Page 9 of In Her Blood
Still, Otto resisted. Because that only played out one way, no matter how the journey went in between. So, he found his strength of will, again, and instead grunted out a simple, honest answer. “You already know.”
“Womencannot become pakhan,” Pyotr snapped on Saturday, after Evelina declared her intent to claim her birthright.
She couldn’t explain her ire, or her pain, in easy words. It wasn’t like she would miss the strike of her father’s cane or his harsh, emotionless demeanor. But she was still upset that he was gone, and more so at the notion that he’d been taken from the world unnaturally—by someone he should have been able to trust, specifically. That wasn’t something she intended to turn a blind eye to. She was the only surviving heir and she did not give a damn if the traditionalists among them disliked her.
Evelina folded her arms over her chest and raised her chin. “Says who? Is there a rulebook somewhere?” She made a point of arching her brows before scoffing too loudly. “Wake up to the twenty-first century, Pyotr. Fact-check yourself. Women are more than holes to be fucked.”
Pyotr raked a scathing glare over her. “The fucking is the fun part. A woman’s true purpose is to breed.” His lips lifted in a sneer. “But I suppose you wouldn’t know any of that, would you, Evie?”
She rolled her eyes at the disgusting, juvenile jab. “Why, because I went to college instead of spreading my legs and running a train on myself? Or because I’m halfway through my twenties with no husband or baby to show for myself?” Pyotropened his mouth and she threw a hand up between them. “Don’t answer that, it’ll just make me want to punch you. My point is, I grew up in this life the same as you.Iam Mikhail’s heir. You need to get to work on accepting that.”
She turned to walk away before their adversarial conversation could get worse, some part of her trying to remember that, in his own way, Pyotr was grieving, too. But Pyotr’s response stopped her cold.
“No.Taraswas Uncle Mikhail’s heir. You were just his burden.”
The breath rushed from Evelina’s lungs as if a bucket of ice water had been dumped over her head. She couldn’t move. Her eyes stung.
Pyotr took a step closer. “And when it was just us in this giant fucking house, I’m the one who heard Uncle Mikhail lamenting how disappointed he was. Of all the children he’d lost—the stillborn, the miscarriages, Taras—youwere the one who didn’t. Fucking. Die.”
Echoes of her mother’s pain beat like war drums in Evelina’s ears, sudden and loud and overwhelming. Though she hadn’t understood so much of it at the time, she was old enough to understand now. She didn’t need to have endured that misery herself to recognize the pain she’d witnessed for what it had always been. But, also, shehadshared her mother’s pain once.
When they’d lost Taras.
Evelina whirled around, lashing out in half-blind rage as a shriek tore from her lips. “How dare you! How dare you mention his name!”
Pyotr caught her flying hand by the wrist and squeezed. “How dareyouthink you can strike me a second time and get away with it, you useless—”
The door to the study crashed into the wall, and Otto’s vibrating growl filled the room. “Release her or I will rip the bones from your hand one at a fucking time.”
Pyotr stammered, his eyes darting back and forth over Evelina’s shoulder. “Grisha!”
Pyotr’s long-standing bodyguard, Grisha, let out a sigh. “I can’t really interfere untilafterhe takes action, Pyotr. You and Evelina are equal right now.”
Pyotr bristled, his hand squeezing again. “We are not!”
Evelina stomped on her cousin’s nearest foot, taking advantage of the steel insert she knew rested at the base of his boot.
In the next heartbeat, Otto was there, swinging the side of his fist into Pyotr’s sternum and knocking the wind from her cousin’s lungs even as he literally knocked Pyotr’s body backward. The strike had the desired effect of also causing Pyotr’s grip to release on reflex. Otto looped an arm around Evelina and spun her around, until the still-coughing Pyotr was on his left and Grisha was on his right.
The wall was at her back, and she realized only when she blinked again that Otto had managed to draw a gun and swing it over toward Grisha. Who also had drawn a gun.
“NowI could shoot you,” Grisha said, as if he were bored.
Evelina never had cared for the man. Though, she’d always assumed that was an unfortunate byproduct of him doing his job.
“Then we’ll both be dead and you know Lina could kick his ass if she wanted,” Otto replied.
Pyotr wheezed something that was, undoubtedly, another insult.
Evelina exhaled and laid a hand on Otto’s back, beneath his shoulder. She honestly wouldn’t mind seeing Pyotr get the snot beaten out of him after what he’d said about her elder brother, let alone her mother’s grievances, but this was not the time. Instead, she turned her gaze to Grisha. “We just want to leave. You could also let us do that.”
It was a tricky situation, because she had no damn clue who was responsible for her father’s assassination and Grisha hadn’t been wrong. She and Pyotr were as close to equivalent in power as anyone was going to get, currently. All Grisha had to do was adjust his aim and squeeze the trigger to propel Pyotr the rest of the way to the title they were officially fighting over. There were many who wouldn’t even see it as treachery.
There were some who would.
Pyotr coughed again and pushed back to his feet. “Grisha. Shoot the fucker.”
Grisha sighed and tipped his head toward the doorway.
