Page 121 of Ripped Veil (Ripped Bratva)

Phoenix

She’s quiet on the ride back to the mansion. Her hands are resting on her lap, though I notice her fingertips twitching nervously every few seconds.

I could have pushed our little game. I could have gotten more from her.

But something in her face made me stop.

It’s not in my nature to stop, especially when I know I’m making headway. But with Elyssa, I find myself ignoring my usual way of doing things.

Slowly, her head turns towards me, and I feel her gaze searching my face. “Who are you?” she asks suddenly, as though it’s only just occurred to her to ask.

“Me?”

“No, the other guy in the car with us,” she retorts sarcastically. “Yes, you.”

I turn and look at her somberly. “I’m the guy bad guys are afraid of.”

She holds my gaze for a second before she looks down. “And what about me? Should I be scared of you?”

“If you’re smart.”

She looks out at the windshield but I can tell she’s not actually watching the road. There’s something melancholy about her demeanor now.

Hearing her talk about her parents was illuminating. The fact that she’s not as worldly as other women her age also makes sense. She’s lived her life in seclusion, in a controlled environment that never gave her the chance to discover what she wanted in life. She doesn’t know who she was, who she is, who she might one day want to become.

All she knows is what they taught her.

“You’ve never gotten in touch with your parents since leaving?” I ask.

She stiffens but doesn’t look back at me. I half-expect her to dodge the question. “No. Never.”

“Not even when you found out you were pregnant?”

“I thought about it once,” she admits. “But… no. Even if the circumstances had been different, they would have been disappointed in me.”

“What circumstances are those?” I ask.

She shrugs. “Just… the way I left.”

“You didn’t say goodbye?”

“Not exactly.”

I keep thinking about the blood caked under her fingernails the night we’d met. Whose blood was it?

“My mama always wanted to be a grandmother. But not this way.”

“Which way is that?”

“I had a child out of wedlock,” Elyssa says like it’s self-explanatory. “And up until recently, I didn’t even know your name. How could I have called and told my mother that?”

“What would she have thought?”

“Nothing good,” Elyssa says with a shudder. “Nothing good at all.”

“And what didyouthink?” I press.

She clears her throat as if she’s fighting the urge to cry. “Honestly? Charity helped me through it. I cried for days when I found out. I didn’t think I was ready. I didn’t want to have a baby, much less a baby without a husband.”

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