“What do you care?” I demand. “What’s the point of this whole fucking inquisition?”
“The point is that I need you to focus. The longer you take to get over him, the harder that will be.”
“I’m already over him.”
“Your ability to lie is as bad as your focus.”
“Are you going to send someone in to train me to lie now, too?”
She meets my eyes with her cold gaze. “Don’t act like a petulant child, Viktoria. It doesn’t suit you.”
“Tell me something: how many lovers have you had over the years?”
“Countless.”
“And you never want something more?”
“Never.”
“Why?”
“Because the only man that ever made me feel anything was your father,” she says. “And once he was gone, that door closed forever.”
“So you’re just hiding from reality?”
“I’m surviving. There’s a difference.”
Pasha starts to whimper at my breast. I pull him away and stroke his apple cheek as regret courses through me.
I used to think about having a baby, but whenever I did, I imagined a good man by my side. Or at the very least, a man I loved.
It’s funny that, in the end, even love wasn’t enough. But then, love was never what Leo was after. Despite my denial, I know Anya’s right about me. About my feelings. About where my heart lies.
I just don’t want to give her the satisfaction of acknowledging it.
“I don’t want to go back to training today,” I say instead.
Anya crosses her legs and scoffs, “You don’t have a choice.”
“Why is it that, in the Bratva, being powerful means removing everyone else’s options?” I demand.
“I’m not trying to control you, Viktoria. I’m trying to protect you.”
“It all feels the same from my perspective.”
“What do I keep telling you?” she demands. “I’ve said it over and over again since you got here?”
“Lie better? Abort your child? Abandon your principles?” I rattle off. “You’ve given me so many gems of maternal wisdom; it’s hard to keep them all straight.”
She glares at me with a deadpan expression. “If you want something enough, take it. If you really wanted out of here, then you’d be back with your Bratva prince. If you really wanted to stop training, you would have stopped by now. You are like all those other ordinary people out there in the world: you love to complain, but you refuse to do anything to change it.”
Her words feel like rocks being pelted at me, but beneath the harsh words, I find a small iota of truth.
“You like playing the victim, Willow,” she says. “But no one will feel sorry for you here. So I suggest you stop feeling sorry for yourself.”
“Willow.”
I glance towards Leo, realizing belatedly that we’ve come to a stop outside the cabin. Right back to where all this started. The men are already piling out of the jeep and unloading their violent paraphernalia.
“Come on,” he says. “Let’s go.”
I try to move, but my body feels completely numb, so I just slump back in my seat and stare up at the roof of the car. Instead of snapping at me to get my ass in gear like he normally would, Leo just waits next to me silently. Patiently, if a man like him could be said to do anything patiently.
We sit together until the quiet becomes too oppressive to continue. “We need to at least consider it,” I whisper.
“Consider it?” Anger curls off each of Leo’s words like steam. “It sounded like you were ready to do more than consider it back there.”
“It has nothing to do with you. It isn’t personal, but—”
“You think I’m pissed because you hurt my feelings?” he growls, cutting me off. “I’m pissed because it was a stupid decision to make. You can’t trust anything he says, and you should know that.”
I turn to look at him. He’s as savagely beautiful as he ever is. I know he has love for me, somewhere deep down beneath the ever-present rage. I know he understands what my heart has been through, too. How badly it’s hurt to love someone who might not let himself love me back.
“He has my son, Leo.”
“Spartak is not going to kill Pasha,” he says firmly. “He’s on shaky ground as it is. If he kills the heir to the Mikhailov throne, the loyalists will have no reason to continue to follow him once Semyon is dead.”