Page 109 of Pack Baby for the Bratva
"You think this is love?"
"I know it's confusing," I said. "You always did mistake obedience for affection. Easy error. Men in bad suits make it all the time."
Ivan made a small sound behind me that might have been a laugh and might have been a growl and was probably both.
My father's face went dark. "Watch your mouth."
For the first time in my entire life, those words did not make me small. They made me defiant.
"No," I said. "I don't think I will."
Gregor moved behind me. The storm in his scent was so barely contained I could feel it rolling off him in waves, but he didn't make a sound. He just stood there, an immovable wall at my back, while Ivan took his place on my other side. Both of them were looking at Callum's throat the way a man looks at a door he's considering removing.
"You're coming with me," Callum demanded. His finger came up, pointing at me, and I watched it tremble slightly. "You belong to Finn. Do you have any idea of the mess you've caused? The Belfast settlement—"
"The Belfast settlement." I let the words hang. "That's what you want to discuss. Not the beatings. Not the humiliation. Not the fact that the man you sold me to brought other women into my bed while I was locked in a room upstairs." My pack made a low, synchronized rumble that vibrated through the floorboards. "You want to talk about the mess."
"He's an alpha! You're an omega who ruined a territory deal! Do you understand what you cost this family?"
"I'm not part of your family, Callum." I dropped the word father like it had burned me, which it had, a long time ago. "And I don't belong to Finn. He's a monster, and you handed me to him like I was a closing fee."
"You're an omega!" He stepped closer. Behind him, his six men shuffled nervously, suddenly very aware of the three massive Russian alphas whose eyes had stopped looking at Callum's throat and started looking at each other's, which wassomehow worse. "You are currency! You do what you're told for the good of the syndicate!"
I looked at him with pity because he was a man who couldn’t be fixed.
"I'm not currency," I said. The room had gone so quiet I could hear the rain starting against the windows. "I'm a Petrov now. Mary has escaped you. You have nothing left to sell."
"You ungrateful little—"
"Careful."
The word cut through the room like a blade through silk. Not loud. Not dramatic. Just mine.
Callum stopped.
I smiled. It wasn't a warm smile. It was the smile I'd learned from watching Artem negotiate with men who'd tried to kill him. "You're standing in a house full of people who think I hung the moon. I wouldn't finish that sentence unless you're emotionally prepared to become a cautionary tale."
Artem's fingers brushed the inside of my wrist. Once. He approved.
Callum's jaw worked. He looked between the four of us. At Artem who was still seated like a king, at Gregor whose stillness was more threatening than movement, and at Ivan who was smiling with absolutely no warmth, the plot twist finally landed.
"If you ever contact me again," I said, tilting my chin and letting my voice drop into the quiet register Artem used when he was promising something permanent, "or if you try to find Mary, I will let my pack dismantle your syndicate piece by piece until there's nothing left but ash and paperwork."
The threat settled into the room like something solid.
Callum McCarthy looked at the daughter he'd thrown away, and for one satisfying second, I watched him understand that he had created his own destruction.
He didn't say another word. He turned and walked out. His men scrambled after him like ducklings in tactical gear.
The front doors slammed. Tires screeched on gravel. The sound faded into the rain.
And I was still standing in the same spot. I didn't collapse. I didn't cry. The silence that followed wasn't heavy or oppressive. It was light. It was the sound of a door closing. The sound of my life finally beginning.
I turned around and looked at the three men who'd given me enough room to find my own armor.
"Well," I said. The lightness in my chest was soaring and strange and wonderful. "That went rather well."
Artem stood and pulled me into his arms. "You were magnificent."
