Page 228 of Ripped Veil (Ripped Bratva)

“Yes, Father Josiah,” I murmur. I raise to my lips and take the tiniest sip possible.

His smile sours. “More.”

“I don’t want—”

“It wasn’t a question.”

I hesitate. I’m locked in. Not just into this room but into this life. Into this marriage. I never had a choice. I thought I wanted it in the beginning, but I was wrong about that.

It’s too late for that, though.

I raise the goblet to my lips once more and drain it of whatever is inside.

“That’s a good girl,” he croons as he takes it back from my trembling fingers. “Now, tell me, Elyssa—are you a good daughter of the Sanctuary?”

“I—I don’t know what you mean.” My head is swimming already. What did he make me drink?

“Have you ever laid with a man?” His voice crackles strangely at the end.

“No!” I blurt. “Of course not.”

It’s the truth. Since I was a little girl, I’ve been taught what is right and what is wrong in this world. A woman’s place is with her husband. And if she is not yet married, she is to wait for him.

Once plucked, a flower withers.Isn’t that what Father Josiah and the other elders have lectured time and time again? It’s a lesson to the women of the Sanctuary: once you’ve been touched, once you’ve lost your purity… you’re worthless.

“Why are you asking me this, Father Josiah?” I say, trembling.

He doesn’t bother explaining himself. He pulls me against him suddenly, his eyes lingering on my lips.

“Listen to me very closely, Elyssa,” he says. The honey is gone from his voice. It’s hardened and venomous now. “There is only one man who kisses you from this day forward. Only one man who touches you. You understand?”

“You,” I whisper.

“Precisely,” he says, with an approving nod. “Me. You are mine now, Elyssa. Mine always.”

I shiver. Perhaps he interprets that as desire, because the next thing I know, he’s kissing me.

His lips feel like sandpaper. His breath is minty but I can taste the ash of cigarette smoke just beneath it. His beard is sparse and uncomfortable against my cheeks.

It hurts. It’s wrong. I hate it.

I try and break away from him but his grip is firm. When he finally pulls away, his breath comes out ragged. His lips fall against my neck, and he starts sucking wildly.

The wrongness overwhelms me. This needs to stop. I need space to breathe, to think, to figure out what’s happening.

I try and push Josiah off me but his eyes glaze over with lust and it looks like he’s a million miles away from here. Lost in a place where he can’t or won’t hear me. Can’t or won’t listen. Can’t or won’t stop.

That’s when he tosses me on my back against the four-poster bed and starts unbuckling his pants.

I pale, my hands digging into the sheets. “No! Please, not like this…”

“Shut up. Weren’t you listening? You’re mine. They gave you to me. The powers that be said I could have you…”

He unbuttons his pants and wriggles them down around his hairy, skinny legs.

“So I’m taking…”

His penis springs free. I gasp at how strange and grotesque it looks.

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