Page 71 of Beautiful Ruin

“Or what? You’ll exile me too?” I ask.

His eyes flash.

For all his power and all his coldness, Ivan loved Rowan in his own terrible way. I saw it in the grief that followed his punishment after coming back from the coroner’s office, the betrayal he felt beneath the anger. He did not throw out a disposable soldier because he was no longer useful. Ivan has made the mistake of cutting off his own limb and expecting the rest of him not to feel the loss of it.

“You need to understand something,” he says, his teeth clenching around every word. “This world does not run on love or loyalty, Sofia, the way you think it does. Your father was a coward who abandoned you the moment things became inconvenient for him.”

“You never even looked for him!” I shout back. “You never finished the investigation, you never tried to find out what really happened that night! You just⁠—”

“Because there was nothing left to investigate!” The words explode out of him before he can stop himself.

I reel back, completely stunned.

“You want the truth so badly?”

I don’t so much as breathe while he continues.

“Years ago, Irena and Dmitri discovered something they were never meant to know. They stumbled onto an early version of a long-term plan I have been crafting for a long time.” He drags a rough hand down his face. “But instead of supporting me, they panicked. My sister believed the plan would plunge Russia into chaos. Worse still, they decided the only way to stop me was to expose me to Artym Malyshko. That wasn’t a simple disagreement of politics, Sofia. That was betrayal. From my flesh and blood.”

“So you killed them?” I whisper in horror.

“They were going to destroy everything I had built,” Ivan says flatly. The words land with brutal finality. “Everything our family stood for. I ordered them both to be eliminated, but the operation didn’t go according to plan. The attack that was meant to take them both out only succeeded in killing your mother. Dmitri escaped before the job could be finished and fled the country. He abandoned you the same way he abandoned her in the end.”

A bitter laugh escapes him.

I feel the ground beneath me disappear. Every childhood memory of my mother suddenly feels fragile, like glass shattering under immense pressure.

My uncle did it.

I had my theories… but that and hearing the details from his own mouth are vastly different. My uncle murdered my mother to protect his ambition. And if he is willing to do that, then he will kill again to protect it, including me. It’s evident in how far he’s pushed Rowan away from him, his most loyal subject.

His expression has shifted into that unreadable one once more. “This is the world you were born into, Sofia. The one I have tried desperately to protect you from. Fighting me will only cause you more pain.”

I have nothing left to say after that.

By the time I leave his office, my mind is already moving several steps ahead. I walk calmly back through the estate hallways, past staff and guards who have no idea that their Pakhan’s world has just begun to collapse in on him.

My uncle will never get the chance to finish his plan because I will make sure it never happens. If no one else is willing to stop him, I will.

The walk back to my room feels endless, every step weighted with the reality of what I now know. My mother didn’t die in some tragic accident like I had always been led to believe. She was executed because she dared to threaten my uncle’s grand vision of power. Because she tried to protect the family from the monster at its head.

What sickens me most is how Ivan has had the audacity to pretend to mourn her all this time. Sending me away under the guise of protection while pretending he was the grieving brother protecting his niece from a cruel world. All the while, he had been the one hiding the smoking gun behind his back.

The rage that simmers beneath my skin is quiet, but it burns hotter than anything I’ve ever felt. I reach my room and close the door behind me. The lock clicks softly in the silence of the room. For a long moment I just stand there with my back pressed to the wood, letting the truth settle into my bones.

My uncle is a murderer.

My uncle killed my mother.

And Rowan… Rowan, who has bled for him, killed for him, built his entire identity around loyalty to him, is now exiled because of me.

I cross over to the window and look out over the grounds. Guards patrol in pairs, their breath fogging in the cold air. The estate feels more like a prison now more than ever, but even prisons have their weak points.

And I will find this one.

Even if it kills me.

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