Page 30 of Beautifully Damned (Sinful Fates #2)

Roman

I'm fucked. Utterly, irrevocably fucked.

I thought staying away would fix whatever the fuck is between us. That if I put distance, the noise in my head would die down.

I told her things no one else knows. Not my brother.

Not anyone. Only Elena, and her mother, the maid who used to patch up my wounds when Father got too drunk—his mistress, the woman he fucked when the house was quiet and Mother was high on drugs.

Elena was her daughter, and because of the affair, she had more access to me than anyone else.

Mother was always too high to be around us, and Mikhail wasn’t the eldest, so he was allowed to be a child, not undergoing “training” like I did.

Not even living in the same wing of the house as me.

My father was always very secretive about what he did to me, because if the Bratva ever found out, if they knew he was beating his own son bloody behind closed doors, they would’ve lost both respect for him, and respect for me as the future Pakhan. He made sure to hide it well.

And now she knows. I fed her truth I hadn’t spoken aloud in a decade. And I have no idea why I opened up to her. But what did I do the very next day?

I left her.

I left her with the blood of her first time cooling between her thighs and a bed that still smelled like us. I told her I’d try. Try to love. Try to be soft. Try to become something human.

And then I ran.

Because softness was the kind of thing that got beaten out of me young. My father made sure of it. Love is a foreign concept in my house.

So when Elena called me two nights later, her voice tight and panicked—telling me Ayla hadn’t eaten a bite since I left—I lost my shit. My vow to stay away disintegrated like ash between my fingers.

I haven’t eaten either. My body is in open rebellion. I haven't slept in two nights; I see her everywhere. I feel her. Her scent lingers on my skin, like she’s stitched into me. I don’t even know what this is—obsession? Lust? Something worse?

The last emotion I ever allowed myself to feel was pain. That was when I was eleven. After that, I trained it out. I conditioned every ounce of myself to be numb.

I barrel into the house, the door slamming into the wall. Elena looks at me, but with no hello or greeting. Even she’s pissed at me.

I stalk toward Ayla’s door, standing there a beat, one hand clenched tight enough to split skin. Then I shove it open.

“I told you, Elena, I’m not hungry,” she snaps without looking.

She knows what food means to me. I fucking told her. So what is this—revenge? Punishment?

Her hair’s a mess, her skin pale, but she still looks too good for this world. Her eyes narrow. “What are you doing here?”

“I live here,” I growl.

Her finger points toward the hallway. “Leave.”

“You don’t get to decide when I stay or go, little lamb.”

She stares me down. “I don’t want you near me.”

Her words leave a bad taste in my mouth, even though it shouldn’t, because I pushed her away first.

“What did you expect?” I bite out. “For me to wake you up with roses and kisses? Whisper sweet nothings after I fucked you?”

Her face contorts like I just slapped her. And I hate myself for it, but I can’t stop. The mask my father carved into my skin is back on.

“I expected nothing,” she says, voice shaking. “But at least a good morning. Not... disappearing like a coward.”

“You knew what you were getting into.”

“No,” she hisses. “What I got into was a promise. You said you’d try.”

And fuck me, I did. I wanted to try. I meant it when I said it, but I don’t know how to hold something without breaking it.

“Anything to get into your pants,” I snap. It flies out before I can stop it. It’s a lie. A big fat lie that I regret the second it comes out of my mouth.

She bends at the waist, cackling with laughter. Then she straightens, wiping a tear off her cheek with the back of her hand.

“Let’s see,” she mutters. “A coward...” one finger goes up, “a liar...” another, “and a monster.”

She walks closer to me, until we are nose to nose, her chin tilts up.

“While you lied,” she begins, “I didn’t. I told you the truth from the start. I told you you’d be nothing more than practice. A trial fuck before I move on to a man better suited for me.”

Something in me snaps—violent, primal, like a goddamn animal breaking free of its cage. I grab her, slam her back against the nearest wall so hard a painting crashes to the floor beside us. Her eyes widen.

“What the fuck did you just say?” I growl, my voice a roar.

“Exactly what you heard.”

Who is this woman?

This isn’t the quiet girl who was dropped at my door like a sacrificial lamb.

This isn't the soft thing I toyed with once, twice. This one’s fire and poison and fucking pride.

She's not afraid of what I might do. And what the fuck I might do?

Because the mere thought of her going to bed hungry, of tears tracking down that stubborn face, feels like a blade slicing my guts.

And the idea of some other man—touching her, feeding her, spoiling her?

It burns. It blisters .

She has damned me.

I grab her face, my fingers digging into her cheeks until her lips squish together.

“No one,” I breathe, “will ever make you feel the way I do.”

She glares straight through me. “You’re right. They’ll make me feel even better. Maybe draw me a bath. Bring me roses the morning after.”

The image that flashes through my mind of another man between her thighs, another man holding her, whispering soft nothings just to taste what I’ve broken open, makes my blood turn molten. I slam my fists into the wall beside her head.

“I’ll bring you their dicks,” I snarl, “their hands. Their fucking tongues. In gift boxes. Wrapped up nice and neat for you.”

I mean it. I fucking mean every word. I’d burn their cities.

Rip their empires down brick by brick if they even looked at her like I do.

I’d start a war—two, three, ten. Just so she could stay mine .

I’d tear the Bratva down in the process without a care in the world. My father is rolling in his grave.

Mine what, though? My lover? I don’t even know if I can give her love. My toy? I haven’t been able to sleep, to breathe, to function since I tossed her aside like one.

“We already established you’re a liar and a coward, didn’t we?” She scoffs.

That goddamn smart mouth. I can’t take another word from her. I throw her over my shoulder and storm down the stairs. She pounds her fists against my back, kicking and screaming.

She needs to eat.

Before I do.