Chapter 9 Roran
Roran
The lingering sting of the slap still echoes across my cheek, locking my body in place. My pulse pounds, quick and frantic. Seconds later, the burn creeps in—slow, sinking deeper, as if his palm left fire under my skin.
“This is what you call keeping your sister safe?” My father’s roar crashes through the room. I flinch, but I don’t respond.
His icy eyes spear me, glacial and merciless, like they’ve been doing since I was a child. That stare has always been a prison. It freezes me in place, keeps my voice trapped in my throat where it belongs.
His dark blond hair is slicked back like always, not a strand out of place, as if violence never touches him. But it does. It starts with him. There’s nothing warm in his features. Nothing kind. Just power, discipline, and disgust—especially when he looks at me.
I don’t move. I just breathe and bite the inside of my cheek until I taste blood. It’s the only control I have left—choosing where the pain comes from.
After twenty-one years as the eldest daughter of the head of the Bratva in New York, I’ve learned how to take a beating with silence.
He hides us well—Diana and me. Keeps us out of sight. Pretends we don’t exist.
All anyone knows is his legitimate son—the golden boy he parades around like a trophy—Dimitry Morozov.
No one ever talks about the daughter he had with one of his side women. Or the second daughter, he refused to acknowledge but refuses to let go of.
He cheated on his wife and got my mother pregnant—and somehow, we’re the ones paying for it.
Even inside the organization, no one knows the truth. They know me and Diana only from Konfetki—the family-owned strip club I run with a clipboard and a stare sharp enough to draw blood.
I keep the strippers in line. I make sure the clients pay. I keep the men filth in check, sometimes even get the dirty job done for him.
And yet... it’s never enough.
Another slap slams across the other side of my face, snapping my head in the opposite direction. My teeth sink into my lip, and the sharp, familiar taste of iron hits my tongue again.
“Suddenly you’re at a loss for words?” he hisses, his voice slick with venom.
“I apologize, Father. I’ll keep a closer eye on her.”
He doesn’t know where she got drunk or how. Just that she did.
If he knew it was in a bar outside our protection—one that isn’t Bratva-owned—he’d scar her. Maybe worse. Maybe he’d break her hands and call it discipline.
“That’s what you told me the last time, Roran.” His tone sharpens. “Or did you forget she’s promised to the Petrov family? She can’t be touched.”
My breath catches. Forgot? I didn't even know.
Before I can stop myself, before I can weigh the consequences—
“She’s what?! She’s fifteen! You said they offered, not that it was a done deal!” My voice cracks louder than I meant it to, and his hand flies again—this time hitting hard enough to knock me off balance.
I slam into the office wall, the impact jolting through my spine. Stars burst across my vision, blinding, dizzying, like my skull’s been cracked open from the inside.
“Since when do I owe you—” His voice rumbles low, a growl that vibrates in my bones. He steps forward, and his shadow swallows me whole, a tide rising too fast to escape. “A bastard child—you—an explanation?”
His hand snaps around my throat, fingers like iron. Not enough to kill, just enough to remind me how easily he could. My breath stutters, thin and desperate, panic searing hot in my chest.
I claw at him, nails useless against skin that doesn’t even flinch. My voice breaks into fragments between his fingers. “I... I’m so—rry...”
He throws me back against the wall. My head snaps to the side, my vision blurring again. My knees buckle. For a moment, the ground tilts like it’s about to devour me. Somehow, I wedge myself upright, body shaking, lungs scraping for air that won’t come.
Each breath tastes of smoke. Of fear. Of shame thick enough to choke on.
I curl trembling fingers around my raw neck, swallowing the pain down as I force my gaze upward. He stands over me, unshaken, immaculate, untouched by what he’s done. Violence never leaves a mark on him—it only brands itself into me.
“Please,” I whisper, barely holding the plea together. “Don’t marry her to that monster. Ivan will kill her. I’m begging you.”
I never imagined kneeling in front of him. Never imagined lowering myself like this, like my dignity has been shredded.
But for Diana?
For her life?
I would. I would crumble, break, fall—anything—to save her.
I sink to my knees. Head bowed, body quaking. Pain lances through my neck, through my limbs, through every pride-filled fiber of me.
The pain? It’s familiar. But this—this surrender?
It feels like breaking all over again.
“Let me take her place.”