Page 209 of Ripped Veil (Ripped Bratva)

When I don’t answer, he clears his throat. “I haven’t been home in twenty years. Folks weren’t happy with my choice of work.”

I can’t help but smile. “What did they want you to be?”

“An engineer, if you can fucking believe it,” he replies. “Never had the head for books, though.”

“No,” I laugh bitterly, “me neither.”

“Somehow, I find that hard to believe.”

A bubble of laughter escapes through my lips. I relax just a little. I allow myself to be distracted.

“Well, maybe a little bit,” I admit. “I used to read. But, like, silly stuff. Kid stuff. Fairy tales and adventure books, things like that. Whatever I could get my hands on, really. The library in in the Sanctuary was… limited.”

“Let me guess—they didn’t let you girls have much choice, did they?” he asks.

He says it kind of flippantly but I realize that he’s moving towards a point. Or maybe he’s nudging me towards one. One that’s been staring me in the face for longer than I’d care to admit.

I wasn’t raised—not really.

More like I wasgroomed. Born into a cage and told that it was everything I could ever expect to have.

And whether I like to admit it or not, no matter how hard I’ve tried to cast off the chains that still tie me to that place, to those people, to that man…

They all still have a hold on me.

“Not really,” I admit softly. “They monitored everything.”

“Well, then, maybe it’s a good thing you did whatever you did. At least it got you out of there.”

My features harden, fighting a smile. It feels a little too convenient to justify my crimes that way. If blood is truly the price of freedom, is it even worth it?

“I don’t know,” I whisper. “You don’t know what I did.”

“I don’t need to.”

I bark out another sarcastic laugh. “Believe me—if you knew, you’d think differently.”

“No,” he retorts bluntly, “I wouldn’t.”

“Oh yeah? What makes you so sure?”

He settles back in his seat and looks at me in the rearview mirror. Those eyes, full of depth and life, swallow me whole.

“I’ve seen a lot of bad shit in my lifetime. Sins of every shape and color. You know what I’ve never seen?”

I take the bait with hesitation. “What?”

“The men who did those things apologizing. They don’t feel remorse. They don’t feel guilt.”

“So you’re saying I shouldn’t either?”

“I’m saying it makes you more human than most to feel what you’re feeling.”

I take that in. But it doesn’t fit right. Doesn’t feel true the way he seems to believe it is.

“I don’t know what I am,” I whisper. “They tried to make me something, and maybe I was that thing for a while. But I’m trying to be something different now. Is that even possible? Can people really just… change?”

Vlad is quiet for so long that I wonder if he’s even going to answer. It’s getting dark outside the car. The exterior of the mansion is glowing with the garden floodlights. I see a shadow pass across the window of Phoenix’s office and wonder what he’ll say when he sees me again. I wonder what I’ll say to him.

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