"You did!" The shout explodes out of me. "You went from being my fiancée to being a power in your own right. The Ice Queen. Feared and respected. You wouldn't have had that if I would have survived. My father was young. Healthy. You would have been stuck with me in this house with no real power."
"I would have had you!" Her tears spill over. "I would have had the man I loved, the future we planned, a life that didn't require becoming someone I barely recognize! You think I wanted this? You think I chose to be cold and calculating and alone?"
"You chose to survive," I say coldly. "At my expense."
"I chose to survive because I thought you were dead!" She's crying openly now, and part of me—the part that remembers loving her—wants to comfort her. "There was a body, Maksim. Roman identified it himself. Your father died from grief. We had a funeral. What was I supposed to think?"
"You were supposed to question it. Investigate. Not just accept—"
"I was a teenage girl!" The words come out raw. "A young girl grief-stricken and being blamed for your murder by the most powerful family in Moscow. I didn't have the luxury of investigation. I had to survive."
The logic is sound. Semyon said the same thing. But I can't afford to believe it.
"Let me tell you what happened after month three," I continue, ignoring her tears. "They realized their basic torture methods weren’t enough to break me.”
I pull off my shirt, watching her eyes widen at the scars covering my torso. Burns. Knife wounds. The raised tissue of poorly healed injuries forming a roadmap of suffering across my skin.
"Every single one of these, I got while planning my revenge," I say. "While promising myself that when I got free, I would make everyone who betrayed me pay. And you were at the top of that list."
"I never betrayed you." Her voice is barely a whisper. "I swear on everything I love—"
"Your sister?" I pull my shirt back on. "The one you're supposedly protecting by marrying Roman? Here's what I think: I think you're using her as an excuse. A justification for choices you wanted to make anyway."
Her hand connects with my face in a slap that rocks my head sideways. The second time she's hit me. I'm almost impressed.
"Don't you dare," she hisses. "Don't you dare question what I would do for Anya. She's the only thing in this world that matters to me."
"Not revenge? Not power?" I rub my jaw. "Because from where I'm standing, you've done pretty well for yourself on both counts."
"I never wanted power!" She's shouting now, past caring about volume. "I wanted you! I wanted the life we planned! And when that was taken from me, I did what I had to do to survive and protect my family! That's it! That's the whole story!"
"Convenient that survival made you rich and powerful."
"Convenient that you survived to come back and destroy me." She wipes her tears angrily. “Even knowing you're planning my destruction, I'm glad you're alive."
The confession surprises me, but I refuse to show how happy that makes me.
"Your joy over me being alive means nothing." I force the words out cold. "Your tears mean nothing. You want to know what I've been doing the past two days? Since the party?"
She just stares at me, tears still streaming.
"I've been dismantling your empire." I let the words sink in. "Pavel switched sides yesterday. Took three of your best runnerswith him. Mikhail will be next—I'm meeting with him tomorrow. By the end of the week, half your organization will be working for Roman instead of you."
Her face goes white. "You're lying."
"Am I?" I pull out my phone and show her messages. Confirmations from her people—herformerpeople—agreeing to new arrangements. "I've spent six years planning this, Kira. Learning patience. Strategy. How to destroy someone piece by piece. And I'm using everything I learned on you."
"Why?" The question comes out broken. "Maksim, I loved you.”
"Because I need this." The truth slips out raw. "I spent six years surviving on the promise of revenge. It's all I have. All I am now. Take that away and I'm just... broken."
Understanding flashes in her eyes, and with it, pity.
I can't stomach her pity.
"Here's how this plays out," I say, stepping closer until she has to tilt her head back to meet my eyes. "I'm going to systematically destroy everything you've built. Your organization. Your reputation. Your power. I'm going to leave you with nothing but Roman's 'generosity' and your sister's safety. And then I'm going to watch you realize that becoming the Ice Queen was pointless because you couldn't protect what mattered."
"Maksim—" She reaches for me. I catch her wrist, squeezing enough to leave marks.
