Page 196 of Marrying My Ex's Brother
I look toward the bathroom, where the other ring, the first one, still sits hidden in the safe Yaromir gave me. Now even the memory of it feels dirty.
“What do you want?” I repeat.
“You.” The word is simple.
It lands like a hand around my throat.
I don’t answer.
Dmitri continues, “You come to me, and your father walks away.”
“No.”
“You haven’t heard the terms.”
“I said no.”
He laughs cruelly. “You’re still so dramatic.”
“And you’re still stupid if you think I will walk out of this house and come to you.”
“I think you will if you don’t want Sergei dead.”
My stomach turns.
I hate my father. I hate him for dragging me into this world, for selling me, for needing me again and again until even his love felt like debt.
But I don’t want him dead.
Dmitri knows that.
“You have one hour,” he says.
“No.”
“One hour, Anya.”
“I’m not coming.”
Another pause.
Then, softly, “Then I’ll send him back in pieces.”
My breath leaves me.
The guard sees my face and starts forward. I shake my head quickly, but my hand is trembling now.
Dmitri hears the silence and knows he has hit something.
“There,” he says. “Now you’re listening.”
Tears burn behind my eyes, not from sadness, but from helpless fury. “You’re disgusting.”
“I’m desperate,” he says. “There’s a difference.”
“No. There isn’t.”
His laugh is low. “You sound like him.”
