I take a sip of my drink, trying to steady my trembling hands as I listen to these men discuss the murder of a woman I've never met. How did he do it? And if to lead the family is the only reason, why wouldn't Ana just walk away to save her life? I don't understand what is worth giving your life up.
"What's Yaros's endgame, then?" Lev asks. "If his own family's starting to doubt him, if keeping Ana's death secret is becoming harder—what's his plan?"
Lev has a good point. A man can only hide the truth for so long. Truth is like the sunrise. Eventually, it shines and everyone can see it blindingly. If Ana's brother thinks he can keep hold of her power and not have her presence to back it, what desperate thing will he do when his plan disintegrates, and will I be at the receiving end of it? It makes me gulp the drink in my glass and wince when I realize it's gone now.
"That's why I called this meeting." Yuri's gaze shifts to me, and I feel his eyes on me like a hand wrapping around my throat. "Our source has uncovered Yaros's strategy for dealing with the problem we've created for him."
"Which is?"
"He intends to have Ana killed publicly." When he speaks, it's pragmatic and cold. There is zero emotion in it, no sense of concern or compassion. It chills me. "Our Ana—Vivika. He's going to arrange her death and blame it on the Gravitch family and then use that as justification for war."
The glass slips from my fingers and shatters on the floor as I tremble. They've played right into some sick plot they didn't plan for and I'm the lynchpin. It goes our way or it goes Yaros's way, but either way, I'm risking death.
Everyone turns to look at me, but I can't breathe. I'm horrified and paralyzed, and even when Lev's hand rests on my knee, I still sit trembling. I'm not Ana Veche and right now, I'm not acting. If he expected me to pretend to be the dead Donna, he should’ve prepared me better for this.
"He thinks he can take us on?" Lev growls and then scoffs in a chuckle.
"Not alone, he doesn't." Yuri doesn't look away from me. "If Yaros convinces his allies that we murdered Ana Veche—the beloved Donna—he'll have every Veche soldier and Balkan syndicate member calling for our blood. The combined forces would be overwhelming."
"We'd be finished," Fyodor says quietly.
"We'd be worse than finished. There would be no recovery, no rebuilding. The Gravitch family would cease to exist." Dimitri stands abruptly, shoving his chair back hard. It rolls backward into the sideboard and stops, but all eyes snap to him.
The room erupts into discussion—voices overlapping, strategies being proposed and dismissed, anger and fear mixing into a cacophony that makes my head spin. But I can't hear anything beyond the roaring in my ears and the single thought that keeps repeating in my mind like a broken record.
They're going to kill me. They're going to kill me to start a war, and there's nothing I can do to stop it. I press my fingertips to my temples and close my eyes, trying to block out the arguing, but it doesn't do much good. They're arguing about my life as if I'm just a physical object to be fought over, or bought and sold. I feel sick and I need air.
"I want to go home."
Everyone in this room is insane. Using me as their precious leverage is over. I won't put my life on the line for this war I never asked to be a part of. I start to stand, but Lev pulls me back down as Yuri turns to me.
"I'm afraid that's no longer possible, Vivika." His face has transformed now into an expression of frustration, but there iscompassion in his eyes too. He has a wife. Surely, he knows how she'd feel if she were in my position.
"But I never agreed to be your pawn. I never signed up to die for your family's business interests." My lip trembles again and my eyes flick around frantically, hoping one of them will see I'm human and I have emotions. This isn't fair to me at all. I don't want to keep playing their game.
"You're a smart woman, Vivika." Yuri stands tenting his hands on the table as he leans over it menacingly. Dimitri sits back down now, still scowling at me but calmer. "I'm sure Lev has explained to you what happens if you try to go home to your normal life." His eyebrows rise, and I can't respond.
I've heard this speech enough times to know those sick bastards will follow me back to my normal life and try to kill me there. But I never wanted this, and I just want out now. I want to feel safe in my own skin again.
The room blurs around me as tears flood my eyes. There's no going home. There's no normal life waiting for me on the other side of this nightmare. The woman I was before Lev's men grabbed me off that street corner—she's gone forever.
I push back from the table so hard, my chair tips over behind me, and then I'm running, stumbling toward the door with my vision swimming and my chest heaving with sobs. I hear Lev call my name, but I don't stop. I can't sit there one more second. I need to get out of this room full of men who've stolen my life and left me with nothing but danger and death.
I make it halfway down the hallway before I stop and lean against the wall, pounding my fists on it and sobbing. If I walkout that door without Lev, I'm dead. If I go home, I'm dead. If I stay—I could be dead anyway. How did this happen to me?
"Vivika."
The voice that speaks is feminine, and when I look up through my tears I see Inessa leaning on the wall beside me. She rests one hand on her belly and smiles softly at me, as if a smile would change what's going on.
"I know," she says quietly. "I know how you feel."
"How could you possibly know?" I hiss, and I know I sound bitter. "You're one of them. You're part of this family."
"It gets easier," Inessa says, taking my hand and holding it gently. The touch is reassuring, but coming from someone else inside the family, I'm not sure how to take it. "I won't lie to you and say it gets better, because this life is hard and dangerous and it takes more than it gives. But you learn to adapt. And there are good parts."
She places my hand gently on her belly, and I feel the baby kick against my palm—a tiny flutter of movement that seems too fragile, given the world this child is about to be born into. That thought draws on a well of desperation inside me. What if I want children too? Will my children be forced to live in this hell? Would Lev do that to me?
"Lev cares about you," Inessa says. "I know it, because I've seen him change in the past month. Whatever you bring to his life, it's made him a better man…" Her lip pushes out in a pout. "And when a man in this family says he owns something, he means it. And that comes along with the protection of every man in that room, even Dimitri—who is about as sour as wine turnedvinegar." She chuckles at me, but I don't smile with her. I could see that about the man the instant I knew his name.
