“I needed you to be here for this monumental moment, because we finally have the revenge that we’d been hoping for the moment that Luka stripped it away from us. You approached me the night of the party, told me to keep my head up, and you were the reason I was able to get out that night. I owed you this, and I knew that killing them both wouldn’t satisfy what needed to be done, because if he had destroyed anyone’s life, it was yours. You did most of the heavy lifting, and he had you do the worst things I could’ve ever imagined. So, I got them ready for you, but now I must be going. I have the rest of my life to decide where I want to go from here. Thank you, Rurik. Thank you both,” said Vanya, and it was nice to see that he was going to get his happy ending, because it was one that he truly deserved.
I stared at Luka, noticing all the bruises around his eyes and mouth, and Anton had been nearly unconscious as it was. They were both gagged, left for dead on this expensive private yacht, but Rurik and I weren’t going to let them get the chance to slip away again. We had to finish this once and for all, and I truly wanted to hear what Luka had to say. I wanted to see if there was even a semblance of regret in his voice, or if he was going to die the psychopath that he had been all along. So, I inched closer to him removing the gag, so he could speak freely, because it was time I got my answers, the very ones that I had been looking for the moment I began my search for my biological parents.
“Why did you do this, Luka? Why did you need to ruin so many men's lives? Why did you need to target me, to lure me out by taking my best friend hostage? I need you to tell me the truth,” I said, letting my feelings get the best of me for a moment, only to watch a smirk play upon his face like he truly found all of this quite amusing.
“It was fun. I fucked with you all because it was fun. It brought me joy to see you suffer, and I didn’t care what I had to do to make that happen. I wanted you gone so you wouldn’t ruin me, but being my daughter you found a way to do that anyway. I want you to let that sink in, because even after you kill me here today, there will always be a part of me in you. Whether you like to admit it or not, you have Andreyev blood flowing through you, and there’s nothing that’s going to change that. You’ll see that you’re going to have to make some very difficult choices to cope with the sick fantasies I know you will have. You’re just like me, Marianna and you may spend the rest of your life fighting that, but nothing is going to change the way you are. You’ll see that soon enough,” said Luka, but I knew in my heart that he was grasping at straws, that he was trying to take the final jab, to hurt me one last time, but it wasn’t going to work.
“You may believe that because deep down you’ve never experienced love, you don’t know what it’s like to engage with people without them fearing you, but I don’t share a damn thing with you, Luka. I got everything you wanted, just like you feared, and now you’re going to die a terrible death, because you deserve to suffer one last time before I’m rid of you for good,” I said, looking over at Rurik, who was absolutely fuming at the way that Luka was speaking to me.
“Lower your gun, Luka. If it’s alright with you, I’d like to do this my way,” I said, and he nodded.
I asked him to get behind the wheel, to drive this boat out as far as we needed to go, while Luka sat there, hoping that we were going to put him out of his misery quickly, but that wasn’t my intention. We turned off the engine when we were far enough away from land, and I looked at Rurik, but he was already one step ahead of me. He knew what I was thinking, and he nodded, coming in to help me before I even had to ask. We lifted the chair that Luka had been bound to, hearing him beg for his life as we tossed him into the ocean knowing that it was going to take a while for him to truly die down there. He was going to fight for his last breath, and we sent Anton to join him. They both had gone down terrible paths, becoming carbon copies of each other, and it was evident that they both needed to die. I felt immediate relief when I realized that it was truly over, and I was overcome with all of the emotions that I’d been hiding for the past few days. I collapsed into Rurik’s chest, while we looked out into the middle of the ocean, knowing we could finally breathe easy again.
