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CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

SASHA

One of Ivan’s goons shoves me into the back of the G-Class as Ivan climbs in the other side.

“You didn’t have to do that,” I mutter, my broken heart slamming against my ribs. It didn’t have to happen like that. He didn’t need to hurt Liam like that. But my brother always has had a way of stealing everything good from me. Always .

Ivan would’ve killed Liam— like he killed Viktor— to bring me back home. I knew giving Ivan what he wanted would spare the life of the man I love; I just didn’t realize how hard it would be. Or how much it would hurt. Liam’s face was filled with so much grief and confusion. The weight of seeing my betrayal in his eyes was suffocating.

He trusted me, and I lied to him.

He loved me, and I failed him.

But I hadn’t lied, not like Ivan made it sound. What he did was beyond cruel. It was twisted.

I am the person he thought I was.

“You’re fucking Bratva, malen’kaya printsessa ,” Ivan huffs. “ This is where you belong.”

“That might be, but you didn’t need to make him think that I did this for you.” I shake my head. “You might not have killed him, like Viktor, but you fucking destroyed him.”

“Good.” The elongated word spills from the side of his mouth as he lights a cigarette. He takes a long drag on it and expels the smoke through his nostrils. “That means he’ll want nothing to do with you. You deserve better than being showcased like their little Russian whore.”

“Like what?” I scoff. “Being the Russian whore whose virginity you can auction off to the highest bidder or the one you can marry off like property to make a business arrangement with some disgusting old man.”

“No, malen’kaya printsessa. You give yourself too much credit.” Ivan evilly chuckles. “You lost a lot of fucking value when you gave your fucking virtue to a lowly bodyguard. Now it’d be like selling off one of the well-worn cunts at the club. I’d be lucky to pay off a bet with a used-up slut like you.”

“I loved him,” I exhale, shaking my head and ignoring his insults. “And Viktor was your best fucking friend.”

“ Was ,” Ivan sternly corrects me. “That was before he thought he had the right to fuck you.”

Who guns down their best friend in cold blood for falling in love with their little sister?

“You’re a fucking psychotic prick,” I snarl.

Ivan grips my face and squeezes my cheeks so hard I almost wince before grumbling, “And you’ve become a mouthy fucking bitch since I saw you last.”

“You’re still the same asshole, though,” I spit, freeing myself from his tight hold.

The conviction to stand toe-to-toe with any man… When Liam said it, I never thought that man would be my unhinged, narcissistic brother.

Lying in bed, I press my hands to my eyes and try to hold back the tears, but it’s useless. It’s been two days, and they continue to relentlessly fall from my eyes, cascading down my cheeks so much they sting. I wrap my arms around my knees and pull them tightly to my chest, staring blankly out of the small window as tears start to blur my vision once more.

The hardest part of all of this is that Liam believed Ivan. There was no hiding his rage as it visibly flared up his neck and over his face.

I had secrets. Things that were messy and complicated, things I hadn’t wanted to share with him yet. Sordid details from my past that I wasn’t ready to deal with. I wasn’t ready to open up that much to anyone, to expose the raw, unhealed parts of my heart. The parts of me that Liam was slowly putting back together.

But that didn’t mean I was lying to him. It didn’t mean I wasn’t real with him. I might not have told him my real name, where I came from, or who my family was, but I was myself with Liam. The person I was with him— the one he fell in love with —was real. Everything about us was real.

And now it’s over...

If only I had gathered the courage to tell him sooner… He would’ve been hurt, but not like this. He could’ve forgiven me. But the way he found out— what Ivan made him believe— was a total betrayal and shattered any trust he had in me.

And it’s my fault.

Curling into a ball, I pull my legs tighter to my chest in the hopes my arms might actually help hold me together. But it’s futile. Tears continue to stream down my face and dampen the pillow they fall on as every breath I take suffocates me.

I’ve lost everything…

I wipe my tears, but it does nothing to stop them. I’ve cried so many tears since the club that my eyes are raw and swollen. I’ve spent the last six years of my life enduring atrocious pain, but nothing any of those men did to me hurts like this. This is different. This is deep and all-consuming. It is the kind of agony that leaves me questioning if a life without Liam is even a life worth living.

I need him… I need Liam.

He makes me feel like I am worth something; like I matter. He makes me realize I am worthy of being loved. Of him loving me.

My heart feels like it’s shredding into thousands of pieces. I can still feel his hands on my skin. The way he whispered my name in my ear with love and adoration. And the soft promises of a lifetime together as I fell asleep in his arms. The life he wanted to give me.

The life I wanted to live with him.

Everything I wanted—and had—is now a bittersweet dream, while I’m thrust back into the nightmare I ran from. All alone once again with a gaping emptiness in my chest as my entire life comes to a crashing halt.