Chapter 167 169

Chapter 167 169
“I should have been your wife,” she hisses. “I should have been someone’s wife. Anyone’s. I went to the fucking parties and wore the fucking dresses. I did what I was supposed to do and it didn’t work. You didn’t want me.”

“That isn’t Cora’s fault. Cora didn’t do anything wrong.”

“She didn’t do anything right, either! Cora had everything. Everything.” Francia looks down at Cora for a second, hate burning in her eyes. “She was living with Alexander and engaged to Mikhail. Cora was going to live the life I wanted. The life I deserved. And she threw it away.”

“You wanted to marry Mikhail Sokolov?” It’s hard for me to imagine any woman that desperate.

“I wanted to marry someone like him! Someone who could crush people like my parents under their heel without a second thought. I hated the Sokolovs for what they did to my family, but I didn’t want to kill them; I wanted to be them.”

I frown. “Your parents were lawyers for Konstantin Sokolov, weren’t they?”

“How else do you think they got introduced to the people who destroyed their lives? Konstantin Sokolov passed my parents’ business card around to his friends. Next thing I know, my parents are gone every night. They come home out of their minds on drugs. We never had much money, but they spent all of it and more. They dipped into Konstantin’s money, too. Until he caught them. And killed them for it.”

“How did you manage going to private school with dead parents?”

“Konstantin took me in.” She brushes her tangled black hair back over her shoulder. “Since my parents couldn’t repay their debt, he took me as payment. I worked for him. I kept an eye on Katerina. I know you and Kat like to think you pulled one over on Konstantin by sending her away, but he always knew his daughter was a flight risk. So he gave me a position in his house and in her school. I kept an eye on her. I had a front row seat to your entire engagement… and Katerina’s disappearance.”

How many times must I have walked past Francia while she was working at the Sokolov estate? How many times did I look right past where she was lingering in the shadows? I never noticed her. Not even once.

Not until it was too late.

“When Katerina went missing, I struck a deal with Konstantin,” she continues. “I told him that I would help figure out what happened to Katerina. But as time passed, my plan changed. I was tired of living near the upper crust. I could mimic their dainty, prissy voices and I had enough of Katerina’s hand-me-downs to play the part to perfection, but I was on the outside looking in. Where you were considered, Ivan… I wanted to be up close and personal.”

Even now, there’s a purr to Francia’s voice. There’s an attempt at seduction being made even while she’s holding the woman I love at gunpoint.

The woman is fucking unhinged.

“After trying to get your attention again and again with no luck, I thought I’d send in Cora.” Francia strokes a hand down Cora’s dark hair, her face puckering in disgust. “She’s pretty, but she doesn’t belong in this world. Even better, she didn’t want to be in it. I wanted to get your attention with her and then pivot to me. But even when Cora ran from you, you chased her. You pursued her. You liked her. And the more Cora tried to get away, the more I hated her. She had everything at her fingertips and she had no fucking clue.”

My voice comes out in a rasp. “If you want to be mad at someone, be mad at me. If you want to punish someone, punish me.” I hold my hands out to the side, practically begging Francia to shoot me.

If she turns her gun on me, I’ll take my shot. I’ll end this. Even if I die doing it.

Whatever it takes to save Cora.

A slow smile creeps across Francia’s face. “That is exactly why I’m going to kill her, Ivan. To punish you.”

This is why I wanted to send Cora away. I wanted to get her out of this city and away from me. Because my love for her is reason enough for my enemies to come after her. This nightmare is playing out exactly like I knew it would.

And I don’t know how to stop it.

“You’re going to watch the woman you love die.” Her hand tightens on the trigger.

“I’ll kill you. The moment that gun goes off, I’ll shoot you.”

Francia shrugs. “I’m dead either way. At least, this way, I know you’re as miserable as I am.”

“Cora,” I croak. My voice is broken, desperate. Wake up.

“It’s too late for her.” Francia smiles. “Say goodbye.”

She pulls the trigger and a gunshot pierces through the quiet.

63

CORA

“Cora.”

The desperation in Ivan’s voice makes me want to weep. My dad was right: it’s obvious he loves me. It’s the only thing he wears on his sleeve.

I want to open my eyes and tell him that I’m awake. I’m okay.

But I can’t. Not yet.

“It’s too late for her,” Francia says. “Say goodbye.”

I’ve been waiting for the right moment. Really, I’ve been waiting for the buzzing in my ears to ease and my balance to return. I’ll be dead long before that happens, though. Unless I act now.

I feel Francia stiffen. I know this is it.

She’s going to kill me.

All at once, I slam both hands up and swing her arm and the gun away from me… at the same moment she pulls the trigger.

The sound of the shot pierces my eardrums, but I power through the pain. The time for rolling over and waiting for someone to save me is over. Ivan and Anya didn’t train me for nothing. They trained me for this.

“What the—” Francia is frozen for a few precious seconds. The still-smoking gun is in her hand, aimed at the front door instead of my head. And I lunge.

Distantly, I hear Ivan laugh in surprise. I tune it out. I tune out everything except Francia’s hollow, angry face. I focus on her sunken-in eyes… so I can scratch them out.

She tries to swing the gun back at me, but I grab her wrist and twist. She elbows me in the ribs and knees me on the inside of my thigh, but I don’t let up until the gun clatters from her hand and falls to the floor.

“Push her back!” Ivan yells. “Get away from her and I’ll shoot.”

I try, but Francia is clinging to me. She knows I’m the only thing standing between her and being shot dead.

Francia wraps her hand around my neck and spins behind me. My head is already fuzzy and her pressing on my windpipe isn’t helping.

“You can’t fight me, Cora,” she whispers in my ear. “I’m stronger than you. I’m tougher than you. I want this life more than you do.”

I claw at her arm.