Her gaze meets mine over the rim of her glass. The look in her eyes is cold. Calculated. Nothing like the friend and ally I thought I had.
“Darling,” she says, her voice light, “did you really think you were going to live through all of this?”
Behind me, Aleksander makes a gurgling noise. Blood leaks between his fingers in a skinny river. He looks at Trina, comprehension dragging slow through pain.
“You,” he rasps. “It was you the whole time.”
Trina sets her glass down and smiles as if she’s just been handed a compliment. “Yes. It’s been me for a long time,” she replies, eyes bright.
Everything tilts again, and I plant my feet. “Start over,” I say, because if she doesn’t, the room will slide off its axis and take me with it. “From the beginning.”
Jack snorts like I’ve missed an obvious punchline. Trina studies me for a beat, then nods once, as if deciding I deserve the truth.
“Your parents,” she says. “Lovely. Naïve. They believed marrying you to Maxim would keep your birthright intact.” She looks bored by the memory. “They were wrong, of course.”
“I didn’t—” I start, but there’s no point so I close my mouth.
“Jack,” she continues, turning her head slightly, “objected. Was worried he’d be cut out, cast aside.”
Jack lifts a shoulder as if to say, “what else did you expect?”
“So we tested a theory,” Trina goes on. “About how many screws you have to loosen before a plane falls out of the sky.”
The words hit me square in the chest. My hand goes to my stomach protectively. “You killed my parents,” I hear myself say, my voice small, cracked. “Ourparents!”
Another shrug from Jack. “We just hurried things along.”
A log shifts. The fire pops.
“Then,” Trina says, gaze flicking to the man bleeding on his own rug, “we created pressure where it would count. Aleksander thought you were the problem and we agreed. He needed a narrative—he’s sentimental, as you well know. And it didn’t take much pushing on my part to convince dear uncle that he should put you on Vlad’s kill list.” She smiles, pleased at her own workmanship. “And it almost worked.”
“Why?” My throat burns. “Why me?”
Jack steps up, the gun he used to shoot Alexander still in his hand. “Because, sis, you’re in the way. When the old man dies, his company, and our parent’s, passes to you. But if you’re out of the picture…” He grins, a sick, joker’s grin, letting the words linger.
His tone makes my stomach drop. I look at him—and then at Trina—and it clicks. My blood runs cold.
“You planned Maxim’s death,” I whisper.
Trina doesn’t flinch. For a moment, something like regret flickers in her eyes, but then it’s gone.
“Maxim was sweet,” she says. “But sweetness doesn’t rule empires.”
The night of the gala floods back—the masks, the music, the way time slowed before the first scream. Maxim’s weight in my arms. His blood.
“You killed him,” I say, my voice shaking. “You killed him and left me to drown in it.”
Trina tilts her head. “We adjusted the details. A door left unlocked. Guard shifts adjusted. The toast timed just right. Aleksander signed the contract himself, thinking the hit team was going to take out a few of his rivals. He didn’t realize we’d paid them more to do a little extra work, didn’t realize it was also the end of his dynasty.”
Aleksander lets out a moan of agony, emotional and physical. Part of me wishes he’d already died so he didn’t have to listen to this, to learn this.
“Better off, T,” Jack says. “All of us.”
I can barely breathe. “You think that about our parents too?”
He doesn’t blink. “Out with the old, in with the new.”
Aleksander groans again, a curse grinding through his teeth, blood still dripping between his fingers.
