Page 37 of Beautifully Damned (Sinful Fates #2)

AYLA

I untie the apron with shaking hands, drop it on the counter, and head toward the door. My fingers are inches from the handle when his hand slams against the wood, blocking my way.

I gasp.

Roman stands too close, his breath fanning across my cheek. “There’s no need to run every time I walk into a room,” he says.

I turn my face toward him, glare sharp. “Isn’t there?”

He curses under his breath and slams his palm against the frame again, louder this time. I don’t flinch. The worst has already happened, and I’m still breathing. Fear won’t save me.

“If you need something, you come to me. Not my men.”

I force a laugh, even as the bitterness rises in my throat like bile. “Why? So we can pretend this is real? So I can earn my little prisoner privileges?”

He scowls, his face turning a deep, angry red. "You’re my wife." He rages.

"In name," I snap. "I wear your ring, Roman, but we both know it’s a lie."

Without warning, he grabs my arm and pulls me through the hall. I stumble after him, my slippers skidding across the floor. The foyer is full with staff cleaning and soldiers standing guard. Everyone freezes as he drags me into the center of it. He raises my arm.

“This,” he says, voice booming, "is Mrs. Volkov. That’s how you address her. No one—" his eyes narrow on Matvey "—calls her Ayla. Especially not you."

Matvey nods stiffly, hands clenched at his sides. I bite down on the inside of my cheek to keep from crying. All I do is get them in trouble, even though it’s the last thing I want.

“If she needs anything,” Roman continues, "You direct her to her husband. Got it?"

A scattered chorus follows. "Yes, Pakhan."

I yank my arm free and race up the stairs, his heavy steps crashing behind me. At my bedroom door, I try to slam it shut, but his shoulder shoves it open. We circle each other in the room, pacing like animals.

“Why are you ignoring me?” he yells.

I spin on him, eyes burning. "Because that’s what pawns do, Roman! We stay quiet and get moved around!"

His fists clench and unclench by his sides.

"What do you want from me?" I whisper. "To scream at me? Sleep with me, toss me aside, and expect me to smile at you? Open my arms, open my legs, and just accept it?"

“I expect you to act like my wife!”

His voice is a roar that shakes the room. It’s so loud, so full of fury, I flinch before I can stop myself. My ears ring.

I meet his eyes with a stillness I don't feel. “Poor Roman,” I murmur, head tilting with mock sympathy. “He wants a wife now.”

He’s breathing like he just ran through a wall.

I keep going. “Is that it? You want me to play house? Smile on command? Warm your bed even after you’ve called me a whore for doing so?

You want me soft and quiet and grateful, even when you stab me?

” The room feels smaller somehow. “You don’t get to ask that of me,” I hiss.

“Not after what you’ve done. You don’t get to demand me with one hand and shove me away with the other. ”

His lips part to speak, but I step forward first. It’s my turn to speak now.

“I was willing to try,” I confess, my voice breaking before I can catch it. “You said you would too. But you lied. You killed that version of me that was willing to give whatever it was between us a chance.”

He exhales sharply. “What did you expect me to do, Ayla? Shake your family’s hand after they nearly got my brother killed? Just turn the other cheek like none of it happened?”

“I don’t know,” I admit, blinking fast, refusing to let tears fall. “I don’t have the answers. But I know this—” My lips quiver. “I believed in you. I thought I saw something in you worth saving.”

He scoffs, looking away. I feel the cruelty of the next words before I even say them.

“I was wrong.”

Just for a second, something shutters behind his eyes. And just like always, I don’t know what it is.

“I thought I could make you human,” I whisper.

Silence stretches between us. I don't know whether I want to yell or apologize for my cruel words.

And in that moment, as I watch him leave my bedroom, I realize just how much he does not care for me.

Because I hurt him with one word, and I want nothing more than to chase after him to apologize.

He? He gutted me after the wedding. He said I was a whore for giving myself to him, that he hated touching me, that I was just a stupid, na?ve pawn. And he felt nothing.

This man doesn’t love me. The sooner my heart understands that, the better. Because I refuse to give him anything anymore, not my body, or my love, or my time… or even my hate.

I need comfort. I need home. I need anything to remind me that I’m still human—that I haven’t been hollowed out by Roman’s orbit and remade into someone I no longer recognize.

My thumb hovers over the phone screen. I try my mother first, but she never answers calls from unsaved numbers. Paranoia runs in the blood.

I try my father next. Straight to voicemail. He’s probably somewhere underground, trying to rebuild what has been scorched to ash.

I stare down at the phone, this stupid phone with none of my old contacts, none of my memories. I don’t want advice or logic. I just want to feel like the world isn't folding in on itself. And there’s only one person who’s ever made me feel that way. Emir .

My chest tightens. I press the numbers slowly, my pulse quickening when I reach the last digit.

I type the only thing I can.

I need you.

And then I hit send, knowing that this single text might implode everything.