense of superiority keep you warm at night?”
“My conscience is clear.”
“You’ll raise a son who will command a Bratva, kill men, hurt women, commit God knows what other unspeakable sins. Enjoy that clear conscience while it lasts, daughter.”