Page 143 of Cruel Romeo

“That’s a fucking lie, too.”

“It’s not! I?—”

“I’ll tell you what I think,” he bulldozes over me. “I think I’ve got a man in chains who can identify you. That’s why you’re singing. No other goddamn reason.” His lips twist into a cruel line. “Just like you said: survival.”

My knees go weak.

I just bared myself to this man. Every little secret, every piece of me I’ve been desperately trying to bury for over a decade.

And this is what he does with it. Twists it, turns it into suspicion. Into another weapon to hold over me.

The hurt burns hotter than the anger. Because Iamangry—I’m fucking furious—but right now, my heart feels cleaved clean in half, and that’s way worse.

Pain claws at my chest, raw and unbearable, a keen reminder of everything I was protecting myself from. All the reasons I ran in the first place.

This is why you can’t trust Bratva men.

But that’s exactly what I did. Despite everything I knew about them, everything I knew about him, for a fleeting moment, I let myself believe he might understand. That maybe, just maybe, we were something more than this endless cycle of lies and mistrust.

Turns out, we weren’t.

That’s what finally makes me snap.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” My voice breaks ugly, but I don’t care what I sound like. “I just told you everything. I put every damn card on the table, andthisis what you come back with? A conspiracy theory?”

Petyr’s eyes narrow, but I don’t stop. I’m nowhere near done with him.

“You think that I’ve been playing you? That I’ve been lying in your bed, getting pregnant with your freaking child, all so I could help my brother kill yours? Killyou?” My chest heaves. “Do you even hear yourself?”

I can’t stop shaking. I thought I knew this man. Now, I’m wondering what the hell has been wrong with me all this time.

Suddenly, the room blurs. The penthouse disappears. Instead, I’m back at my house, at the dinner table with myabusive father and my fading mother. Only, this time, her face overlaps with mine.

Great fucking job I did running away from there, just to end up here.

I left everything behind to be free. But I just ended up in another cage. Same bars, different shade of gold.

Then—suddenly, horribly—I realize something.

“I told you everything,” I repeat, incredulous. “But you weren’t surprised. Not one bit.”

His face doesn’t change, and a sinking feeling spreads in my body at the sight.

“Why weren’t you surprised, Petyr?”

For the first time since I met him, his mouth twists into something ugly. “Did you really think I didn’t know?”

“What do you mean?” Even as I speak, though, I’m not sure I want an answer.

Petyr takes a step closer. It’s the first one he’s taken towards me since this conversation began, and the first time I haven’t wanted him to.

“I’ve always known who you were, Sima. Danilo blood doesn’t just disappear. It stinks to high heaven. I could smell it the moment we met.”

No.I want to deny it all, but the pieces are falling into place now.

And they’re drawing the only picture that makes sense.

“Why else,” he says, each word deliberate, “do you think I married you?”