Page 249 of Marrying My Ex's Brother
Larisa’s mouth trembles once.
Not with fear. With rage.
“She loved Kirill until there was nothing left of her.”
“No,” I say. “Kirill used her love until it killed her. There’s a difference.”
“A difference that leaves the woman dead either way.”
The room goes quiet.
For the first time tonight, she looks truly angry. “You were going to spare him,” she says.
“My father?”
“You were going to let him rot slowly. Take his men, his money, his influence, but leave him breathing. Leave Dmitri breathing too, perhaps, because your wife would ask you to. Because she would look at you with those soft eyes and you would remember she hates blood when it’s inconvenient.”
“She saved me from going down from a path I could never return from,” I say. “You left her dying, but she came from death to save me. Anya saved me, not you. You wanted me to believe she was dead.”
Larisa doesn’t speak.
“So I would kill Dmitri.”
Silence.
“And Kirill.”
Still silence.
I step closer until only the desk light behind me cuts across her face. “You used my wife as bait to make me destroy the Volkovs.”
Her eyes finally meet mine fully. “Yes.”
The word is soft. Clear. No apology.
There it is. The whole truth.
For a second, all I can hear is my own breathing.
Then she speaks again, faster now, as if confession has freed her from the need for restraint. “You would never have done it foryourself. You should have. God knows you had cause. But you kept building, waiting, calculating.
“You think this was justice?”
“I think it was necessary.”
“She’s pregnant with my child, and you shot them.”
Fear tracks through her face.
“If Anya had died, I would have killed Dmitri. I would have killed Kirill. Then I would have found the truth, and I would have come for you with nothing human left in me,” I continue.
“You think you are human now?”
“I know I am.”
She laughs bitterly. “Because of her.”
“Yes.”
