Chapter 27 Inessa
INESSA
The chirping phone on the nightstand tears me from sleep.
I rub my eyes as Yuri answers immediately.
Calls this early in the morning are never good, but I wait to hear what he has to say before I let myself feel panicked.
With everything going on, I know it must have something to do with my mother.
I prop myself up on my elbow and watch his face contort as whoever it is speaks to him.
"We'll be there in twenty minutes," he says, ending the call and turning to me.
He's already folding the blanket down, sliding out of bed.
"What happened?"
"Someone got to Alina in the hospital. She's been poisoned."
Reaching for my clothes before my feet get out of bed, my heart starts to race.
Alina's been recovering following the attack on my showroom.
She should've been safe.
But my mother has found a way to reach her even there, to turn what should have been a sanctuary into another battlefield.
I'm dressed and moving before conscious thought takes over.
Yuri's men are already waiting by the car with engines running when we reach the foyer.
I'm thankful they stay awake all night to keep watch and be prepared for things like this.
My mother isn't content to destroy my business or steal my assets.
She's escalating to people I care about, proving that nowhere and no one in my life is safe from her reach.
The message is clear—surrender completely, or watch everyone I love suffer for my defiance.
St. Petersburg General Hospital buzzes with late-night activity when we arrive.
The ICU is on the seventh floor, accessible only through locked doors and security checkpoints.
I have no clue how anyone got to her except that they paid off hospital staff.
Still, I was the one who led my mother directly to Alina's bedside.
If I'd only known what she was up to when I invited her to meet me here last week…
The doctor who meets us is young, tired, and clearly intimidated by the security detail that accompanies our arrival.
He explains Alina's condition in clinical terms but his face is screwed up in frustration.
"The toxicology results are consistent with deliberate poisoning," he admits.
"The dosage was calculated to cause severe illness without immediate fatality. Whoever did this wanted her to suffer, not die."
So my mother didn't want Alina to die instantly or she'd be gone already.
I'm not sure how to take that.
The distinction is important because a dead friend would be a tragedy, but a suffering friend is a weapon she can use to push more of my buttons.
My mother wants me to see what defying her costs other people, wants me to carry the guilt of bringing this pain into Alina's life.
The doctor is still speaking but I turn toward the window into her room.
Through the ICU window, I can see my best friend connected to machines that monitor every function of her struggling body.
Her dark curls are matted against the pillow, her skin pale except for the flush of fever that won't break.
She looks fragile and I've never seen her like this.
She's always been the strong one, and now those roles have been reversed.
"Can I see her?" I ask, turning toward the doctor.
"Family only, I'm afraid."
Yuri steps forward, and something in his posture makes the doctor reconsider immediately.
He swallows hard and blinks a hundred times in less than a second.
"Of course, she's practically family. Just… keep it brief," the cowardly man says, backing away under Yuri's shadow.
Her room smells like disinfectant and the particular staleness that accompanies serious illness.
Alina's breathing is shallow but steady, assisted by machines that hum and click.
When I take her hand, it feels too cold, too dry, nothing at all familiar about the touch.
She's sleeping, but her fingers twitch in mine and it almost brings me to tears.
"I'm sorry," I whisper, though I don't know if she can hear me through the sedation.
"This is my fault. All of it."
Her fingers don't respond to my pressure again, but the heart monitor continues its steady beeping.
She's alive, but barely, suffering because she chose loyalty over safety, because she refused to believe that loving me could be dangerous.
I stay until the nurses insist that visiting hours are over, until Yuri's gentle pressure on my shoulder reminds me that we can't linger indefinitely in public spaces.
The drive back to the compound is silent, but I spend it crying softly into his chest with his arms wrapped tightly around me.
When will this end?
When will my mother stop what she's doing and the pain finally cease?
At home, I drink vodka right from the bottle Yuri keeps in his office and gulp it without tasting anything.
The alcohol burns away the antiseptic smell that clings to my sinuses, but it can't touch the cold fury that's still searing through my chest.
"She's going to recover," Yuri says, sitting down on the large leather sofa.
He pulls me down onto his lap and pins me there, but he doesn't take the bottle from my grip.
"This time. What about next time? What happens when my mother decides that sending messages isn't enough?"
"We don't give her the opportunity for a next time."
I take another gulp and then turn to look at him directly.
"No more defensive strategies. No more careful planning. No more waiting for the perfect moment to strike back."
"Inessa—"
"She poisoned my best friend to prove a point. Not killed—poisoned. Made her suffer just enough to show me that everyone I care about is within her reach."
I take another drink, my hands shaking with the rage coursing through me.
"She wants to play games with people's lives? Fine. Let's play."
Yuri's arms tighten around my body and I feel him steadying me.
"There's no coming back from the level of warfare you're talking about. Once we cross certain boundaries, we become different people entirely."
A laugh emerges from my mouth that is so bitter and sharp, I almost fear I sound like her.
"There was never any coming back from the moment I said 'I do' at gunpoint. Everything since then has been adaptation, survival, becoming whoever I needed to be to stay alive in this world."
"You don't understand what you're asking for," Yuri cautions.
I know he wants me to be careful, but I just don't fucking care anymore.
"Don't I? I understand that my mother won't stop escalating until either I'm dead or she is.
I understand that everyone I've ever cared about becomes a target the longer this continues.
I understand that playing by civilized rules against someone who has no limits is a guaranteed way to lose everything. "
I stand and move to the window, looking out at the compound walls that have become both prison and sanctuary.
Beyond them lies a city where my mother moves freely, planning her next attack on anyone unlucky enough to love me.
"She made this personal when she went after Alina," I continue.
"She wants to hurt me by destroying everyone I care about, then force me to watch while she takes credit for saving me from the consequences of my own choices."
"And what do you want?"
My answer comes out ice cold and absolute with dead certainty.
"I want her dead."
Yuri's expression shifts as he processes what I'm telling him.
I'm not the protected wife seeking his guidance but a partner demanding immediate action.
Someone who's moved beyond fear and caution.
And I'm not changing my mind.
"The timeline we discussed—"
"Changes tonight. Whatever resources we need, whatever risks we have to take, whatever lines we have to cross—it all happens now."
"My family's ultimatum—" he says, but I cut him off.
"Becomes irrelevant if we move fast enough. By the time Dimitri realizes what we're doing, it'll be too late for him to interfere."
I return to my seat, leaning forward with the same intensity he's showing me.
"Unless you're not willing to accelerate things because you think I can't handle the consequences."
"That's not the issue," he says, and I sense uncertainty in his tone.
He's never uncertain about anything, so why this? Why now?
"Then what is it?"
He's quiet for a long moment, weighing words that will reshape our entire approach to this conflict.
When he speaks, I sense his compassion toward me.
He's struggling to keep his monster back right when I need it the most.
"Inessa, you aren't this person. This isn't you…"
"I am," I tell him, but even as I do, I realize he's right.
I'm not a murderer. I'm just angry.
"You're not."
"Then you do it for me. Because it has to be done."
My heart is pounding, and the alcohol is making my head swirl now.
"Is that really what you want? Me to murder your mother? Because I can't fathom the idea of your looking at me differently when it's all said and done."
There it is… that vicious evil I know exists within him.
"She poisoned my best friend to send me a message. She's planning to kill everyone I love to force my surrender. She's already chosen elimination as her preferred strategy." I meet his eyes without flinching. "I'm prepared to give her exactly what she's earned."
Yuri nods, accepting my answer without judgment or surprise.
"Then we move tomorrow night. By the time the sun rises, Viktoria Mirova's world will be burning."
"What do you need from me?"
I take another swig and I finally feel like vindication is within reach.
"No second-guessing, no mercy, no hesitation when the moment comes to pull the trigger on everything we've planned."
"You have it."
"And afterward, when you see what we've done, when you realize what you've become—you don't get to blame me for the person you chose to become."
I sit down on his lap again and let him take the bottle from my hands.
When I signed up to marry Dominic, I was a naive woman with no sense.
That woman died the moment Yuri Gravitch put a gun in my ribs and made me marry him.
Now I'm nothing more than a murderously angry daughter who has unfinished business.
"I understand completely," I tell him.
"Tomorrow night, we destroy the woman who gave me life."
I expect him to approve, to smile at me the way my father would've when I made a good choice.
But he doesn’t offer anything other than a calm expression, as if he gets no joy out of this.
"Then we have work to do."
If I have to do it myself, I will.
And if he never offers me approval or praise, I will still know this was a good decision.
I don't even have to know why my mother left my father’s side years ago or why he pushed her out.
Knowing the evil that lives inside her is enough.
If she continues pushing, she will take everything I own, and I'm not going to take it lying down.