Page 4 of His Ruthless Vow

I sink into the cold leather between my mother and my sister and hug my arms over my belly. My life changed the night Ivan Sokolov attacked me in ways no one will ever be able to imagine. My family thinks I linger at home and avoid gatherings because I'm anti-social or because I hate going out. They have no clue I can't go in public because fear makes me freeze. I can't turn my back on any man in a crowd for fear he comes up behind me. And I can't walk myself to the bathroom in public now because if I do, someone might come up behind me.

Ivan deserved what he got, but his family’s moving on like nothing happened and covering up what he did will never be okay. The fact that my father paid people off to keep it silent still hurts. I know he did it to protect himself and us. If the cops found out he killed Ivan—no matter the reason—there would've been an inquiry. It would've led to our being dragged through the mud, and someone would've started digging into my father’s business records.

The logical part of this makes sense. They made choices for me without my consent when I was too battered and drugged to speak for myself, and at the time, those choices seemed to protect me and our family.

Now, I see it for what it really is. Cowardice.

Batya wouldn’t stand on a mountain and shame the Sokolov family for producing such despicable men because he doesn’t want them pointing a finger at us. One turn produces another, and I'm done pretending I feel safe with them.

The car pulls up and Mamochka slides out quickly, shuffling with Natalia to the front door in silence as I crawl out and look up into my father's guilt-riddled eyes. There's a flash of anger but also pity and understanding. No matter how many times I rail on him, the answer is the same, however, so the guilt is just the undertone. He'll never do the right thing because he thinks he already did.

"I hate you," I mumble, refusing his hand as he offers it. I straighten my skirt and stand with my head down, refusing to look at him.

"Hate is a harsh word, ptichka." He shuts the door, and his hand rides the small of my back in a manner to suggest I'm supposed to be walking with him when really, he's herding me like a sheepdog herds his flock.

"It's true," I mutter, hugging myself more tightly. Maybe hatred isn't the word I'm looking for, and maybe it's more like a feeling of betrayal, of a father turning his back on his eldest daughter. The idea that he can be so casual with the Sokolov Pakhan after what his firstborn son did to me is despicable. Unfathomable.

"You'll see it someday, sweet girl. You'll see this is for the best." His thumb strums my backbone in what's supposed to be a comforting gesture, but I hasten my step, pulling away.

"I'll see?" I hiss, whipping around on him the minute we're through the door. Natalia and Mamochka are hiding. Good. They don't need to witness me biting his head off again over this. "What will I see? Alexei Sokolov slowly taking more and more of what you built just so you can retire comfortably? Because isn't that what's going to happen? Natalia and Alexei will have children and those children will inherit it all—an empire founded on bloodshed, and it started with me.”

Tears burn in my eyes as I beat my chest with a fist. "He raped me, Batya. That man pinned me to the ground and held me there while he forced himself on me, and⁠—"

"Enough!" he screams, glaring at me. He won't even listen to the brutality of it because of how evil it was, but I fucking lived it. I can’t get it out of my head and my dreams. I stop talking as he goes on, but I'm ready to explode the way Dimitri did in that meeting.

"At some point, if we do not bury the hatchet and move on, we will be extinguished. Everything we have will be taken piece by piece. They are stronger than us, more powerful. They have more money, better guns, stronger men." His eyes plead with me to understand why caving in and letting peace reign over our families is better than screaming to the world what happened and making someone pay.

"And I would gladly live as a pauper in a cardboard box on the street if I knew Ivan Sokolov's reputation was held to account. As it stands, he serves as the beautiful martyr to this peace deal you're trying to strike. The first of many men who've fallen to make this world a beautiful place.

"The whole city will think of him as the one upon whose back all others trod until the pathway to peace was paved. No one sees that he brutalized me in a horrific way and got slaughtered. That it's my life that was destroyed."

My bottom lip quivers, chest heaving as I try to hold back tears, but I fail. One slips out, then another. They burn my cheeks as my father reaches for me to comfort me, but I pull away. "Don't. I don't want your hugs or your placating words. I want the world to know Ivan was a monster, and I want my family to stand at my back and push the Sokolovs out for once. Tell the council what he did. Make Mikhail face his son's failure."

"Alana," he says, reaching for me again, "you know I can't do that."

"Don't you fucking touch me." I take another step back, then another, moving toward my room. "You're not my father. You're not anything to me. You just stay away from me." Turning, I stomp to my room and slam the door, curling up in a ball with the covers over my head.

Dimitri Sokolov, the elder of the two boys, stood up to his father the way I stood up to mine just now, but he at least had the balls to do it in front of the council. He knows something, though I'm not sure he knows the full extent. I don't know how well Batya and the Sokolov Pakhan covered things up or who knows exactly what Ivan did and to whom, but I could tell Dimitri wanted to say something. His father kept him from speaking, but it was there on the tip of his tongue.

If my own family won't defend me and stop this wedding from moving forward, then maybe Dimitri will.

I don't know how to even get a message to him that I'm in support of his efforts to shut this show down, but I want to try my hardest. Natalia cannot marry Alexei Sokolov. I won't let it happen. Even if I have to work with the son of my sworn enemy to make it a reality.

4

DIMITRI

"Again," I snarl, pounding my gloves together. Alexei understands despite the rubber mouthpiece protecting my teeth and throws a jab catching my shoulder, and I pivot, bringing my right hook around toward his ribs. He blocks with his forearm and his whole torso shudders with the impact.

We're both breathing hard, sweating like pigs as we pound the shit out of each other. I've found it's the best way to work off my pent-up anger, and after the week I've had, I have a lot of it.

"You got a lot of rage built up, huh?" Alexei dances back on the balls of his feet, taunting me. "It's been three fucking weeks, Dimitri. Stop sulking and get over it."

"I'm not sulking." I advance, throwing a combination he deflects easily, but it helps me burn more energy off. "I'm trying to make you understand that you're making the wrong choice."

"And I'm trying to make you understand that it's none of your business anymore." He catches my wrist, holding it a fraction too long. "You walked out and left it up to me, and I'm doing what I have to do to honor our father."

I rip my arm free and shove him back so he stumbles. "I couldn't walk away from my conscience, Alexei. That's something you'll apparently never understand." Taking off that ring and putting it in my father's hand was the only way he'd understand that I would never support his covering up Ivan's sins.