His hand touches my face again, slower this time, almost tender. His thumb traces the line of my cheekbone like he’s appraising a piece of art.
So I spit in his face.
His slap comes so fast and so hard that, even after it’s struck me, I don’t quite know what happened for a while. There’s just the explosion of pain across my cheek, the whiplash snap of my head wrenching sideways, and the high-pitched ringing that floods my ears, as if someone shoved a tuning fork directly into my brain stem.
I stumble, catch myself on the arm of the couch, and taste blood where my teeth cut the inside of my cheek.
I can feel everyone’s horror spike. Mom’s strangled gasp. Yasmin’s scream. Even Brandon makes some kind of surprised grunt, like he didn’t expect Aleksei to actually hit a pregnant woman.
But
