20. Elena
Oksana Vasiliev.
The name keeps coming up in my mind, as though repeated use could soften its edges. It’s lodged beneath my ribs like an unreachable splinter, as if repeating it enough will make it belong somewhere else.
My mom had a sister.
It’s not an easy realization to accept. Everything I believed to be true is upended when it lands with weight.
An aunt. An extension of the same blood that flows through me.
Alive and breathing. She also wants me dead, like my grandfather did.
My vision, which I’d struggled to piece together until now, finally makes sense.
I’m positive that Oksana and my mother were in the picture.
This is what inheritance looks like.
As he studies each of us, Ruslan says, “I take it by all of your expressions... this you did not know.”
“My mom had a sister,” I repeat. They sound alien, as if I’m speaking in someone else’s voice. They don’t become more real when I say them; on the contrary, they make me feel even more hollow.
Ruslan tilts his head. “She never told you about Oksana.”
I let out a quick, sardonic breath. I raise my gaze to meet his. “I don’t remember my mother.” Before I could walk, she was killed.
The atmosphere shifts. Clara remains motionless as well.
Beneath the table, Alexei’s hand finds my knee, solid and grounding. “How did you find out who she really is?” His tone is tight as he asks Ruslan what we all want to know.
The chair creaks softly beneath Ruslan as he leans back. “We’ve been keeping an eye on the Vasiliev’s for years. I don’t have to explain Ivan Vasiliev’s danger to any of you.”
“Why the SVR specifically?” Clara asks.
Ruslan turns to look at her. His gaze evaluates her like a variable that hasn’t settled yet, and the corner of his mouth quivers in a way that isn’t quite a smile.
“A corrupt agent within the SVR was accused in one of my first cases. The evidence could never be directly linked to Vasiliev.” He pauses thoughtfully.
“But his name came up too frequently to ignore.”
Like brushstrokes completing a picture that none of us wants to see finished, each word is placed carefully, smoothly, and precisely.
My grandfather purchased government agents, including police and intelligence officers. I shouldn’t be surprised. His currency was power. I now pay closer attention to Ruslan. “How were you made aware of Oksana?”
He hesitates for the first time. Just for a fraction of a second, but I catch it. “We can force traitor agents to speak.” In the gray of his eyes, coldness emerges.
They knew Oksana was still alive while everyone else believed she’d died.
Clara lets out a sharp breath. “It seems that there were other people who didn’t get along with your mother’s father.”
“So why come after Elena and me?” Alexei asks.
My throat constricts. I swallow hard, the bitter taste of old fear rising quickly. I hadn’t made it last time.
Not really.
If it hadn’t been for Inanna, the ancient of love, beauty, and war, bending fate when fate should have remained untouched, I would have died. I know better than to believe this ends cleanly. That everyone walks away.
Someone always pays the price.
One will fall.
“And why do you want to help?” Clara asks, her voice stripped of warmth, pure analysis.
“Oksana is making moves,” Ruslan replies. “To rebuild. To take over what her father left behind.”
“We seized everything,” Alexei counters. “When Ivan was taken out.”
Ruslan’s gaze doesn’t waver. “Not everything.”
Clara curses under her breath, leaning back. “A failsafe,” she mutters. “Or maybe she was the silent partner.”
“We know Alyssa was the assassin,” Alexei says quietly. He turns back to Ruslan. “What kind of moves?”
“Every trail I’ve followed leads back to Zurdonia.”
I blink. “How?”
“Deals made, trades brokered, and pressure applied in the right places.” His eyes flick to Alexei. “Including the sudden allegations of treason and theft against your husband.”
Alexei stiffens, his expression hardening. “This evidence?—”
“I can provide it,” Ruslan cuts in smoothly.
Silence stretches between them, taut with danger. I recognize the look in Alexei’s eyes, the one he gets when he’s weighing risk against necessity, trust against survival. Clara mirrors him from across the table, sharp and calculating.
Ruslan breaks it with a faint, smug exhale. “Besides, it appears you could use my help. Oksana has already managed to capture someone from within your party.”
Clara lunges forward. “How did?—”
My phone vibrates.
The sound slices through the tension like a blade. I pull it from my pocket, my pulse spiking when I see the screen.
Unknown number.
I look at Alexei. “Should I answer?”
He nods once. “Put it on speaker.”
I draw in a steadying breath and tap the screen. “Hello?”
“El?”
My chest tightens instantly.
“Hannah.”
Relief floods me so fast it’s dizzying. I clutch the phone in my hand, holding it like an anchor, as if I let go, I might lose her too. I clutch the phone like it might somehow ground me.
“Where are you? Are you okay? Are you hurt—where are you?”
The questions tumble out in a rush, tripping over each other. I know I’ve already asked one of them. I don’t care.
Her breath crackles through the line, shaky, almost a laugh. “Hey. You have no idea how good it is to hear your voice.”
Something inside my chest loosens. I sink back against the chair, my knees weak with the release. “I was so worried,” I say, quieter now. “Are you hurt?”
“I’m okay. I promise.” She pauses. “Tired… really tired.” Then her words rush together, fast and brittle. “I got away from Wendell. I don’t think I have long. This couple, they’re letting me use their phone. They’re nice. They said I could call.”
The room closes in around me. Three pairs of eyes track my face, every shift of my expression, every breath I don’t quite manage to steady.
“Do you know where you are?” I ask.
“That’s the thing.” Her voice softens, edges fraying.
“I don’t.” A faint huff escapes her lips.
Apologetic. “I ran until my lungs burned. I didn’t stop.
I kept going until I saw them.” Silence stretches, broken by a soft shuffle on the line.
I hold my breath, certain the call is about to die.
“I think I’m still in Petrova. The signs look the same. The accents, too.”
“Petrova?” The word slips out before I can stop it.
Alexei’s brows knit together as he watches me, studying the phone like Hannah might step through it. I hit the mute button on the phone.
“Is it possible they never left?” I whisper.
“It’s been a full day,” Clara murmurs. “They could’ve taken her anywhere.”
“It’s a trap,” Ruslan comments flatly.
The word lands heavily. When I look at Alexei, I see it mirrored there, recognition, not surprise.
“El?” Hannah’s voice nudges through my silence.
“I’m here.” I take the phone off mute. “I’m here,” I confirm. “We’ll find you. I promise,” forcing steadiness into my voice.
“Will you?” Her tone sharpens, not panicked, but focused. Familiar. “Because if you can, they can too.”
The hum of the room fades. All I hear is her breathing.
“We thought we were safe in Petrova,” she continues. “They still found us.”
My grip tightens on the phone.
“What is it?” Alexei asks quietly.
“Something’s wrong,” I murmur. “Hannah doesn’t sound like herself.”
“Wimpy,” Clara supplies, unapologetic.
I shoot her a look, but the truth stings because it’s true. Hannah has never sounded like this, not when she was afraid, not when she was furious, not even when she was cornered. Fear never used to bend her voice.
So either something broke her, or she’s trying not to break me.
“Listen, Hannah?—”
“I keep thinking about the orphanage,” she blurts, too fast. “Do you remember how Ms. O’Hara used to say the walls had ears? How we’d run to the bathroom and turn on the shower, thinking the water would drown us out?”
My spine goes rigid. “You hated that bathroom,” I say carefully.
“I did,” she whispers. “But it was the only place where it was us.”
The air shifts. Every instinct I have sharpens.
“What I’m saying,” she continues gently, “is when you come… don’t bring the whole house with you.”
My chest tightens. “You want me to come alone?”
“You’re smart, El.” A faint smile ghosts through her voice. “You always were. That’s how we survived, knowing when to stay quiet. Knowing how to move without being seen.”
Alexei’s disapproval presses into my side like a physical thing. I don’t look at him.
“Okay,” I agree.
“They weren’t supposed to find us in Petrova,” Hannah adds. “I don’t want to give them a reason to notice again.”
I swallow hard. “What happened there wasn’t your fault. Or mine.”
“No.” Her voice firms. “But it taught us something.”
The silence between us hums, electric and heavy.
“Will you be okay until I get there?” I ask.
“Yes,” she answers too fast. “I don’t have transportation. If they start searching, they’ll cover ground faster than I can run.”
“I’ll get you out.” The promise tears from somewhere deep and feral inside me.
“I need you to promise me something too.” Her voice drops.
“Anything.”
“At night, we always left the light off.” She pauses, and I hear the phone shift to her other ear. “Even when we were awake. So no one would know.”
“I remember.”
“Do that,” she breathes. “Come find me the same way.”
“I will.”
“I love you,” she says quickly, emotion rushing through the words. “Whatever happens. Whatever you decide, make it so they don’t hear you coming.”
My throat tightens. “I won’t.”
“Good.” Relief leaks through that single word, thin but real. “I’ll be right here. For as long as I can.”
The line goes dead.
I stare at the phone in my hand, its dark screen reflecting my own face back at me; pale, sharpened, already planning.
Whatever this is… they want me loud.
And I’m going to do exactly the opposite.