I can’t believe I ever fell for his act. Can’t believe I let this man fool me for as long as I did. Right now, every word out of his mouth is confirmation: all he wants is power over me.
All he wants is control.
That’s not true, a quiet part of me whispers at the back of my mind. It’s the part I buried, the part that’s still licking her wounds, bleeding from the gash in her heart. He cared for you once. Maybe he cares still.
I silence that voice and fix my stare on Matvey. “Test you?” I echo. “Why? What can you possibly do to me that you haven’t already? You put a target on my back from day one. Thanks to you, I got kidnapped, cut off from everything I’ve ever loved, assaulted in my own home. I stared down the barrel of an assassin’s gun, challenged the whole mob in handcuffs, and even
