"Persuasion." The word tastes sour. "Is that what you call threatening to cut off someone's hands?"
"When necessary."
I think of the man at the auction, the way Misha's voice dropped to something barely human.I'll send your hands back to your family in a box.He meant it. I saw it in his eyes.
"Have you killed people?"
He holds my gaze. "Yes."
The confirmation should shock me. It doesn't. Some part of me already knew—has known since he walked out of my apartment two years ago and I felt the shape of the secret he was keeping.
"How many?"
"A lot."
He doesn’t even know how many lives he ended by those hands. Those hands that used to cup my face so gently, that traced patterns on my skin while I fell asleep.
My stomach lurches. I swallow hard and push forward.
"And my family? The Benedettis?"
"Your father runs a criminal organization based in Los Angeles. Smaller than ours, less established. They've been in decline for years—bad investments, failed alliances, debts piling up." He pauses. "They traffic women, Bianca. That auction last night wasn't the first. It's how your father has been staying afloat."
The words hit me like a physical blow. I think of Mirella in the holding room, her hollow eyes, her matter-of-fact acceptance of her fate.The Benedettis are broke. They're liquidating assets.
She knew. Everyone knew except me.
"How long?" My voice cracks. I clear my throat and try again. "How long has he been doing this?"
"At least a decade. Probably longer."
A decade. I was eleven years old when my father started selling women. I was learning long division and reading Harry Potter while he was—
I can't finish the thought. Something inside me is cracking, fissures spreading through the foundation of everything I believed about my life.
"Did you know?" I ask. "When we were together. Did you know what my family was?"
"I knew your father was involved in organized crime. I didn't know the details of his operations—not then." Misha's jaw tightens. "I found out later. After I left."
"And you didn't think to warn me?"
"You were safer not knowing. If you'd confronted your father, if you'd tried to leave, if you'd shown any sign that you knew what he was—" He stops, breathes. "He would have considered you a liability. The same way he eventually did anyway."
The same way he eventually did anyway. Because he sold me. His own daughter. Put me on a stage like cattle and waited for the highest bidder.
My eyes burn. I blink rapidly, refusing to let the tears fall.
"Why did you leave?" The question tears out of me, rawer than I intended. "Two years ago. Why did you really leave?"
"Because staying would have gotten you killed."
"That's not an answer. That's a deflection."
"It's the truth." He leans forward, elbows on his knees. "When I started seeing you, the Benedettis and the Morozovs were negotiating an alliance. If they'd discovered that Carmine's daughter was involved with a Kashkin, you would have become a target. A bargaining chip. A weapon to be used against us or against your own family."
"So you just decided for me. Without asking. Without explaining."
"Yes."
