Page 99 of Ripped Lace (Ripped Bratva)

“But you’re feeling guilty.”

“How could I not?” I say. “He’s a human being. When you cut him, he bleeds. Just like the rest of us.”

“But unlike the rest of us,” Matvei points out, “he’s committed crimes that he needs to be held accountable for.”

“I know.”

“It’s a hard thing to watch. No matter how horrible you know they are,” Matvei continues. “But you get used to it.”

“I don’t want to get used to it,” I say immediately. “Never, ever, ever.”

“Even if it means getting your son back?”

I look down at my trembling fingertips. I’m torn between the person I am and the person I need to be.

Trapped by the present.

Caged by the past.

“I wish I remembered more,” I whisper—as much to myself as to Matvei.

“Memory is a tricky thing,” he tells me. “Don’t strain yourself. It’ll come.”

“That scares me just as much.”

He nods as though he understands completely. His mouth opens and shuts like he can’t decide whether or not to say the next piece.

“After Aurora and Yuri’s deaths, it was the memories that nearly destroyed Phoenix,” Matvei tells me. “He kept remembering things he had forgotten. Each new discovery seemed to chip away at his soul.”

I stare at Matvei, trying to read his expression. But he keeps his cards close to the chest, just like his don.

“What changed?”

Matvei shakes his head. “Sometimes, even I don’t know. Maybe he ran out of soul to get chipped away.”

He laughs like it was a joke, but even I can sense the morsel of truth beneath it.

Then he raises his eyes to mine, and I see it: pain. True pain.

Not for himself—but for his friend.

“It was going to kill him, Elyssa,” he says solemnly. “Or he was going to kill himself. That is… until he met you.”

His words catch me off guard. I reject them out of hand. “That’s not it. I’m just an accident. I ran into the wrong room at the wrong time.”

“And made an impression,” Matvei corrects. “He won’t admit it, but he’s terrified of losing you.”

“He doesn’t even believe Theo is his.”

“Doyoubelieve that?” Matvei shoots at me.

I recoil, but it’s a fair question. I have no right to feel insulted. So I swallow down my hurt. “My gut says he is.”

“But you don’t know for certain.”

“No,” I sigh. “No, I don’t.”

“Then give Phoenix some leeway. He has a right to ask.”

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