Page 68 of Paved in Hate

“I can’t do that, brother.”

“Vitaly, let me fucking see them.” He runs a hand through his hair and shakes his head in anger and frustration. “I have to know what’s happening to her. Let me fucking see them!”

“I promise I’ll show you after we get her back.” I force myself to meet his eyes again. “I’m so fucking sorry.”

He paces the room, the anger coming off him is so fucking palpable we all feel it. I look at Roman. He’s been silent throughout all this, but his eyes are just as haunted as Matvey’s right now. Emily’s hugging him and whispering something into his ear, and I swear her voice is the only thing keeping him sane right now.

When he looks up at me, he asks, “She’s at his mansion, isn’t she? She was there this whole fucking time? The bastard had us over for supper while my sister was locked in one of his goddamn rooms?”

“Yes,” Katya answers before I can, “but he has no idea she’s your sister.”

“How do you know that?” Roman looks around the room. “What if he knows and he’s just fucking with us?”

“I wouldn’t put it past him,” Danil says. “He’s already united our families, and now we’re working together. Once everything is set up, he could use Alina to ruin us and take over the whole damn thing.”

“He doesn’t know,” Katya says again. “I know my brothers. No way in hell could they resist bragging about something like this. They don’t involve me in their business, but they’ll make little comments in front of me about people they’re planning on fucking over or killing. They’re ruthless and smart, but they’re also full of themselves and never miss an opportunity to try and make themselves look smarter or tougher than someone else.”

“We need to talk to Dominic and figure out how we’re going to do this,” Danil says, trying to steer us back to planning mode. “I’m still waiting for Konstantin to set up a meeting between me and Casimir, and once I have access to all that, I should be able to go in and disable his security and find out who bought Dominic’s sister.”

“And then we go in and kill them all and get Alina,” Lev says.

Matvey nods, but I can tell he’s still fighting the urge to go and get her right fucking now. We’re all keeping an eye on him, and when he starts to walk out the door, I run over to him and block his exit.

“Get out of the way,” he says, looking more pissed off by the second.

“I can’t let you do something that you’ll regret.” I hold up my hands, because the last thing I want to do is grab him and make him even angrier. “You will never forgive yourself if you run out there and do something that ends up getting Alina killed. She’s alive, Matvey, and she’s going to stay that way.”

“How the fuck do you know that?” he yells. “You won’t even let me see the drawings your wife did of her, which tells me they’re really fucking bad, and you expect me to believe that he might not decide to kill her?”

“He won’t,” Katya tries to tell him.

“How can you know that?” He turns to her, and as angry as he is, I’m not even slightly worried that he’s going to do something to hurt her. Matvey might be enraged right now, but he’s my brother, and I know what he’s capable of and what he’s not capable of and hitting my wife is not something he would ever do.

Katya hesitates, and I can tell she doesn’t want to tell him what she’s about to say, but when she looks to me, I give her a nod, letting her know it’s okay. She looks back at Matvey and says, “Because he’s broken her. She won’t fight back, and that pleases him enough to keep her alive. Plus, he has an entire staff of new women he’s tormenting. It will keep him occupied and hopefully away from her for a few days.”

The pained groan Matvey gives at hearing how broken Alina is makes my goddamn chest ache. When he turns his dark eyes to mine, they’re glassy and this time when he tries to walk by, I let him. I watch as he heads into the gym, and a few seconds later all I can hear is the sound of fists hitting the punching bag.

“I’ll take the first round,” Lev says, kissing Jolene before heading to the gym. We’ll all take turns watching over him until it’s time for us to go and get her.

“You okay?” I ask Roman. He’s still sitting with Emily on his lap, looking like he’s still trying to wrap his head around all this.

“Not really, but I will be when we get her back and kill them.” He looks up at me. “How bad is the sketchpad?”

“Bad,” I say.

“I’d like to see it.”

Before I can tell him no, he pats Emily’s stomach and gives her a small smile. “You know I’d never do anything that would cause my wife to worry. I’m not going to run off and try to take them down all by myself, but I need to see what’s been done to her. We all need to see it so we can better understand how to help her heal from all this shit. I don’t want to do something once we get her back that might trigger her in some way. I’d never fucking forgive myself, and I’m sure as hell not going to demand she talk to me about it.” He sighs and scrubs a hand over his jaw. “I just don’t want to do anything to make it worse for her.”

I nod and go into the closet to get the sketchpad. Handing it to him without a word, I sit down in the chair opposite him and pull Katya onto my lap, wanting and needing her close. She softens against me, sliding her arm behind my neck so she can run her fingers through the back of my hair. Everything about her comforts me, and she somehow always knows exactly what I need. I rest my hand on her thigh and give it a soft squeeze, letting her know how much I appreciate it.

“Jesus Christ,” Roman growls, slamming the book shut and handing it to me, not even wanting to touch the damn thing anymore. Emily’s crying quietly but trying like hell to hide it and Roman looks like a part of himself just died, and I guess it probably has. We all knew Alina was going through hell, but now we have the proof of it, and I think we all secretly held out hope that maybe she was being treated okay, that maybe the bastard who bought her wasn’t quite the monster we were envisioning, but now there’s no hope. We can’t pretend we didn’t just see the truth of what she’s going through, and in many ways it’s worse than we imagined.

Roman comforts Emily while Katya jumps up to hide the book again. None of us want to risk Matvey seeing it. He can see it when Alina is in front of him, alive and safe. To give it to him now would just be cruel. As soon as Katya comes back, I pull her onto my lap again.

“Was there nothing you could do for her?” Roman asks Katya. His tone isn’t accusing. He’s just trying to understand what’s going on like the rest of us.

I tighten my grip on my wife and meet Roman’s eyes. “Katya did everything she could for Alina. The only way to keep her safe was to ignore her.” I briefly explain what happened when Katya was twelve, which causes Roman to go even paler and Emily to start crying again.

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