4. Elena
4
ELENA
I let Maxim go first, explaining why and how he took Grace. I wasn’t prepared to find out Dimitri was behind it, nor his involvement with Grace. I only thought he knew her from being a jewel. I had no idea he had a semi-relationship with her. I hate the jealousness it’s aroused in me. Nor did I realize the true extent of why she was deathly afraid of him during Moscow or why she shut down when we were trying to seduce Dimitri’s uncle. It all makes sense now, and I feel like a cold-hearted bitch for pushing her that night, all I could think about was my mission, my goals. I thought if she had fallen for my brother, one of the most lethal assassins, she was going to be stronger. I didn’t know the back story of what had happened with Dimitri. I feel sick, falling for his bullshit. I’m smarter than that, but when it came to him, I wasn’t. How can Grace forgive me for loving the man who destroyed her? That continually destroyed her while I happily occupied his bed. Where I reveled in the love that he shared with me. That I thought I was different for him, with him. He played me. Not only did he double-cross me in the end for power, but he double-crossed my heart. I thought I found someone in this fucked up world that understood me. That loved me for the monster that I was.
How fucking wrong was I?
“Can you excuse me for a second?” I say, standing abruptly as I exit the room. I can’t hear any more of what that man did to them. I’m a fool.
“Ellie, wait,” Mackenzie calls out after me.
I ignore her as a panic attack slides over my skin. The flashbacks of my time in Dimitri’s bed, sucker punch me. All the I love you’s, all the filthy words he said to me, all the promises, all the times he looked at me as if I was the only woman for him in this world. I’m supposed to be the most cold-hearted killer in the world, and I stupidly fell for everything he told me, hook, line, and sinker. I don’t deserve redemption or a second chance at life. I deserve to be six feet under, paying for my crimes.
“Ellie,” Mackenzie calls out again.
I’d forgotten she’d been following me, so lost in my mind. I whirl around and pull a gun on her, which makes her gasp as she comes to a halt. Fear and uncertainty flitter across her face as she stares down the barrel of my gun. She’s heard of my reputation, and in this moment, she doesn’t know if she is meeting Elena, the killer, or Ellie, her new sister.
I drop the gun to my side.
“Never sneak up on an assassin.” I hiss at her.
“Noted,” Mackenzie says quietly, looking deathly pale as she stares at the gun.
“Don’t try to give me your sunshine, Mackenzie. I don’t deserve it,” I tell her through gritted teeth.
Mackenzie’s brows rise high on her forehead at my words. “Do you not think you deserve sunshine, Ellie?”
“I don’t deserve a lot of things, especially all this,” I say, waving my hand around me.
“All what? This tropical garden?” she jokes, trying to lighten the mood.
I secure the gun back in its secret hiding space on my leg.
Relief slides across Mackenzie’s face. “What happened in there?”
“I can’t stay here. I don’t deserve to stay here,” I say, shaking my head as the panic creeps further up my chest, constricting every molecule in my body.
“Why?”
“Look at you all in there, I am not worthy of that,” I scream at her.
“Worthy of what? Family? Friends? Happiness? Laughter? What?” she bites back.
“Yes, all of it. I’m a stain on this family. A black fucking cloud,” I tell her.
Mackenzie steps forward slowly as if trying not to startle me, her eyes shift to where my gun is hidden away. “Do you think we only care about you because of Max?”
“Yes,” I bite back honestly.
“I can’t speak for everyone in there, but for me, I’m excited that you have joined this family. I don’t feel as alone anymore,” she confesses.
She feels alone?
“Zoe and Grace were always close because of their ages, but even more so because of what has happened. Then there’s Sophie. She’s always been a loner, even growing up. She was happy being by herself most of the time, whereas I hated it. But Sophie and I are like chalk and cheese. That’s why I buried myself in my books and became known as the nerdy one of the sisters,” she explains.
Not sure what that has to do with me.
Mackenzie lets out a sigh. “It’s so stupid feeling like this at almost thirty, but I’m going to tell you because, honestly, what does it matter if you’re going to leave anyway.” She shrugs.
Now I’m intrigued.
“When you came back last night, I thought you and Sophie would hit it off. Be firm friends because you are so similar. But you didn’t, and honestly, I thought that was awesome because maybe I might have a chance at finally being close with a sister.” She rushes out the last bit of her confession to me, embarrassed at saying her thoughts aloud.
Oh.
Wasn’t expecting that.
“We had the best time last night. I thought we clicked,” she adds.
“We did,” I say, reassuring her.
She gives me a small smile. “Guess what I’m saying is, and this is embarrassing and sounds needy, and maybe it’s weird, but I’m putting it all out there because I don’t want you to go, and I feel like you need to know that I was looking forward to not being lonely anymore. That I might finally have a sister who I could do things with.”
Oh.
There’s a thud in my chest, a constriction around my heart. The first flutters of life inside my chest begin to bloom. And before I know it, I rush toward her with outstretched arms and pull Mackenzie into a hug. She is stiff for a couple of seconds, trying to assess if I’m going to kill her or not, but eventually, she relaxes and hugs me back.
“Ever since losing Anna, I’ve been lonely, too. Didn’t realize how much until right now,” I confess to her as I hold her tightly.
“You don’t think I’m weird?” she asks.
“No. Never,” I tell her. “I think you’re actually pretty awesome and my favorite out of the sisters,” I say as I step out of the embrace.
“You do?” she asks, her brows pulling together in confusion.
“You’re funny as fuck. You say the craziest things at the wrong times, and I live for that,” I tell her.
“My foot does like to land in my mouth, a lot.” She chuckles.
“I like it. You’re an authentic person. That’s rare where I come from.”
“Russia?” she asks.
This makes me chuckle as I shake my head. “No, from the underworld. No one is authentic, everyone has a motive. Living like that is exhausting, never knowing who to trust,” I explain to her.
“You can trust me and my family. I know Sophie can be a bitch, but she is protective over us all. She will come around, eventually, but she’s trustworthy,” Mackenzie explains.
“That’s the thing, I see it. And I’ve never in my life been around people like you all before. Growing up was spent in the darkness of my father’s work and my mother’s hatred of him.”
Mackenzie frowns. “Living with perfection can have its drawbacks, too.”
Guess everyone has a different view of each other’s life, and it’s not always accurate.
“I don’t want you to go. But I understand if you have to,” she says.
I’m tired of running. It would be nice to soak in a different life for a little bit. Should I stay? Everyone keeps telling me to relax and have a vacation. Assassins don’t get vacation leave.
“If you need to talk to someone about what happened earlier, you can tell me. I’m a vault,” she adds.
Maybe I should tell her about Dimitri and my conflicting feelings. Bottling things up doesn’t seem to be helping.
“Come on then,” I say, turning on my heel as I head toward my studio in the garden. A little clap behind me tells me Mackenzie is happy with this development.
We both enter my room and flop down on the sofa side by side.
“You really want to hear how messed up in the head I am?” I ask, turning to look over at her.
“I’m a health professional. I can handle it,” she says.
“It might make you look at me differently,” I add.
She shakes her head. “You’re family.”
I tell her about Dimitri. How we met, how our relationship grew. All the fucked-up things I did. Of course, I censor it for her because of operational details. Then I tell her about my feelings toward Dimitri and that even though he double-crossed me, he still has a hold over me. That I hate hearing that Grace and Dimitri had a thing together before it turned dark. I explain to her how fucked up it is being jealous of Grace because of it. That I knew Dimitri was a bad guy, but he wasn’t to me, he never showed me that side of him until Moscow, when he left me there for dead.
“That’s a lot to unpack,” Mackenzie says, nodding.
“I told you. You would look at me differently,” I tell her, standing up to pace the room.
“That’s not it at all,” Mackenzie tells me. “All I’m thinking about is even in the underworld, smart, independent, beautiful, strong-ass women get fucked over by fuck boys just like us in the above-ground world.”
A smile quirks against my lips. This is why I like this girl so much, you never know what the hell is going to come out of her mouth.
“Dimitri promised you the world, but it was all a lie. Now, yes, there is some other fucked up shit in there, but if you strip away all that stuff it’s no different to what men have been doing to women for centuries. It’s a tale as old as time. Men having their cake.”
If you take out the messed-up stuff, what happened between Dimitri and me is normal.
“He gaslit the fuck out of you. Love bombed you. All classic narcissist traits. Believe me, I have dated a couple of assholes like that,” Mackenzie says, rolling her eyes. Which makes me smile. “You didn’t deserve it. Don’t blame yourself for him being who you wanted him to be. He was playing a character to get what he needed from you. He probably did that to distract you from the jewels.”
My stomach sinks as the realization hits me. “Fuck.” I curse out loudly.
“What?” Mackenzie asks, those blue eyes wide, her dark lashes blinking slowly.
“You’re right. That fucking asshole played with me so that I was distracted enough to not do anything about the jewels. He knew that if I was truly aware of what he and his cousin were doing, I would have stopped them. I would have put a bullet through each of them without hesitation. I can’t believe I never realized. How could I have been so stupid?” I ask, thumping my chest.
“Sometimes good dick blinds you to things,” she adds.
This makes me laugh.
Mackenzie scrunches up her face. “Dimitri is a disgusting pervert, and thinking about his dick makes me want to hurl. But I get it, he was a handsome monster.”
She doesn’t need the gory details of how well he fucked me and how good his dick was. And if I ever run into Dimitri Petrov again, there’s a bullet with his name on it.