Page 133 of Ripped Lace (Ripped Bratva)

My blood goes cold with dread as I stare at a younger version of me. My hair was longer back then, and braided back into a thick braid that falls over one shoulder.

What’s most striking is the look in my eyes. Dazed, hazy, placid. I hardly recognize myself. This picture is a stranger without a mind of her own. A fool who thought she was serving her purpose, when all she was doing was aiding and abetting crimes that she couldn’t even have begun to fathom.

Only when a tear splashes down onto the picture do I realize that I’m crying. Crying for myself, in part. But mostly for the child in the picture. And all the children just outside of it.

I don’t want to face Phoenix, but I don’t want to be a coward, either. The girl in this picture was a coward, even if she didn’t know it. I don’t have that choice anymore.

“I… I can’t deny what I did. What I helped do,” I tell him, my voice breaking as I struggle through it. “All I can say is—”

“The boy,” he interrupts gruffly.

I haven’t heard that timbre in his voice for months now. I thought we’d moved past it. I thought he loved me, too—maybe.

“What?”

“The boy in this picture,” he says, his eyes turning colder than I’ve ever seen them. “Do you know his name?”

Frowning, I look back down at the photograph. I have to wipe the tears from my eyes before I can take a good look.

He’s a dark-haired boy. Vivacious, handsome already. But nothing about him rings a bell in the shadowy recesses of my memory.

“Look at him, Elyssa,” he spits. “Fucking look at him.”

I do as he says. I stare at the child and try to see what Phoenix wants me to see.

And then it hits me.

I don’t remember this boy from my time in the Garden—I remember him from a picture in a wallet that fell out of Phoenix’s dresser drawer.

A picture of Aurora and Yuri.

He was younger in that one. About five or six months, just old enough to hold his head up on his own.

This one, he’s at least a year and half. Maybe two.

Which means…

I drop to my knees, still clutching the picture between my fingers. I’m shaking now so badly that I can barely think straight. When I look up, Phoenix is staring down at me with his cold, angry eyes.

“That’s my son in your arms, Elyssa,” he rumbles. “My firstborn son was in the Garden. He was there at the same time you were there.”

“I… I don’t understand,” I stammer. “I thought… Anna said she…”

“Anna obviously fucking lied,” he growls. “This is just another game to them. They would have seen my son as a bargaining chip or a power play. They didn’t kill him… but they may have since then.”

I keep staring down at the picture, hoping that I can remember something that will help us. Nothing comes to light.

“What happened to him, Elyssa?” he continues. “What happened to my son?”

I shake my head. “Phoenix…”

“Fucking answer me!”

I cringe back. I deserve every bit of his fury, but I still don’t know if I’m strong enough to survive it. He turns away from me. His back rises and falls with each shuddering breath.

“Phoenix, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, but I don’t know… I don’t remember what happened to him.”

Phoenix suddenly bellows at the top of his lungs and sweeps everything off of his desk. “Fuck!” he roars. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

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