Page 134 of Rapunzel Is Losing It

“No,” I scoffed, “I just realized that you’re profiting of your uncle’s death.”

He hummed in understanding and laid down the butter knife. Hands on my knees, he stepped up in front of me. “You killed someone, Cordelia.”

“I’m aware.”

“Are you?”

“What do you mean?” I picked up his hands and intertwined my fingers with his.

“I think I’m still waiting for your reaction.”

“I don’t have one, and I’m okay with that.” When he only raised his brows at me, I sighed and slid towards him until my knees caged his hips. “I know it’s bad. I know that I took a life. If you think of me differently now, that’s okay. I’m okay with being different, but I’m also the same. The idea of leaving this house again makes me want to throw up. Back in Paris, I didn’tsleep for more than twenty minutes at a time, and when I did, I still saw the same memories flash before my eyes. It’s always my mother. Maybe it’s always going to be that way. But at least when I wake up now, I know it’s over. Your father, who killed my mom, is dead. Luka’s father, who had your father killed, is dead. And my father, who’s responsible for me being locked up for days instead of hours, is dead. It’s over.”

“No wonder you slept for 24 hours straight.”

“I need you to understand that I’m at peace with what I did. Maybe this makes me a really terrible person, but I think the world is a better place because all of these men are dead.”

“I agree,” he ran a hand through my hair, “and I don’t think that makes us terrible people.”

“Just vigilante murderers.”

“Maybe.” He smiled a perfect little Victor smile and shrugged. “If you’re alright with that, I’m alright with that.”

“I’m alright.”

“Alright.”

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

“Thank you,”Cordelia chimed and took a folder from me.

We were sat on the floor of her office and she kept furiously typing into her computer. I sorted another stack of loose paper into a folder. The text was too blurry for me to read, but I could still help work through the two-foot-tall stack of files.

Besides a couple million, Luka had also sent over some books. No ledgers and nothing that had any real value to a judge. Certainly nothing the government would help with. Just names. Dozens of names of women, their children, and their families both here and in Russia. All the women my uncle had shipped here to be exploited.

Which meant, after officially ending my employment with Cordelia Montgomery, I was now working for the TheresaMontgomery foundation. Mostly as a translator for the Montgomery Estate Women’s Shelter.

Cordelia had consulted with her team for days. A few of the women had chosen to go back to Russia, but most of them had nothing to go back to - which had made them easy targets in the first place. A few had larger families here and got their individual needs taken care of through the foundation. But most of the women were young and single. Some of them weren’t even legally allowed to drink yet. Some of them had kids from some asshole who paid fifty bucks for a quick fuck in the back of a van.

None of it was pretty.

But Cordelia had turned her family’s estate into a group home in the blink of an eye. She wanted to keep them together. This way, they could at least keep the small community they had built under my uncle’s control. Especially because a handful of them didn’t even speak a lick of English, which was where I came in.

“I hope you’re calling with good news,” Cordelia angled her laptop, presumably so her caller could see me sitting next to her.

“Hi guys,” Amani’s voice piped from the speakers, “I do have good news. The documentary on Victor’s uncle is going online on Sunday. I just saw the final cut and it looks like we’re completely in the clear. Victor’s been pushed to the sidelines in an ‘oh, he also has a nephew in sports’ kind of way, and you’re only briefly mentioned as Victor’s girlfriend.”

“Perfect,” Cordelia said and smiled over her shoulder at me, “sounds like Silas found his story.”

It helped that my uncle’s death had gotten a lot of attention from the news. Even those who had never heard of Piotr Yelchin until two weeks ago, had probably studied his Wikipedia article now. Which meant Petya was a far more interesting subject for Silas to study than Cordelia was.

As long as the news kept reporting that Luka had shot his father and had since fled the country, I didn’t care about any of it. Cordelia just deserved her peace now.

“The other thing,” Amani said, “is that we should really take this chance to talk about the women’s shelter. It will tie in great with the documentary. You can make an official statement. We can probably get Silas to film you, too.”

“No,” I said before Cordelia had the chance.

“Excuse me?” Amani replied.

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