Page 17 of Her Darkest Possession (Baryshev Bratva #2)

INDIGO

I sit beside Anatoly in his office, perched on the edge of a leather chair that feels too big for me.

My fingers twist together in my lap as we wait for Vassily to arrive.

The room is quiet except for the steady boom-doom-boom-doom of my heart beating in my chest and the occasional rustle as Anatoly shifts in his seat behind the massive desk.

"Nervous?" Anatoly breaks the silence.

I nod, not bothering to hide it. "A little."

He reaches across the desk, his hand open. I place mine in his, and his fingers close around mine, warm and strong. "Don't be. There's nothing for you to be nervous about."

"But." I meet his eyes. "What if he's not sorry. What if he stands there and defends what he did or tries to say it was justified."

"Then he will face the consequences," he says simply.

"That's what worries me."

With every passing second after my sentencing of Grisha, clarity continues to dawn on me. I know better than anyone else that something has changed in me, and not necessarily for the better.

The rush that I felt watching Grisha die. The knowledge that I have the power—through my husband, but power nonetheless—to hold life and death in my hands. To know that there is now a consequence for those who've hurt me in the past, and for those who might try to hurt me in the future.

I can't pretend it wasn't intoxicating.

What kind of mother will I be if this darkness keeps growing?

No, not even that. What kind of person am I becoming?

I've spent two years building walls after what Grant Bennet did to me.

For those two years, I thought I was building walls to protect myself from the world.

But now that Anatoly has breached those walls, and dismantled them brick by brick, I'm finally getting a glimpse of the dark and angry creature that took shape during those two years.

And along with that glimpse comes the realization that the walls were never to protect myself from the world.

It was to protect the world from my own hurt and anger.

From someone who finds satisfaction in blood and retribution.

Anatoly squeezes my hand, and snaps me back out of my spiraling thoughts.

"All your life, you've played by the rules," he says, his voice low but intense. "You thought those rules would be enough to keep you safe."

I swallow hard, feeling exposed by how easily he's read my thoughts.

"But the people who hurt you." He tightens his fingers around mine briefly. "They never followed those rules. And when you turned to those same rules in the aftermath, what did you find?"

"Nothing," I whisper.

"Exactly." He leans forward. "You found that their rules are as worthless as their lies. You learned that rules without consequences are meaningless, printsessa."

I nod.

"You can recoil at the thought of what those consequences bring," he continues. "That's natural. That's human. But you cannot recoil from the very concept of consequences themselves. Because only through consequence can rules have meaning."

I feel tears gathering at the corners of my eyes, though I'm not entirely sure why. Perhaps because someone finally understands.

"You've known this all along, and you faced it with unflinching eyes," Anatoly says, his voice softening slightly. "When you watched me kill the men who murdered your parents. When you sentenced Grisha. You understood the weight of that consequence."

He's right. I didn't.

"You can face it again now."

I take a deep breath, steadying myself. "But I'm afraid that I'll be addicted to the idea of revenge and power. That all of these things are corrupting me from the good person that I thought I was."

"No," Anatoly shakes his head. "There's nothing that's been corrupted.

And you will always be the good person that you were before the monsters of the world took advantage of that goodness.

What you're doing is recognizing the power that you now wield.

You're finally understanding just how strong you can be, and how righteous you can be. "

Before I can answer, the door opens, and Vassily walks in. His usual swagger is gone. He stands just inside the doorway, eyes downcast, hands at his sides. When he finally looks up, his gaze flickers to me, then quickly away.

"Vasya," Anatoly says coldly. "Do you know why you're here?"

Vassily shifts his weight, still avoiding direct eye contact with either of us. "I have an idea."

Anatoly turns to me. I understand immediately what he's asking. This is my grievance. My interrogation to lead.

I straighten my spine, and keep my hand in Anatoly's for strength. "How long have you been working against Anatoly, Vassily? Against me?"

Vassily looks at me then, really looks at me for the first time since entering the room. Gone is the leering, predatory gaze that made my skin crawl that day in the hallway. Instead, there's something like resignation in his eyes.

"Since I heard about Anatoly's intent to marry you," he admits without hesitation.

The honesty surprises me, though it probably shouldn't. What's the point in lying now?

"Why?" I ask, the single word heavy between us.

"Because Anatoly was supposed to marry Lola," Vassily answers. "All the agreements had been signed, the guests invited, and preparations made. And by walking away from that to marry you..." He gestures vaguely in my direction, "he broke all the rules that we were all expected to follow."

I can't help but think about what Anatoly just said moments before Vassily walked in. About rules without consequences being meaningless. About the weight those consequences carry.

"So," I say slowly, gathering my thoughts. "You felt like you had the right to punish Anatoly for it? By threatening me? By helping your mother threaten my child? A child who's the heir of the very bratva you swore your life to?"

Vassily shakes his head, his eyes darting briefly to his brother. "It wasn't me who felt like I had the right. It was our mother."

"And what," Anatoly interjects, his voice dangerously soft. "Gave mother the right to dispense punishment?"

Vassily answers simply, without hesitation: "Because she's our mother."

The words hang in the air between us. There's no defiance in them, no challenge. Nothing but a statement of what Vassily considers an obvious truth.

"Is our mother the pakhan?"

"No."

"Then why," Anatoly continues, his voice dangerously soft, "does mother believe she has the right to dispense punishment upon a pakhan and his wife?"

Vassily shifts his weight from one foot to the other. I can see the tension in his shoulders, the way he's trying to find an answer that won't further anger his brother.

"Because that's what mothers do," he finally says. "They punish their children who fail to see the larger picture."

I feel Anatoly's hand tighten around mine, a slight tremor running through his fingers that betrays his anger.

"And do you see this larger picture, Vasya?" Anatoly asks.

Vassily pauses, thinking. The silence stretches between us, thick and uncomfortable. I watch his face as he wrestles with the question, and for a moment, I almost feel sorry for him. Almost.

"For my entire life," Vassily says, "Mother has known what's best for the bratva. For my entire life, I've watched the bratva grow stronger with her pulling the strings in the background."

Anatoly makes a sound of disgust low in his throat. "You're young, Vasya. You haven't seen the inner workings of the bratva and its network of interests, alliances, and lies that hold it together."

I watch as Vassily's expression shifts, a flash of uncertainty crossing his features. It's the first time I've seen him look truly vulnerable, and it strikes me that despite everything, he's still just a boy who's spent his whole life believing in the words of his mother.

I understand that. I can even sympathize with that. Because I used to be the same way. I thought that my mother could do anything, that no matter what kind of injustice the world throws my way, she could make it all better.

Until the monsters of the world showed me that it was all just an illusion.

Until those monsters took her away from me.

I squeeze Anatoly's hand once more before letting go and turning my attention fully to Vassily.

"There's nothing wrong with believing in your mother, Vassily," I say quietly. "Nothing wrong with thinking she knows best. God knows I hope that one day my child will believe in me as strongly as you believe in Valentina."

Vassily's eyes widen slightly at my gentler tone, though he remains tense, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

"But mothers, like all people, are still human," I continue. "And humans come with their prejudices, their faults, and their own experiences that have shaped them into who they are. Humans will make mistakes."

Vassily considers this for a moment before giving a small nod. "I suppose that's true."

I lean forward. "I know it can't be easy for Valentina to see someone like me become Anatoly's wife.

Not after the insult to her honor that came when she saw Stepan acknowledge Svetlana as his at Anatoly's urging, no less.

" I glance briefly at Anatoly, whose expression has gone carefully neutral.

"It must've hurt more than anything Stepan did.

To have her eldest son who made her a mother for the first time act in a way that felt like betrayal. "

I take a deep breath, feeling the weight of both brothers' attention on me now. "So, I understand why Valentina might want to split Anatoly and me apart."

The room falls completely silent. Both brothers are watching me with rapt attention, their expressions a mixture of surprise and something I can't quite read.

I've touched on something deeper than either expected me to understand: the complicated history that's shaped their family long before I entered the picture.

The words come out easily and naturally now for me as I keep talking.