Page 64 of The King's Pawn
I stare at him,reallylook at him now, and find that the man standing in front of me doesn’t look anything like my father anymore.
He’s something hollowed out. A shell wrapped in an expensive suit. A creature wearing the face of someone I used to love. The warmth I once associated with him has been replaced by something cold and alien, something that feels more like a carefully constructed imitation rather than a human being.
It’s in this moment that I realize that sometimes, monsters don’t always hide in the dark. Sometimes, they tuck you into bed, kiss your forehead goodnight, and teach you how to smile for cameras, all the while deciding who gets to live and who doesn’t behind your back.
I can’t tell if the dizziness is from shock or from the way my body is desperately trying to expel the truth I’ve just been forced to swallow.
“You’re sick,” I whisper. “You’re vile.”
“I did what I had to do for this family,” he growls back.
“Youmurderedthis family,” I say. I know with absolute certainty that whatever bond once existed between us is dead. No amount of excuses or explanations will ever bring it back.
I stagger again, the room still swimming, and slip my hand inside my coat almost on instinct. My fingers close around the cool metal of a knife.
It’s small, barely sharper than a dinner knife, but it feels impossibly heavy when I pull it free. The polished steel catches the light from the windows as it clears the fabric. I hadn’t planned on using it. I hadn’t even knownwhyI took it.
After Lev had given me the breakfast tray this morning with his usual careful kindness, I’d wrapped the napkin around the utensils to return them later, only for my hand to hesitate. A cold and uneasy feeling had curled low in my gut, urging me not to leave the estate empty-handed.
So I’d slipped it into my coat just in case. Never did I imagine that the reason I’d need it would be standing in front of me now.
The knife trembles as I raise it between us.
His eyes widen. For the first time since I walked into this room, real fear flares across his face.
“Sasha told me the truth,” I choke out, tears blurring my vision until his face doubles. “He told me I wasn’t sent to him for protection. That you sold me to him years ago. That I was part of some deal you worked out behind my back.”
He swallows hard. I see his throat bob, see his eyes flick down to the knife and then back up to my face again, over and over, calculating. Always fucking calculating.
He speaks carefully, palms lifting in a placating gesture. “Alina… Listen to me. You’re upset. What Sasha told you—the circumstances back then were complicated. It wasn’t?—”
“No!” I scream, the sound tearing out of me so violently, it shocks even me.
I take a step toward him.
Then another.
The knife stays raised, my arm burning from the effort of holding it steady.
“You lied to me my entire life!” I shout. “I know what you were doing. I know you were trying to sell me off to anyone with enough money and power to help you climb higher. That’s why you dragged me to all those galas. The dinners. The charity balls where men twice my age looked at me like I was a piece of meat.”
My chest heaves, my breath coming out too fast, too shallow.
“Did Mom know?” I demand. “Is that why you killed her? Because she would’ve taken me and left you? Because she would’ve stopped you?”
His hand trembles as he drags it down his face, the motion almost desperate. He takes a step back, then another, until the edge of his desk presses into his thighs.
“I never meant to hurt you. I would have made sure you were paired with someone who would treat you well. It wasn’t about selling you. I was securing your future,” he says hoarsely.
I laugh. It comes out bitter and broken. “So you thought the best way to secure my future was to give me away to a man likehim?”
“I didn’t say that,” he protests quickly.
I tighten my grip on the knife, the handle biting into my palm. “One of the Iron Pact,” I spit. “That’s who you were shopping me to. That’s what all of this was for. You couldn’t wait to jump on the opportunity to have one of them in your back pocket.”
The color drains from his face. His eyes widen, not with fear this time, but shock. Pure, unfiltered surprise. “How do you—” He stops himself, then tries again. “Who told you about that?”
“Does it matter?”
