Chapter 18 #2
I rolled into a fetal ball to protect myself while heaving and unable to get up. Maybe it was a good thing I hadn’t eaten for days.
My bedroom door burst open, and Marco’s booming voice bounced off the walls.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
Aris pointed at me lying on the floor.
“This little bitch still needs to learn her fucking place.”
I sucked in a ragged breath while hugging my ribcage.
“Aris needs to learn how to not be such a sensitive little bitch. All I did was mention his addiction to Payless ads.”
Marco shook his head.
“You’ve been gone for a while. He upgraded to buying used underwear from female prisons years ago.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Aris shouted, “I swear to God, I’ll?—”
“You’ll what?” Marco said, advancing on him.
I scooted out of the way as my brothers squared off toe to toe. Aris had an inch or two on our older brother, and Marco was a big man in his own right.
“What, Aris? You’ll beat me like you beat your own twin? I’m not a woman who can’t fight back, asshole. You hit me, I’ll hit you back harder. You should understand this by now. I want you to think carefully about what happened the last time you came at me.”
Aris’s cheeks turned bright red, and he gnashed his teeth.
“But she needs to?—”
Marco stepped forward, backing Aris to the door.
“What she needs isn’t your concern,” Marco growled.
“Fine, but?—”
“You have work to do, so I suggest you go fucking do it.”
Aris pivoted around Marco’s body.
“No, someone needs to teach her a lesson. You won’t do it.”
Our older brother grabbed Aris by the throat.
“If you don’t get the fuck out, yes, someone’s gonna learn their lesson, painfully, violently, and it won’t be her. Are you really that excited about another trip to the hospital?”
Marco shoved my twin toward the door.
“I hear Northwestern has an order to call the cops the second you arrive. Something about drug-seeking behavior.”
“Fuck you,” Aris snapped.
“Not on your fucking life.”
Then Marco slammed the door in his face.
After a minute of silence, after Aris’s pounding footsteps disappeared, Marco tilted back his head, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. Then he turned and looked at me.
“God, I hate him. I know I should love him because he’s my brother, but I don’t.”
“How do you think I feel? He shared a womb with me.”
“Christ, girl, you’re a fucking mess.”
I flipped him the middle finger, and his easy smile appeared. The smile few people ever got to see.
He extended his hand to help me up.
“Let’s get you cleaned up before your… auction… examination… I don’t fucking know what to call this bullshit.”
“Let’s just call it what it is. It’s deeply misogynistic.”
My ribs screamed in protest, and my stomach turned and burned. My head swam, the ringing in my ears sharper, the pain throbbing harder than before.
But I was still alive and even conscious.
Yay me.
Marco guided me to the bed, disappeared into the en suite bathroom, returned with a washcloth, and began dabbing at my bloody mouth.
“Why do you go along with it all?” I blurted.
He stopped and stared at me but didn’t say anything.
Why the fuck didn’t my big brother do something about all the cruelty against women, the “bullshit,” as he’d called it?
“So,” he finally said. “Father didn’t take your man’s offer.”
I sucked in air through my teeth and continued to focus on my brother’s eyes. They always told me the real story.
“Didn’t he offer enough?”
Marco nodded. “In fact, I think he offered too much, and if I’m being honest here, sorellina, that was my fault.”
“How? What did you do, Marco?”
God, my head hurt. The pain made it hard to reach the thoughts and words hiding in the pulsing corners of my mind.
“I misread the situation. I told him he needed to offer something impressive, not just money. Vignali did that, but I never expected it to make Father believe it made you worth even more to the Russians than he originally thought.”
“What does that mean?”
“The Russians said they were interested again after seeing you, so Father raised the price. He told them you’re worth more now than when you were innocent.”
“What?”
It didn’t make sense.
Or maybe it did, and all the violence had scrambled my brain enough to make me question my own thoughts.
He shook his head and kept cleaning my face.
“Don’t get excited. It’s not as progressive as you think. It actually makes it worse for you.”
“I don’t see how,” I mumbled.
“Well, he told the Russians any time they take a virgin bride, they gamble with the quality of produced offspring. But you’ve proven you can bear strong, intelligent sons.
“Then he told them, and I quote, ‘Her son, at the mere age of nine, has already shown far more promise than his father.’ He managed to convince them if they give you a chance to bear heirs, they’d be stronger for it. Because of you.”
I didn’t even know what to say to that.
“Honestly, sorellina, I can’t believe they bought the bullshit, but they did. Klimov’s second son is coming to see you. If you meet his standards, he’ll move forward with a generous offer on the spot, as if the last decade never happened.
“Seems they think if you can bear an Italian bastard strong enough to make his father willing to marry you for legitimacy’s sake, then your children with a Russian sire should make perfect soldiers.”
I winced as Marco dabbed at some blood on my temple.
“Ow.” I pulled away. “This is fucked up. This is the twenty-first century. How do these stupid asses still not understand it’s the man’s DNA that determines a baby’s gender? Russia has modern medicine and, like, the fucking internet, right?”
“The basics of biology are clearly still mystifying,” he teased.
Then my brother’s usual stony expression returned.
“I’m sorry, sorellina. The Russians will be here in about an hour, and I can’t think of a way to get you out of this.”
“We can’t fake my death again?” I asked hopefully.
“A second time? Nah, we’ll never get away with it.”
He winked at me, and I smiled.
“What should I do, Marco? How do I get through this?”
He folded the bloody washcloth while avoiding my gaze.
“You put on a pretty dress. You do your makeup and cover as much of the bruising as you can. You smile like you mean it… and you hope Vignali has something else up his sleeve.”