She’s fiery now, and expansive, like she’s growing taller and more intense as she speaks.
“Do you know the kind of impact that has on a nineteen-year-old? I was not prepared for it. So I learned the hard way. My husband wasn’t just powerful because he was the don of a strong Bratva; he was powerful by virtue of the fact that he was a man. And let’s face it—it’s a man’s world, isn’t it, Aleks?”
I know damn well she’s not looking for an answer. I don’t give her one.
“I had to learn to survive within this nightmare. I tried very hard to please him,” she continues, her voice cracking. “I wanted so much to love him, and I wanted him to love me. But we hadn’t even been married a year before he started bringing women home with him. He never made a secret of it. It was out in the open for every
