Page 71 of The Russian's Stalked Bride
“Did you let him touch you?” He asks then, voice eerily calm and quiet. “He ruined you, didn’t he?”
The question feels more like a slap to the face, and my throat burns as I hesitate. “Carlo—”
“Answer me,” he snarls, grabbing my chin forcefully to keep my eyes locked on his. Despite my yelp, aching beneath the rough hold, he grits his teeth. “Now.”
Tears build in my eyes, suddenly feeling caught in an all too familiar position, pulled between the self-assured womanI’ve tried so hard to become in secret and the trapped, neglected sister that’s only useful when it comes to her body, and what it can provide. Wavering between doing what I want and caving to their whims feels more like a war without two halves of myself.
“Easy,” Ivan snaps, control wavering for only a step, but he stops the moment Carlo cocks the gun.
I pull in a shaky breath, feeling utterly humiliated. “Yes…I did.”
At that, my brother pauses while he stares at me. Disbelief consumes him, and he releases my chin like the mere idea disgusts him. Even Cesare tenses behind me.
Carlo stares at me with a slow blink. “You’re saying he had you? You let a Lukov fuck you?”
My knees tremble under the pressure of his gaze, rapidly warping into rage. “Yes.”
“Enough.” Ivan’s voice cuts through the tension, less forgiving than it had been. “Let her go, now.”
But it doesn’t matter what he says now. It’s too late.
I watch as some kind of realization sinks in, settling on their faces without them even bothering to try and hide it.
“You stupid, stupid girl,” Carlo utters, face slowly twisting into a scowl. “Do you know what you’ve done?”
“Shit,” Cesare curses under his breath, finally loosening his grip before taking an anxious step back, running a hand through his hair. The gravity of this is obviously weighing him down now, but for what reason, I don’t know completely. “What the fuck…”
As Carlo steps in and grabs my shoulder even tighter than Cesare had, his eyes blaze with anger now. “You were supposedto be untouched! Pure. That was the deal. The one fucking obligation we had.”
“Hurt her, and I swear to god you won’t walk out of here,” Ivan tries again, tone so dangerously calm that I know he fully intends to follow up on that, regardless of what my brothers end up doing.
“How can you talk about your own sister like that?” I manage to ask despite the waver in my voice. “How did you get so tied up in this to see me like an object?”
“You’re a liability. You always have been,” he snaps, not looking remorseful for even a moment. “I don’t need a sister. I need a virgin to seal an alliance, and now, you can’t even offer me that.”
I blink back at him in disbelief and sheer pain. It was always clear how little he cared about me, even as kids, but to hear him say it so plainly…it’s a new kind of hurt.
Riddled with anxiety now, Cesare steps closer, glancing at the doors behind us before murmuring to Carlo. “We don’t have time for this. We’ve already been here too long…their men will be here any minute.”
“I know,” Carlo barks at him, teeth gritting while he tries to keep everything together despite how rapidly it’s all crumbling. “But now what? Maksim won’t take her now. She’s tainted.”
“Then let her go and leave before this ends poorly for you,” Ivan says, voice carrying down the hall. “Run while you can, just like you did before.”
At that, Carlo laughs bitterly, but the sharp edge of his gaze reveals just how screwed they really are. “The two of you ruined the alliance, and you think I’ll just let her go now?”
“You did that to yourselves the moment you saw Mila as something to be traded.”
“You don’t get to lecture us about anything, Lukov. You took what wasn’t yours…this was supposed to fix everything. We were supposed to hand her over, then he’d stop withholding his resources. And now…”
“Now we’re fucked,” Cesare mutters, scrubbing a hand down his face.
Their panic is palpable to the point of making my gut twist in anxiety, but more so, I’m afraid of what that will make them do. Now, they’re reckless and even more dangerous than before.
My brothers can be volatile at the worst of times, but when they’re backed into a corner like this, all bets are off.
I wince as Carlo’s grip on me tightens.
“You chose him over your own blood. You’ve fucked us royally, Mila. Just know that this will always be on your hands,” he utters to me, staring at me like I’m nothing more than a stranger to him.
