Page 118 of Ripped Lace (Ripped Bratva)

“What is that? Some Astra Tyrannis hideout?”

I flinch when he invokes their name. “Not exactly. Although, at this point, I suppose they’re the same thing.”

“What is it?”

“We—I—believed it was a place for rehabilitation,” I try to explain, glancing at him from underneath my eyelashes. “It was a place where broken people could heal. And it was a great honor to be allowed to serve there. To volunteer your service and help the people who couldn’t or wouldn’t see the light.”

“And you volunteered,” he infers.

“Yes. I started when I was fifteen, I think. Or maybe sixteen. I can’t quite remember. It all blends together.”

“And what was it like?”

“It was… beautiful,” I admit, trying to bring forth more memories than the meager few I’ve managed to unearth. “So green. A compound with little homes, shelters, healing spaces, surrounded by so many gardens.”

“And what did you do while you were there?”

“I looked after… the children.”

Faces flash past my mind’s eye. The faces of children. Blue eyes, brown eyes, green eyes. Blond and brunette and red-headed as the setting sun.

I can’t remember a single one of their names. I hate myself for it.

“Why you? Why not their mothers, their parents?”

“Their mothers were… dead,” I say haltingly. “Or they’d abandoned them. Or they were… unsuitable. That’s what they told us. Then they told us not to ask anymore.”

I’m echoing words I was told. Regurgitating the lies that were shoved down my own throat. But even as I say them, they ring hollow.

“I… I’m sorry…” I say in barely a whisper.

“What are you sorry for?” he asks bluntly.

“For being part of it,” I say. “For so many things really. But that, mostly. There was so much wrong and I never once questioned it. Any of it.”

“Why not?”

“The children were happy. They were looked after. I thought I was taking care of them until they found happy, stable homes to go to. That was the party line and whenever something strange happened, I just ignored it. Because in my head, Josiah and the powers that be would never guide us wrong. They looked after us. They loved us.”

I feel sick to my stomach. I have to close my eyes and ride out the nausea so I don’t vomit right onto Phoenix’s lap.

He doesn’t say anything. He stares off towards Raj’s cell, his eyes flitting this way and that, never landing long enough to give me an indication of what he’s thinking.

When I can no longer stand the silence, I speak up. “I only just remembered all this, Phoenix,” I tell him. “I was thinking of Theo and panicking and suddenly, it hit me. Not all of it. But parts. Enough.”

His eyes flicker to my face and then back to the cell door.

“You… you do believe me, don’t you?”

My voice shivers as I ask the question, but I don’t want to avoid asking it.

He doesn’t look at me for a long time. Fresh tears pool in my eyes. I’m beginning to realize the expression on his face, and it’s worse than I could have ever imagined.

I wipe away my tears and try to hold my sorrow in. I deserve his disappointment. I’m disappointed in myself. So why shouldn’t he be?

“I know it sounds like a lie,” I say. “I know it’s hard to believe. I know—”

“Stop, Elyssa,” Phoenix says abruptly.

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