56. Chapter 56

56

Clara

L eonid's words hit me like bullets, one after another. My brain refuses to process them, short-circuiting with each revelation.

Jake. Stephan. The lies.

No, this can’t be…

I blink at him. He’s on his haunches in front of me, but I’m not really seeing him anymore because my brain is stuck, snagged on the words I just heard. It’s like someone flipped my life upside down and handed it back to me as a cruel parody. A joke. The punchline is mine, and it isn’t funny.

“No…” I can’t breathe. My ribs feel tighter, like someone’s wrapped them in barbed wire.

“Clara, everything you thought you knew…” His voice changes, goes soft in a way that makes my stomach clench. “The story you’ve been carrying all these years…”

I lift my hand to push him away, but damn him – he catches my wrist. His touch burns through my skin, and I hate how fucking strong he is.

"Look at me."

I can't. Because the Leonid I know doesn't sound like this – gentle, careful, like he's handling something breakable. And I'm not breakable. I'm not.

His lips are moving, but my brain's stuck on replay.. All these years of Sunday dinners. Christmas presents. Birthday cards. Each memory twists like a knife, cutting deeper than the last. My hands won't stop shaking.

“Stephan…?” The name barely comes out, half-whisper, half-wheeze. It doesn’t sound like my voice at all. My hands shake harder, my fingers flexing uselessly before they clench again.

The man who taught me how to drive. Who brought me soup when I had the flu at 17. Who stood beside me at Jake’s funeral, his hand on my shoulder.

“We’ll avenge Jake,” he’d said with steely determination. “They’ll pay for what they did; that’s a promise.”

The same hand that had pulled the trigger.

"Clara." Leonid's voice breaks through the static in my head. "Stay with me."

A laugh bubbles up – sharp, hysterical. "Stay with you?"

“That low-life wore the mask,” Leonid says, his voice unnervingly calm, like he’s stating a fact that doesn’t rewrite the past fifteen years of my life. “He killed Jake. It was all planned—he and Aleksei wanted to destabilize your family and mine. And it worked.”

I laugh again, a harsh, brittle sound that breaks into the room like shattered glass.

“Planned? No. No.” My head jerks from side to side, my body moving of its own accord, trying to shake off the weight of his words.

“You’re wrong. He wouldn’t—he couldn’t.”

Leonid watches me. He doesn’t argue, doesn’t press, just waits, and that patience makes me want to scream.

“You’re lying,” I snap, my voice sharp and raw. “You’re saying this to—what? To manipulate me? To break me down? Because that’s not going to work.” The words tumble out, quick and defensive, but they can’t stop the tremor in my voice, the way my chest feels like it’s caving in.

“I have no reason to lie to you, Clara.” He says, but chaos spinning inside me.

My ears are ringing, every word hitting like a brick I’m not prepared to dodge.

“The bastard confessed everything when we hacked into their comms.” Leonid says, his hands gripping my shoulders, holding me in place when I try to pull away, he doesn’t let me. His eyes stay locked on mine.

“Stephan and Aleksei, were talking through the radio, bragging about how easily they manipulated both sides. They thought no one could hear them. They were wrong.”

I blink at him. “Aleksei?” I shake my head. “Who the fuck is Aleksei?”

His jaw tightens. “Aleksei Sokolov. My father’s enforcer. The one he trusted most.” He pauses, and for a moment, his grip on my shoulders tightens before he catches himself, his fingers relaxing slightly.

I press my brows together. “What?”

The room feels colder, like all the air has been sucked out.

Leonid’s jaw clenches as his hands curl into fists. “When Ludis and I were six months old, they came for us. For my mother.” He exhales sharply, his shoulders stiff. “They made it look like an attack from one of my father’s rivals. My mother—She…” He stops, his voice dropping to a low growl. “She threw herself in front of the bullets. Shielded us. Took every hit.”

My breath catches in my throat. His words claw at something raw inside me. “Leonid…”

“They killed her, Clara,” he says, his voice rising, the anger simmering just beneath the surface. “Aleksei ordered it. Stephan coordinated it. My father never knew. He thought it was an outside hit, but it was his own men, the ones he trusted the most. They tore my family apart.”

I swallow hard, my chest tightening as his words crash over me. “But why? Why would they—?”

“For power.” Leonid’s voice cuts through the room, sharp and unforgiving. “They wanted control. They wanted to destabilize him. And they succeeded.” He turns to face me again, his gaze like a blade, piercing and unyielding. “My father blamed himself. He thought he’d failed to protect us. So when Aleksei suggested separating Ludis and me ‘for our safety,’ he didn’t hesitate. He sent us away. Ripped us apart.”

My stomach twists as I imagine the scene—an infant Leonid, torn from his brother, his mother’s blood still fresh in his father’s mind.

But then I remember who Leonid is. He’s manipulative, ruthless. He’s the kind of man who twists the truth to his advantage. He could be lying. To split me from the one person I’ve always trusted.

“No.” I hiss at him. My fists slam against the armrests, the sudden jolt sending a fresh wave of pain through my ribs. “No, no, no. Stephan wouldn’t do that. He—he saved me. He took me in when I had nothing, no one. He was—”

“He was using you,” he says.

“You were part of the plan, Clara. A distraction. A way to keep me blind while they moved to take control of everything.”

I shake my head again, harder this time, even though it feels like it might snap my neck. My hands are trembling too much to grip anything now. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re wrong. You’re—” My voice cracks, and I bite down on it, hard, because I can feel the tears threatening to spill. I won’t let them. Not in front of him. Not now.

“You’re lying,” I snap, pushing his body away harder now. But he won’t fucking budge.

“Am I?” Leonid asks, “Or are you finally starting to see the truth?”

I can’t answer. My chest feels like it’s caving in, my breath is shallow and sharp as the weight of his words presses down on me. If Leonid’s telling the truth…

"I've been – God , I've been having Sunday dinners with Jake's killer. He helped me pick out Elijah's first Christmas presents. He—"

The words choke off as bile rises in my throat. Leonid's hand tightens on my wrist, but I barely feel it. All I can see is Stephan at my college graduation, beaming with pride. Stephan helping me move into my first apartment. Stephan suggesting I visit The Viper's Nest that night.

Wait.

The Viper's Nest.

My head snaps up so fast that my vision blurs. "The Viper's Nest," I whisper, and Leonid goes very, very still beside me.

“Yes,” he breathes, his stare hardening.

Oh my God.

His hand slid up my cheek, his fingers tracing my jawline, urging me to face him.

"The plan was to kill you that night."