Page 120 of Reign of a Billionaire
Uneasiness permeated the air. The girls smiled, millions of tiny goosebumps breaking over their arms, remaining quiet. They were suddenly nervous and I hated being the source of it.
I lowered my head, my heart racing in my chest.
“First, I guess let me start by saying, I…” I swallowed. “Well, it turns out, my name is Louisa.”
Tension filled the room while I considered the girls. Their expressions were mostly marred with confusion, except for the youngest. Her brown eyes flickered with terror.
“Did you… forget or something?” Mae asked hesitantly, her eyes darting to the girl who had been beaten into thinking her name was Louisa according to the intel Kingston got.
I took a deep breath, twisting my fingers. It made me sick to my stomach to admit the woman who was responsible for their misery was my mother, but there was no way around it.
“I have a twin sister,” I started softly. “Her name’s Liana. I still have some gaps in my memory—” I watched the girl who clung to me when we saved her, hoping she’d hear my sincerity and sorrow in my speech. “My mother’s Sofia Volkov.” The girls gasped and reared back. “There aren’t too many people who know my face, but I owe you this much. Believe me, a week ago, I fully believed I was my twin.”
“But how?” Mae asked, her brows drawn.
“Eight years ago, my sister, me, and m-my—” Unsure what to call Kingston, I stuttered. “And the man I love tried to escape my mother. My sister never made it to our meeting spot, so my boyfriend and I ran alone, but we were caught.” My bottom lip trembled and I sunk my teeth into it, the copper taste of blood flooding my mouth. “M-my mother had me tortured. She showed me the video of my sister’s death and?—”
“She tortured you until you were convinced you were your twin,” the brown-eyed girl whispered.
I nodded. “For eight years, I believed I was my twin,” I rasped. “I don’t even know if she’s alive.”
“She’s alive.” The conviction in her voice stole my breath. “I heard them… the men… whispering about Liana, they said her name in the same breath as Sofia’s. That can’t be a coincidence. They sounded scared of her.” I found her almond-shaped eyes on me.
My throat tightened as I stared at her, pain coiling in my belly. God, what in the hell was happening here?
“But how do we know they weren’t talking aboutyouas Liana?” Visha pondered.
I tilted my head to the side, blinking at them, and something heavy settled in my gut.
“I’ve killed human traffickers.” I shot to my feet. I started pacing around, my mind turning over faster than I knew what to do with it. “But it’s no more than what others are doing. Liana though…” I breathed in and out, hand on my chest. “She was… is stronger than me.”
My heart thundered, my breathing uneven as I made my way to the brown-eyed woman, lowering myself to my knees.
“I’m sorry for what Sofia did to you,” I told her quietly, tears gathering in my eyes. “I want to stop her. I have to stop her.”
My disdain for my mother and everything she stood for colored my voice. I didn’t even bother to hide it.
“What do you need?” Her voice was raspy, like she’d been choked too many times and her vocal cords were damaged.
“What’s your real name?” I asked, and suddenly the temperature in the room dipped ten degrees.
I waited with bated breath, unsure whether I pushed too fast and too hard. She’d suffered enough.
“Lara Cortes.” I gave my head a shake. It couldn’t be any relation to… “My father is… Perez Cortes.”
I stared at her in disbelief, knowing in my heart she wasn’t lying, but I was unable to wrap my head around it. A familiar hand came to my shoulder, squeezing in comfort.
“It can’t be the same man,” I breathed, yet somehow it made complete sense. He took me, so my mother took her.
Lara’s eyes found me and she let out a heavy exhale. “The very same one who sells girls via the Marabella Mobster arrangement.”
The pain inside my chest worsened. My hands started to shake, and a tear rolled down my cheek, soon followed by another. Tears streamed down my face, steady and fast.
“I’m sorry.” Lara’s soft voice, her cries, pierced through my own pain, and I pulled her into a hug.
“Our parents sure made a mess of things, didn’t they?” I croaked, feeling my lips tremble.
Kingston’s hand tightened on my shoulder. “Revenge?”
