I nod. “Information. Proof. Not just whispers.”
Her gaze flicks to me. “You’ll need me.”
The truth of it sinks deeper than I want to admit. She isn’t wrong. The Bratva knows fear and loyalty. She knows the law. She knows how to build cases, how to shred them. She knows how to aim not at the body, but at the foundation.
For the first time, I don’t see her as the girl I had to cage to keep alive, or the enemy who swore to see me ruined. I see her as what she’s always been—dangerous. A weapon sharpened by grief and rage, now turned in the same direction as mine.
I sit, drag a blank sheet toward me, and start writing names. Her father’s file first. The officials whose signatures appeared most often. The ministers still sitting in their cushioned chairs, the judges still pretending to uphold the law. Every one of them marked.
Vivienne comes to stand beside me. Her hand rests briefly on the table near mine, not touching, but close enough I can feel the heat of her skin.
“They’ll come for us both,” she says quietly.
“They already would have.”
Her eyes meet mine, dark and unwavering. For a long moment, neither of us speaks. Then she says, “So we burn them first.”
***
Hours pass. The list grows. Each name added is another weight, another step closer to war. Not the kind of war I was raised to fight—territory, money, blood—but a war against the very structure that let men like my father thrive.
The irony isn’t lost on me. I was raised to inherit his empire, to keep it intact. Now I sit with his enemy’s daughter, planning to dismantle the same alliances he built.
I should feel shame. Instead, I feel something else. Purpose.
Every mark on the page, every plan we sketch in the dim light, makes it clearer. She’s no longer a hostage. No longer a liability forced into my shadow.
She’s my partner in vengeance.
***
Near dawn, when the papers blur before my eyes and exhaustion gnaws at the edges, she leans over the table, her hair brushing against my arm. “Do you trust me with this?” she asks.
I don’t hesitate. “Yes.”
Her breath catches, almost imperceptibly. “Even knowing what I could do with it?”
“I know exactly what you could do.” My voice is steady. “I’m still giving it to you.”
The silence that follows isn’t heavy this time. It’s sharp, electric, charged with something I can’t name.
The room is quiet except for the rustle of paper and the scratch of my pen as I mark another name. Vivienne stands close, reading over my shoulder, her shadow falling across the page. The silence between us hums with something that isn’t anger anymore. It’s sharper, heavier.
I look up at her. She’s staring at the list, but her jaw is tight, her eyes dark. The strength in her unnerves me sometimes, how she can carry so much hate without letting it consume her completely. Or maybe it already has, and I just can’t tell.
“You don’t have to stay in this,” I say quietly. The words surprise even me. “You could walk away. I wouldn’t stop you.”
Her gaze flicks to mine, sharp and unyielding. “I don’t want to walk away. Not until they pay.”
I nod slowly, though the knot in my chest pulls tighter. She’s closer now, close enough that I can see the smudge of inkon her wrist, the stray strand of hair curling against her cheek. I don’t think, not really. My hand lifts, brushing that strand back, fingertips lingering at her temple.
She doesn’t pull away.
The tension snaps. I lean in, capturing her mouth with mine. It isn’t soft. It’s desperate, raw, the kind of kiss born from fury and sleepless nights, from secrets and truths that should have broken us apart. Her hands fist in my shirt, pulling me closer, answering with the same hunger.
When we break apart, breathless, she whispers against my lips, “Then we burn them together.”
I press my forehead to hers, eyes closed, the taste of her still on my mouth.
