Page 52 of Vendetta Crown

"Fuck theVori," I spit, cutting him off. My voice drops to a dangerous whisper. "When this is all settled, I will tear theVoriapart with my bare hands. Semyon will die. Kristofer will die. Tamara will die."

I step closer, close enough to see the sweat beading on his forehead.

"But not you, Gregor Iosifovich. You don't get that mercy," I snarl. "You'll live. I'm going to make you watch as everything you've worked so hard for gets ripped into pieces and scattered on the winds."

"Ruslan, please." He holds up his hands, beseeching. "Think reasonably."

"I'm done being reasonable."

I turn away from him, staring out the window at the estate grounds where my nieces are playing, oblivious to the horror of their mother's betrayal.

"The jungle is about to tear itself down and rebuild into something different." I turn back to Gregor, the words of my dead brother now my own. "I'm the one chopping the trees down, and you're just one of the thousands who'll get buried in the process."

14

AURORA

"What happened?"I walk deeper into the office, closing the door behind me. "I saw Gregor leaving."

Ruslan's hands are braced on the polished surface of his desk. His face is twisted as his jaw works, like he's chewing on something too bitter to swallow. He turns to me with eyes that burn like molten gold.

"It was Tamara." His voice trembles with barely contained fury. "She gave Semyon the information about Lev and Mikhail's movements. She ordered the death of her own husband and her son."

My hand flies to my stomach, protectively cradling our growing child. "What?"

"Gregor confirmed it. She was working with Semyon and Kristofer." Ruslan's breathing grows ragged. "She would have been fine with her daughters dying too in the attack on the mansion, Aurora. Her own children."

I steady myself against the back of a chair as I listen.

"And Kristofer," Ruslan continues. "She was working with him. That's how he was able to gain access." Ruslan's voice drops to something dangerous. "Everything ties back to her."

I feel my blood turn to ice water. "And Gregor allowed this?"

"Not just allowed it. Approved it. For stability. For theVori."

The last word leaves his mouth like poison.

"What will you do, then?" I ask, but I know the answer already.

"Semyon will die. Kristofer will die. Tamara will die." He spits each name out as he says them. "But not Gregor... Gregor will live to see everything he's built crumble around him."

I search his face, seeing both fury and a question there.

"Am I going too far?" he asks softly.

He's waiting to see if I'll try to talk him down, to be his voice of reason.

For a moment, I think of the Aurora who existed before. The woman who hid from cameras, who shrank from confrontation, and who clung to the idea that there is still some justice in this world filled with injustices.

But that woman is gone, and instead, all I hear are what Mikayla told me in the garden right before my nightmares came true.

If you want to survive in this world, you must become a monster willing to do monstrous things.

"They've left us no choice." I take his hands in mine, feeling their tremor. "They targeted your family. They targeted me. They'll target our child if we give them the chance to."

I straighten my shoulders, feeling a coldness settle into my bones that I've never known before. "You know what must be done, and I will stand with you to see it finished."

"Should we tell the girls?" Ruslan asks, his voice hoarse.

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