Page 150 of Ripped Lace (Ripped Bratva)

“Any other man would have cast you aside long ago.”

I shake my head. “Cast me aside, please. I have no desire to be with you.”

“That’s grief talking. You’re mourning the loss of your son. That’s okay. I can be patient. I’ve known you were going to be my wife for a long time now, Elyssa. Since you were thirteen years old.”

My stomach twists with nausea. Thankfully, there’s nothing in there to come out.

“Don’t you realize how disgusting that is? How perverse?”

“Perverse?” Josiah looks confused now. “I never touched you. I admired you from afar, until you came of age.” He looks hurt by the very accusation.

“Until you raped me before our wedding day.”

“That wasn’t rape.”

“And the sky’s not blue.”

He exhales deeply again, holding his long-suffering expression like I’m the one who’s deluded. If I had the energy, I’d claw that look right off his face.

“And you’re forgetting something,” I add, feeling the slightest twinge of smugness about his one oversight.

“What is that?”

“I’m already married.”

He smiles thinly. “I won’t have to worry about your so-called husband for much longer. The powers that be will take care of him.”

“He won’t die,” I hear myself say. “You can’t kill him.”

“He’s a man like any other. He bleeds. And if he bleeds, he can die.”

“He’s more than a man.”

He throws back his head and chuckles. “I see you’re still under his spell. That’s okay. It might take time. But as I said, I can be patient.”

He reaches out to stroke my cheek with one clammy hand. It takes all of my strength, but I manage to slap it away weakly.

“No!” I cry out. “Don’t you dare touch me!”

A shadow darkens Josiah’s face.

“Very well. I’ve tried to be patient. I’ve tried to be understanding. You want to do this the hard way? So be it,” he seethes. “Guards!”

Two guards burst into the room like they were chomping at the bit for this chance. Both of them look like the Yakuza soldiers who slaughtered Leona. They grab me roughly, one on each arm, and haul me from the room.

I don’t even scream. At the moment, I’m just glad to be away from Josiah. I should fight, scream, do something, but my limbs are heavy with the drug and my mind is preoccupied with thoughts of my baby boy, shrouded in darkness I cannot penetrate.

When we start descending down a narrow staircase, I start paying attention to where they’re taking me. Even though my body feels paralyzed, my eyes take everything in.

We reach the end of the staircase. I’m faced with a line of caged cells. They look like the kind you would see ferocious animals in.

Except these cages don’t hold animals.

They hold young women.

My eyes scan the sorry group of women. Some of them can’t be older than ten or eleven. They all look pale and hungry.

I’m shoved into an empty cell at the far end of the corridor. My guards slam the door shut and disappear at once.

---