28. Elira

28

ELIRA

H enrietta taps my nose with the tip of the knife while standing over me like the authority she believes she is.

I wish I could say I put up a fight. That she has scratches up and down her face, that her skin is beneath my nails.

But the gun pointed at Anya's head left me little choice. I had to cooperate.

"You have no idea how much I'm going to enjoy this," Henrietta says with a sick amount of satisfaction as she caresses the knife down my neck and over my chest. Anya whimpers beside me.

She's going to die because of me. Because of my need for revenge. My eyes remain dry, my stare firmly pointed at Henrietta, but self-hatred turns my stomach. "You'll enjoy it as much as I enjoyed killing your useless, pig of a husband."

I'm sorry, Anya. I'm so sorry.

The satisfaction melts from Henrietta's expression, and she retaliates by digging the knife just below my collarbone. I cringe and clamp my mouth shut, trying not to cry out, but a groan escapes me anyway.

"No," Anya sobs for me. "Don't hurt her."

Henrietta's head jerks toward Anya. "Don't hurt her? She's the reason you're in this mess."

"No." Henrietta holds up a hold to correct herself. "Sorry, your scumbag brother is the reason you're in this mess. Elira doesn't get all the credit."

"He isn't a scumbag," Anya snaps. For the first time in a while, I'm able to drag my gaze off my enemy to look at Anya. She glares instead of cowers like she's truly offended for her brother.

Henrietta lowers the knife, slowly, resentfully, and takes a step toward Anya to get in her face. I work at the rope around my wrist tying me to the chair, but all it does is rub me raw.

"Do you have any idea who your brother even is ? What he's done?"

Anya leans her head forward. If she could, she'd be knocking her forehead against Henrietta's. "I know exactly who he is. No matter what he's done."

Henrietta leans in even more and smirks. "Do you know who you are?"

Oh no.

I squirm in my chair. "Could we get back to the reason we're here? Daniel isn't worth all this buildup. We both know he never showed us the same courtesy."

She raises her chin with an obnoxious laugh. "He took your virginity, you dumb slut. We laughed about you as soon as he got home." She turns to Daniel's sister, Caroline, and nods to me. "Shut her up."

Caroline stomps to me and slaps me across the face, leaving a sting that doesn't come close to being as painful as Henrietta's words. When she points the gun at my head, Henrietta turns back to Anya.

"I asked you a question."

Anya shakes her head. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"I know. That's what makes you pathetic."

"Just stop it," I growl, eliciting Caroline to grab a handful of my hair and pull. I grind my teeth while straining to rise from the chair.

Anya looks between me and Henrietta, her lips pouted.

Henrietta stands straight and clasps her hands behind her back. "Did you know that Maksim is not your brother?"

Anya's wide, puzzled eyes, narrow in a glare. "Shut the fuck up. We may not be blood related, but he's my brother."

"How is he your brother?"

"My parents adopted him."

Henrietta smiles, wide and cruel. She struck me as calm and collected when I arrived, but I'm starting to see that she's only beginning to unleash the wickedness locked behind all that makeup and Botox.

"What?" Anya asks, a sudden hesitancy in her voice. She turns her head to me. "Elira, what is she getting at?"

I want to lie. Of course I want to lie.

But how can I?

I bite my lip and feel my face pinch with pity.

"He was a slave," Henrietta answers for me. "One of many. Your father took foreign, cheap labor to an extreme. He farmed out dozens of boys when they were young and raised them like the crop he forced them to harvest."

Anya's lips part as her shoulders hunch. "What?"

"Maksim killed your parents and took you as revenge."

My eyes widen, and I shoot up. "That isn't true!"

Henrietta smirks. "You're not his sister, Anya. You're his revenge . His means of controlling the people who controlled him. He took away your childhood the same way they took away his."

"Shut up!" I sneer, the legs of my chair rocking as I jerk. "Just shut the fuck up. That isn't true, and you know it." I look at Anya and soften my features. "Maksim loves you. He has always loved you, from the day you were born. You were his sister then, and you're his sister now. Your mother claimed him as her son, and he would never have hurt her."

Tears slide down her cheeks while she stares at me in disbelief. "What about my dad?"

I take too long to answer. I hesitate. And in that hesitation, she sees the truth. She turns her head to stare at her lap and says nothing.

"He didn't hurt your dad. I swear to you, he didn't."

"Whether he did or didn't," Henrietta pipes in, "it's safe to say you were as much a burden to him then as you are now."

"That—" Caroline yanks my hair again to shut me up and slaps me for good measure.

That isn't true .

"Imagine an eighteen-year-old with no citizenship or knowledge of the country they'd been a slave in their entire adolescence, trying to make it on their own. Now imagined them with a toddler weighing them down. Honestly, I'd be impressed if I didn't hate him so much. I don't know if he'll feel pain at your death or relief. Maybe I'm doing him a favor."

Anya's lip trembles.

"You're a monster," I say, feeling my strength drain as Anya's pain grows.

Henrietta walks to me, her eyes fiery as she brings the knife from behind her back. "Are you just now getting that?"

I expect her to stab me. My eyes clench shut, and I brace for the pain, but the sharp slice along my shoulder pulls a groan from my throat and shoots my eyes to the knife. A thick line of blood forms before drops run down my arm.

She moves the knife to my other arm and slices along my bicep.

"Ahh!" I cry, throwing my head back.

"Stop it!" Anya screams, then sobs. "Please, stop."

Henrietta moves the knife to my stomach and makes a slow, curved cut up my torso. My pride shreds as I scream at the top of my lungs.

It's hard to think. Hard to breathe. Hard to register anything but pain.

But still, I understand what she's doing.

She isn't going to kill me by stabbing me. That would be letting me get off too easily.

She wants me to die a cliché. Death by a thousand cuts.

"Beg," she spits in my ear before cutting my side with a quick jerk of her hand.

No .

It will not make it better. Only worse.

Still the words are on my tongue.

Please stop.

No more.

"I'll end your misery," she assures me, but it's a lie. She may end Anya's, but she won't end mine. I won't allow my words to be what puts a bullet in Anya's head.

"Elira, please," Anya sobs, her voice so clear it's like she's in my ear.

I sob with her.

Regrets, about a million, slap me in the face one by one, harder than either of these women ever could.

We're here because of me. Because of my anger. My need for revenge. My family will be dead because of it. Any minute, Henrietta assures me the call will come to confirm that it's done.

Bora.

Asher.

Mami.

Anya.

All dead. All because of me.

I can't hold it in anymore. My anguish bubbles to the surface, but it doesn't come out as a useless plea.

"I'm sorry," I sob around the pain of the knife in my knee. "I'm so sorry."

Henrietta gets in my face. "Sorry for what ? Say it."

Say it.

She thinks I'm sorry for Daniel.

I'm not talking to her.

"I never should've done it," I say, knowing Anya is listening. "He deserved it. He destroyed more women than I'll ever know, but if I would've known it'd cost your life, I would've found another way… I'm so sorry."

"My life?" Henrietta laughs. "Daniel was my world ."

"It's okay," Anya says, her voice soft. "I forgive you."

I close my eyes and allow myself to tremble with remorse.

Above me, Henrietta's rage brews as the room quiets. When I open my eyes, she stares at me with so much malice, that I think she'll end this early. Her plan to keep me alive long enough to confirm my family's death, to watch Anya die, doesn't seem as worth it to her.

I know her plans for Maksim. She wants him to find us, the way he found me before. Only now it'll be my corpse brutally shredded. She can't kill a made man, but she believes she can kill his whore.

She'll pay for this too. It'll be a cycle of revenge until there's no one left.

Maybe if we were still yelling and crying, we wouldn't have heard it. Maybe things would be different.

But in the quiet of the room, everyone's head moves to the entryway as the front door opens.