Chapter 22 - Bianca
Getting out of the mansion was the easy part, I assume—it felt almost too easy. But as is quite common with a lot of things when it comes to Georgia, I don't question it. She’s the only person who I trust, and if blind trust is what it takes to get us out, so be it. We slip out of the safe house in a matter of minutes, ones I use to help Grigor carry Maxim over to the black jeep waiting for us, one hand over each of our shoulders as we pull his unconscious limp body towards the vehicle.
One of the guards from the mansion is driving, and it strikes me as odd that the path we used to get out was so empty just when we needed it so. But I don’t question it. Giorgia is quick to notice my stare at the driver, quick to assure me that he’s one of hers— one of the good ones . We ride through the streets in silence, the hum of the engine masking the tension inside the vehicle. Grigor stirs next to me, his gaze flicking nervously between Giorgia and Maksim. Maksim, still groggy, leans against the window, eyes opening and closing languidly as he attempts to make sense of his surroundings.
Gia looks to me from the window, her eyes sharp and determined.
“We're almost there. As far as I know, we're not being followed.” She starts, her voice steady but carrying an edge I can't quite place.
The ride feels unending, each second stretching into a small eternity. I try to quell the unease I've now grown accustomed to, but something about this feels wrong .
I push these thoughts into the far recesses of my mind as soon as they come, though. If not Giorgia, then who can I trust?
Finally, we pull up to a neat house in a nice neighborhood. The cogs in my head turn, and I’m somewhat surprised that she decided to take us to a property located in central New York. The moment we step out of the car, the feeling is there again— something is off . New guards are on us immediately, their eyes cold and assessing, but it's when we step inside that the alarm bells start to boom in my head.
It's him . In what is meant to be a modest living room, Giorgia’s head bodyguard steps forward, his expression unreadable. I let go of Maxim, who begins to stir more as he plops down on the couch. His gaze lands on Giorgia, and recognition flashes in his eyes.
“Giorgia,” he croaks, confusion and weariness coloring his voice.
I glance between them, my mind not computing how Maxim is able to recognize Gia. My pulse quickens as a horrifying realization dawns on me. She must know. She must know something. I turned to her then, whispering in a meek voice.
“How? How does he know you, Gia?” I question, but her eyes that up until now held a look of pure sympathy and worry morph. What stares at me now is a cold and calculated face I don't recognize, her eyes gleaming with something cold and dark.
“Oh, him.” Georgia scoffs while pointing in Maxim's direction. ”He's nothing. Insignificant. Just a piece in the puzzle.” She then looks to her head bodyguard and motions at me. “Tie them up.” Her tone is so cold. It freezes my soul.
“Gia, please. No. Please stop this. I won't hurt you; you know that.” I try to offer her something—anything—that could help bring her out of this state, but her face remains full of venomous contempt. I don't know what she wants so I can’t even attempt to placate her.
“Why?” The word escapes my lips along with the countless tears that are now streaming down my face.
“Why?” She responds in a whiny, high-pitched voice, mocking. “Because you've always been the favorite, Bianca. Dad always praised you. You were always so fucking good . Kind and with a strong heart, he’d say.” She rolls her eyes recounting his words. “He’d spend hours talking about you—how proud he was. But me? I was younger, spoiled, unstable, and manipulative. I may not be a bastard, but in his eyes, I might as well have been.”
Her words cut deep, each digging deeper into my already shattered heart. The wave of betrayal that washes over me feels like a tidal wave. “But you're my sister,” I whisper, barely able to get the words out. “How could you?”
Giorgia laughs a harsh, bitter sound. “Sister. Biologically, yes. We may have even spent some pleasant moments together growing up. But you are always the competition and I hate that you don't see it now, even after all this time.” Her words come rapidly, and she takes a second to take a deep breath in. “Dad loved you more and I was always in your shadow, but you never looked back to notice. Do you have any idea what it's like? You don't—and you didn't care—because if you did, you would have known.”
I stare at her, unable to comprehend the depth of her misery.
“So all of this for that—jealousy. Why didn't you just tell me, Gia?” I pause, feeling my lip trembling. “You know I love you.”
She shrugs, a cruel smile playing on her lips. “See, what you don't understand is that it's more than jealousy. It's about finally getting what I deserve. It's about making you feel a fraction of the pain I felt all these years.”
She then steps closer, grabbing one of my cheeks roughly before swiping the tears away. Her eyes are hard, unrecognizable. “You think you're so perfect, so untouchable. But I'll make you see what it's like to be me, to be broken. It's meant to be the other way around, you know? You're the bastard. I was meant to be the one who was loved.” It would have been easier if she would’ve spat in my face, her words cutting deeper than I ever before. Nothing compares to this—not the hours spent repenting, not the constant berating from Sasha. Nothing.
I try to step away from her grasp, but her hand just squeezes harder on my cheeks. I don’t have to look around to know the guards have us surrounded. There's no escape; not this time.
“You've become a monster,” I say quietly. “I pity you.”
Her smile fades, and for a split second, I see a flicker of doubt in her eyes. But it's gone as quickly as it came—almost like it was never there—replaced by cold resolve.
“Pity won't save you.” She states. “Nothing will.”
She gets awfully close again and I feel a chill run down my spine, her eyes boring into mine with malice.
“You know, I could finally breathe when you went missing.” She says as she begins pacing around, almost like one would do when deep in thought, on the precipice of a discovery. “I thought that Dad would finally let you go; that he’d see me for who I am without you overshadowing everything.”
I feel a lump in my throat, making it almost impossible to speak. “I’m sorry you hold all this hatred.”
She cackles with mirth, the sound echoing off the walls of the living room.
“You don't get it, do you? Even when you were gone—even when you disappeared—Dad couldn't let go. He was obsessed with finding you, bringing you back. Even when you were gone, it was about you .”
I shuffle a few steps backward, but she follows, inching closer as she paces to and from. She continues, sounding more like a madwoman than her usual composed self.
“Then we finally got our opportunity —when I found out you were heading out of the Barkov compound for the first time. I thought they'd get you… But they didn't. So I have to finish the job myself.”
My heart sinks even lower as I listen to her as the full extent of her speech processes in my brain.
“And Maksim?” Grigor cuts in, annoyed but timid. “Why get him involved?”
Giorgia’s smile widens as she turns to Maxim, who is watching her with a mixture of confusion and fury. Then she turns back to me slowly, like a cat about to pounce.
“Rosa hates you for taking what’s hers. I think you've met her before, right? Petite girl and really pretty. Used to fuck your husband.” She says, her tone gleeful. “Well… She got tired of waiting for him, so she took Maksim instead. It’s only fair—the Barkovs had you as their bargaining chip, and she had Maksim. We made a deal together, knowing your husband —” She spat the word out like it was a curse. “—would come looking for his brother.”
I can feel myself start to shake uncontrollably now. It can’t be—there’s a person I know to be my sister, but it can’t be the woman standing before me. The child I carried in my arms as a newborn, the one who I essentially helped raise—who meant the most to me—is now next to me while I still have restraints around my arms. This can’t be Giorgia, even if physically she was her exact copy. But the constant nagging thought in my mind terrifies me even more—what if this really is her, but somewhere along the way, she became someone I didn’t even recognize? Cold in the worst of ways, capable of kidnapping her own sister.
“You've ruined so many lives for what? Jealousy.” My hands are grasping at my hair, pulling a little to try and ground myself in the moment. Her smile fades and eyes harden.
I look around, noticing that Maksim and Grigor are already tied down by a tight red cord around their wrists and legs. Only I am left—and I don't try to resist, defeated. I bite my tongue, almost drawing blood, before realizing what I’m doing.
Just as Giorgia is about to open her mouth to speak when the door bursts open and I flinch, not noticing the sound of someone approaching beforehand. It's Sasha, her face pale and eyes wide with fear.
“What the hell is going on here, Georgia?” She shouts, but her voice is trembling. “Stop this madness! This isn't what we agreed on.”
Georgia's gorgeous features school themselves into something terrifying, her mouth pulling back in a sneer.
“Mom, how lovely of you to show up.” She sing-songs mockingly. “You are the one who helped me in the beginning, so don't be a hypocrite now.”
Sasha's heavy eyes fill with tears as she takes a tentative step forward.
“I-I've done many things wrong.” She admits, her voice breaking. “I must have… I fed you the anger and bitterness, but it’s taken over—look where it’s led you. Please , Georgia. End this now before it becomes too late.” Sasha’s voice takes on a quality I’ve never heard present in her before—that of pleading.
A darkness overtakes Giorgia’s expression—she looks betrayed, almost disappointed. In a swift motion, she pulls out a gun from her waistband, aiming directly at Sasha. Her mother.
“Alright then, you decide now.” She hums in-between the words, but I can see her hand is trembling. “Decide whose side you are on, Mother. And choose wisely.”
I try to scramble towards them, but being bound by the restraints means I topple on the carpeted floor.
“No!” I cry out. “Georgia, please put the gun down. We can fix this!”
Her eyes land on mine, then back on her mother, but her grip on the gun tightens.
“You still don't get it, Bianca. When I take over from Lorenzo, I will be the one to make this family great again. And that means weeding out the weak links—whether that is you or Mother does not matter in the grand scheme of things.”
Her words trigger a chain reaction, each syllable lodging itself deeper in the wound. I feel fragile, like a family heirloom that after generations, falls and shatters into a thousand sharp pieces. The sister I once knew is gone, replaced by a twisted reflection of our family's cruelty.
But there's a part of me that aches for her, too. For the child, I held in my hands when I was no more than a kid myself. For her sweet little laughs and the wonder in her eyes. For the person she could be if she wasn’t consumed by all the jealousy and bitterness.
Before any of us can move, though, an explosion rocks the building. It takes me a moment to gather my bearings, dust and debris filling the air as a violent coughing fit takes over my body. My ears ring from the blast.
It's then I noticed that Giorgia's grip on the gun falters, a flicker of fear appearing in her almond eyes. Sasha takes advantage of the distraction, lunging forward and knocking the gun from Georgia's hand. The weapon slides across the floor and Giorgia screams with unbridled rage. But just as the scuffle is about to continue, Giorgia's main bodyguard comes in and yanks Sasha violently down to the ground. The crunch of bone is sickening, only eclipsed by Sasha’s ringing scream of pain as she clutches her right arm.
“Sorry, Gia.” The burly man murmurs under his breath. “I knew you said not to get involved, but I figured you'd appreciate some help.”