Yes.
“No. Sorry, this is just difficult for me. I uh,” I take a breath. “I haven’t ever told anyone this before. People know, but… well, I don’t talk about it.”
“You can tell me.” She gives me an encouraging smile. “If you want to…”
That smile stays on her face, and I would kiss her if I thought she’d let me. Kiss her, fuck her, then forget this night ever happened. Avoidance happens to be what I’m best at.
But as I stare at that smile and the seconds pass, I find myself wanting to tell Alex. No one has ever heard it from my perspective, and I want her too. I want her to know I’m not heartless. That I do care what happens to people, including her. And that I never want to hurt anyone like that again.
“Her name was Sophie,” I say, my chest tightening. “IsSophie. For a long time, I thought she might be dead, but she moved back here a few years ago after her father passed. She was beautiful, and still is, but back then she was one of the prettiest girls I knew. She looked a little like you. Silky hair, clear skin… And she was Russian.”
I pause and wait for some reaction from Alex, but there is none. Her face remains soft and judgement free. She doesn’t already know this story.
“So anyway, I pursued her. I took her on dates, snuck out to see her, all the traditional teenage shit. Even back then I wasn’t a big relationship guy, but Sophie was different. I thought I was in love with her. Even without having sex. In her culture, it was imperative to remain a virgin until marriage, otherwise you’re basically trash.”
“Yes, I’m aware.”
I cringe. “Right, sorry.”
“It’s okay.” Alex waves a hand to dismiss it. “Go on.”
I take a breath and splay my hands on the table. “I was a shithead kid, and I didn’t care about her values. I told her I loved her and wished I could marry her someday, and it was enough to get her to have sex with me. She regretted it almost instantly, she even cried afterward, and the next day she broke things off with me, told me we shouldn’t see each other again. Two months later, she found out she was pregnant.”
I pause for a moment, remembering the conversation she had with me through my bedroom window. She’d showed up one night without warning. She’d looked like she’d been crying for hours.
“She begged me to agree to marry her and help her raise the kid. I don’t know if she thought she still loved me at that point, but it was her only chance of repenting to her father.”
The leg of my chair scrapes the floor when I shift. “My situation was vastly different from hers. I’m expected to marry an Italian woman. Sometimes a made man can get away with marrying someone of another ethnicity, but I was the first-born son of the don. My son will one day take my place, and he has to be full blood Italian. It would be… highly frowned upon to choose otherwise.”
Alex nods as if she understands.
“It’s also not ideal to have a bastard child walking around. So… I talked her into getting an abortion. Her twin brother was the only other person who knew she was pregnant, and she convinced him to keep it from their father. I told her it was her only way out, and she was horrified by the idea, but she believed me.”
“But…” Alex begins. “He found out. Didn’t he?”
I nod. “Yes. I think the doctor knew who she was, or who I was. Word got back to her father, and I told mine. I got a slap on the wrist and told to be more careful. My father paid hers five hundred thousand dollars, I guess to say sorry. And then we never spoke of it again.”
Alex’s eyes remind me of someone being told a scary story around a campfire. “And her?” she asks.
“She was kicked out and told never to come home. That she wasn’t part of the family anymore. But before that, they… she was…”
I take a breath. “They mutilated her genitals. And her womb. Her father said she’d never be wanted by a man again, and a woman who would have an abortion didn’t deserve to have children.”
Alex sits back. “Jesus…”
“Yeah.” I run a hand through my hair and let out a long breath.
“I’m sure that was… hard.”
I look at Alex and study her expression. There’s some disgust, but I can’t tell if it’s directed at me or not.
“For her or for me?”
“For both of you,” Alex says without hesitation. “I mean, for her especially. I know how the Bratva can be. I’m assuming her father was a member of the Bratva?” Alex waits for clarification, and I nod.
“They’re vicious. All of them. I like to think my father would never do something likethat,but it wouldn’t be shocking for him to disown me.”
I keep my mouth closed. I like to believe the women in the familia are treated better than that, but I have no idea what Alex thinks, so I’d rather not guess.