Page 36 of Ripped Lace (Ripped Bratva)

“Not to me.”

“Well, that certainly says say a lot about you,” she snaps. “Is this how you treated your first wife?”

I can tell she’s not thinking about the words when she says them. The moment they’re off her tongue, she goes pale. Embarrassment and regret writhe in her eyes.

In response, I press myself against her body, digging her into the wall and causing her to cry out. Her pulse is racing. I can feel it under my fingers.

“You don’t know a fucking thing about Aurora,” I sneer. “Do you hear me?”

She’s stuttering, “I… I… I’m sorry… I didn’t mean…”

“You have no fucking clue. No fucking clue what I’m trying to do here. What I’m trying to unravel.”

“Then tell me!” she yells in my face. “Tell me and I’ll know.”

“Tell you?” I scoff. “You’re a child.”

She veers back at the insult. But instead of the hurt and withdrawal I normally expect from her, I get anger instead.

This new Elyssa has endless fire.

“Is that why you wanted to marry me?” she demands. “Is that why you get hard every time you’re around me? Because I’m just a helpless little girl?”

On the last word, she pushes her hips into my erection to drive home her point.

“I may not be as worldly or as knowledgeable or as high and freaking mighty as you are,” she snaps. “But that doesn’t make me a child.”

“No? Then why can’t you answer any of my questions?”

She has a hard time meeting my eye. But it’s not secrecy that’s holding her tongue. It’s embarrassment.

“Because I can’t remember,” she whispers.

“Speak up.”

“I can’t remember, okay?” she shouts. “I know it sounds like an excuse, but I don’t remember a whole block of time. It’s like my life just… didn’t exist.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Little details, I can pick out,” she explains with evident frustration. “But nothing big. Nothing significant. Whatever happened to me… it scared me so bad I threw my memory away rather than live with the weight of it. It… it broke me, Phoenix. I’m broken.”

I look at her for a long time. A shadow passes across her eyes, but she doesn’t say a word. It’s as though I’ve caught her in a lie and she’s trying to dig her way out of it.

“What did you do?” I whisper.

She blinks in confusion. “Huh?”

“What was your part in all of this?”

I swear, for the tiniest moment, I see her shudder. Like she’s just barely come to terms with forming that question in her own head. With wondering if the past she can’t remember contains something bad that happenedtoher—or something bad that happenedbecauseof her.

“Let me go,” she says at last, trying to push her body against mine.

I like the feel of her too much to comply. “No.”

She tries to thrash around and break free, but she has no chance of succeeding. I let her fight for a moment solely because it amuses me. Then I take control again.

Whipping her around, I press her front up against the window. The knot in her robe comes undone so it’s her bare skin against the glass.

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