Page 171 of Ripped Lace (Ripped Bratva)

Colder than the ice cold water still dripping down my back.

“No. No. No…”

Ozol’s smile grows wider and more cruel. “Oh, yes, Phoenix. Yes, yes, yes.”

“Yuri?” I croak.

The boy’s eyes bulge wide. Then he breaks away and looks down, as though he’s terrified to look at me too long.

“Yuri,” I breathe. “Yuri, my son…”

Ozol clamps his claw on the back of Yuri’s neck and they take a step forward together. “I’m glad you recognize the boy,” he says. “After all, it’s been so long. Five years, right?”

Viktor loops two fingers casually through the back of the collar fastened around Yuri’s neck. As though my firstborn son is no better than a rabid dog.

“You fucking bastard,” I snarl. I can barely find the words to express the white-hot rage surging through every inch of me, from my numb fingertips to the ripped-apart soles of my feet.

“Now, now,” Ozol croons, “don’t frighten the child.”

“Remove that collar,” I growl. “Get that fucking shit off my boy.”

Ozol laughs. “Why? Yuri, you like the collar, don’t you?”

To my horror, Yuri nods immediately, an automated response that’s no doubt been drummed into him. His eyes are cloudy and distant. The spark in them is just about gone.

“Yuri,” I say, desperate for him to look at me. “Yuri, please…”

His cheeks tremble like he wants to look at me but can’t.

“I know you’re confused,” I press. “But—”

“You know the truth already, Yuri,” Ozol interrupts immediately. “Your father never wanted you. He discarded you after your mother died, and I saved you. I gave you a second chance at life. And aren’t you grateful?”

“Yes, Master Viktor.”

“Yuri, whatever he’s told you about me, it’s not true,” I say desperately. “He’s a liar. All this time… all this time, I thought you were dead. I thought you were gone. If I’d only known, I would have come for you. I would have—”

“You see, Yuri?” Ozol says, cutting me off. “Didn’t I tell you he would say that?”

Yuri nods.

This fucker. This dirty, evil, psychotic motherfucker.

Somehow, seeing Yuri like this… it’s worse than anything I could’ve imagined in my worst nightmares. At least in death, I had imagined him at peace. He was with his mother. He was happy and free of pain.

But this? This is a hell that Ozol has constructed for one reason: to hurt me.

To lord my own boy over me, to make me feel pain in my heart so acute that for the first time since the torture began, I think I am capable of giving up and dying. Because it shouldn’t be possible for life to contain this much agony.

“Yuri, my boy…” Ozol croons, even though he never takes his eyes off me. “Go and bring our second little surprise.”

Yuri turns and walks out of my cell. The moment he disappears, I explode.

“You motherfucker!” I scream, pulling at my chains, making the whole ceiling shiver with my strength.

It even causes Ozol to look up in mild concern. “If you break the ceiling, it’ll only come down on your head.”

“As long as I take you with me.”

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