Page 86 of Ruined
“Jesus. When did they start doing this to you?”
“Sixteen, when I started working for them. I needed to prove my loyalty to them, so the Pakhan gave me a test. They brought me into a room where they had this guy bound up, kneeling, and gave me a gun. Told me to shoot him.” I swallowed hard, an image of a dark room filled with Bratva men flashing in my head. “After I did it, they threw a party. They got me drunk, tattooed my chest, and pushed me into a room with a prostitute.”
I could still see her bored face. I was just another job to her. The memory of her perfume swirled in my nostrils, turning my stomach.
“They told me it was part of being a man,” I continued, voice rough. “Part of proving I belonged. After I killed for them, they wanted to make sure I could do… that, too.”
“Welcome to the Bratva.”
I huffed a bitter laugh. “They were all outside the door. Laughing. I was sixteen—drunk, shaking, scared out of my fucking mind. And they expected me to perform. So I did.”
I swallowed hard, my throat burning. My gaze dropped to Dominic’s hand on my ribs, the warmth of it almost unbearable.
“And?”
“And I felt nothing. I kept waiting for something to click, but it didn’t. I hated every second of it. Hatedmyselffor letting them shove me into that room. Hated that my body worked even when my brain wanted to shut down.”
Dominic’s grip on me tightened.
“I never understood why.” I looked away, staring at the cracks in the ceiling. “I spent years telling myself it was stress. That the right girl would fix me.”
“There’s nothing wrong with you, Luca.”
I scoffed. “Try telling that to sixteen-year-old me, drunk out of my mind with some stranger on top of me.”
Dominic’s thumb touched the ink. “They’re sick. They branded you like a fucking animal.”
“That’s exactly what I was. An animal they trained to follow orders. The ink was a reminder. You kill for us, you die for us, and you’re nothing without us.”
“They didn’t make you who you are, Luca. They broke you down because they were terrified of what you’d be without their leash.”
“It doesn’t matter. This will never go away.”
“They will. Whether you cover them up or laser them away, you’re not letting that shit define you anymore. Not while I’m around.”
My chest tightened. “What about the memories?”
“You’ll make new ones.”
“I can’t erase the past fourteen years, Dom. Theychangedme. There’s no getting around that. It’s not just the tattoos, it’s the way I speak, my behavior. I feel so lost.”
“You’re not lost. You’re adapting.”
“To what? A life I don’t understand anymore?”
“A life that’s yours,” Dominic said firmly. “Not something they built for you. You can finally figure out who you really are.”
“You make it sound easy.”
“It’s not,” he admitted. “It’s messy, but you’re not chained to the Bratva anymore. You decide what happens next.”
I shook my head. “I don’t even know where to start.”
“What gets you out of bed in the morning?”
“Vodka and vengeance.”
Dominic smirked. “I was thinking along the lines of college.”