Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
AUDREY
The Yates’ Estate
“Can you hear me?” I asked Aleks over the phone, faintly hearing the hum of an old Russian lullaby filtering over the line. I wondered what he was doing as he got ready to turn in tonight, curious if he had learned anything new since I left the other day.
“Da.” I heard the soft click of a door and a brief pause before, “Lenochka.”
“Our plan’s in place. You do know that Lilah will likely take this as me going behind her back, right?”
Aleks’ dark chuckle slid over the line, warming my blood and reminding me of the few times he had allowed himself to truly let go in front of Cam and me.
“Da. I figured the little hacker would attempt to call us out on our game. She might be the only one who’s figured out who the next head of The Guilda will be. ”
“It doesn’t worry you that her supposed secret for Trial Two was a farce?
” I couldn’t figure it out…the way she refused to make eye contact with me.
Recalling how something just seemed off with the whole scene, a niggling sense that I was missing something nudged at bits of my memory.
The way Lilah just kept asking me to trust her…
“It was like she knew something, but she regretted bringing it out into the light of day. She knew whatever secret she discovered could destroy whatever sense of loyalty we all have…”
“You’re worrying too much, Printsessa. You can’t undo whatever she's done. Now…” His deep timber soothed me as he switched from humming in the background to giving me his full attention and talking to me over the phone. “Let’s discuss what you should do next. Have the next trials been exposed yet?”
Aleksandr’s voice tapered off, an odd note to it at the end. Like he had learned something and did not want me to be aware, or like he was afraid of what type of rage it could send me into.
I listened to his footsteps as he wandered through his manor, left what I assumed was a bedtime routine, and pivoted to give his sole focus to me. I never called him like this, had always kept distance between us even as I fell hard and fast for him three years ago.
I imagined how different this life would have been if I hadn’t been born an Ellsworth, if the Yateses hadn’t adopted me.
Or if Aleks had not been born a Volkovitch, an heir worth more than I could imagine, but also one destined to be soaked in blood.
There had never been a Volkovitch—a son no less—who had escaped their true destiny to rule as head of the Russian Bratva.
Aleks had been born to inherit the Iron Throne but his fate would see him crowned as the head of the whole table—the true heir of the Bratva Iron Seat.
Someone who would be forced to marry someone of equal standing if his parents, namely his mum, had anything to say about it.
I let myself imagine what this life would have been like if we could have just been us—two teenagers who met and were allowed to fall in love.
How things would have been different if we had met later, when the timing was right.
But life had yet to be favourable to me, and wishing for it to change would just end up hurting me and all the plans we had to fight to succeed at.
“…was saying that the next one coming is worse. He said to warn yo—”
“Who said this?” Cutting Aleks off, I snapped back to the present and pushed my fanciful musings to the side. “Cam?”
“Yes.” Letting out a frustrated sigh, he rehashed what he had been saying. “After he returned from leaving so suddenly, he broke down. Explained why he had been in such a state and what it would mean…for us if we finally agree to go public. For you, especially.”
Worrying my lip, my nose scrunched when the taste of salt and iron hit my tongue. Staying quiet as he continued, the weight of an anvil hung over my head as I felt the tick of a countdown I knew had begun.
“I’ve never seen the overgrown toddler so disgruntled before. Aside from telling me what I didn’t already suspect, he came back muttering about how the next trial you’ll have to face will be one of the worst. Said to prepare yourself for a choice that must be made.”
Anger lit my blood at the thought of what The Guilda would require of us now, knowing we would have to comply, but furious I had been shackled like this and unable to use the power my name could afford. When will they decide they have taken enough?
“Yes. Everyone has seemed to realize that each specific trial is targeted at one of us. The first was Ellery, and the last was Lilah. I assume Worth will be next, since right now, he’s the weakest link, in our group of five that is, and stands to lose the least. I highly doubt they would sacrifice his life if he bowed out early…
his name’s too prominent within the national hockey world; too many would miss him if he were to just disappear. ”
“Just be careful. It's not just you who would lose something if these plans of ours go wrong anymore.”
“Yes. Yes, I know this, Aleks, I know what we all stand to lose in this fucked-up life. Not just if The Ludi uncovers things that were meant to stay hidden in the dark,” I snapped, irritated he would even believe I would risk everything I had done to protect those burned into my heart.
“Printsessa,” Aleks began as a cry cut him off. Knowing our time was coming to an end but still having so much to say, I decided to let him off the hook, taking the coward’s way out again.
“It’s okay, Aleks, go. We can continue later.” I miss you. I want you…ask me again to come home to you…
I hoped he would say something, that just this once he would push for me to admit who I was to him, even if it made me a hypocrite.
“Da.” His quiet reply to the unspoken question of whether we were still okay was heard across the line. “Just remember, Printsessa, you were always meant to be mine. If they try to push you to no return, they will quickly find that my reach is much farther than just what The Guilda knows.”
“You’re the fire that burns in my blood, too, King. Just please keep yours burning until mine is ready to match it in front of the world.”
Hundreds of files surrounded me later, both digital and physical, spread across the floor, the mattress, taped on the walls and extending in a mess across my built-in desk.
My version of a ‘little black book’ came in the form of blackmail that spanned generations: of secrets, skeletons, blood debts, and unexposed affairs.
Hidden bastards and children that had been erased from family trees.
Information I shed blood and tears over since my twelfth birthday, when I realized that my fate would come calling much earlier than the others around me.
When the first of my repressed memories had made itself known.
Information that would now be one of the most catastrophic moves against The Guilda.
I considered how each piece could be used for maximum effect as I stared at all the deceptions I had amassed, knowing I had to be strategic in how I dealt with each piece as a chilling serenity filled me.
Sloane Ellsworth, the illustrious British socialite with ill-hidden Russian Bratva ties and spouse to Henry Ellsworth, was accused of having a child out of marriage.
It was claimed the boy was lost during childbirth, leaving a distraught Willam vonBermere to reap the repercussions of becoming entangled with one of the most dangerous names the world has seen…
I had learned truths that could topple empires and shatter the foundations of hundreds of years of pure familial lines. Truths meant to be hidden and protected, but had instead fallen into the hands of someone willing to destroy and reveal anything to protect what is important to them.
Kellan vonBermere DNA results: 31.8% matched to one Elena Ellsworth. DNA conclusive to show maternal relation to the Ellsworth line.
Hidden vulnerabilities that would now be seen splattered across headlines, forcing the families in town to retreat.
Close their ranks as they struggled to uncover who had ousted them for the world to see.
Truths that I had safeguarded, held on to with a desperate greed, knowing even then that the time would come when I would need to expose them in a way that would mean The Guilda and those families would no longer have any leverage that could be held over me.
Vladimir and Anastasia Volkovitch entered a stalemate in Anastasia’s bid for a divorce.
Rumours surrounded the paternity of their oldest son and alleged infidelity during the time Anastasia would have been pregnant with him.
It left the world wondering, if not Vladimir, then who was the father of one of the most ruthless presumed mafia heirs this country had ever seen?
A weight sat on my shoulders as I debated if the last skeleton should be revealed, if it could be detrimental to what I knew needed to be done.
Forgive me, Aleks, for I am about to sin.
Forging ahead, I hit enter on the one truth I had kept hidden from everyone but the two who took me in all those years ago.
From these ashes, the family I would die for will rise.
With a resounding click, I put my Devil’s Gambit into play.
Tonight, a young black-haired boy was found unconscious outside of a destroyed church in Moscow. It was said that brands covered his hands in the patterns of vipers and roses. In his palm was a bloody knife that matched the crudely cut ‘umbra’ symbol in his other palm…
And now all that was left was for the world to play into the chaos I threw onto the board. I quietly stood and made my way to my open window, the one that looked over towards the cliffs and the edges of the sea.
“I will do what I must. For you, for him. For me.” My phone began an incessant pinging as I broke the silence in my room with a whispered prayer that doing this would not backfire on me…or bite me in the arse when the truth of Aleks’ identity made the morning news.
A young boy whose DNA has been matched to one, Hunter Thorne Yates. The sole blood heir to the Yates line, who was declared dead three years ago, was found barely breathing and confused, leaving the world with questions.
Questions about how the seven-year-old son of the Yates family found himself on the outskirts of the slums in Moscow.
Questions about how a boy declared dead appeared out of thin air and then, like a shadow, vanished from the care of hospital workers hours later.
We’re left with the one question everyone in the world wants to know: Hunter Yates, where did you go?