Chapter 160

Chapter 160
Nico

“You may as well shoot me you motherfucker,” Yelena says in her heavy Russian accent. “What are your options? To keep me here for the rest of my life? Or to kill me so I am no longer a threat? Or you can give me what is rightfully mine. You owe me, Nico. Your father owes me.”

It’s the same argument with Yelena every time I come to see her. Why do I bother? The fuck only knows. I feel compelled since she is my half-sister. Only she is right. Those are my only options.

None of this would have happened if my father hadn’t taken the actions he did all those years ago. I feel sorry for Yelena and everything she has been through. Life wasn’t always a bed of roses for her.

Apparently when she was taken back to Russia she was put to work at the age of sixteen. Used by men in power to be treated like their personal whore. Thankfully, they never gave her drugs. Although maybe it would have eased the knowledge of what was happening to her.

The mere thought of a young woman having to endure the pain and suffering Yelena did, breaks my heart. Even if she turned out to be a stone-cold killer who wanted to erase Lucky and I off the planet.

You may say kill the fucking bitch. I get that, I truly do but something inside me won’t allow me to kill my own flesh and blood, nor a woman who is traumatized because of the path that led her to me.

It goes without saying that she trusted the family who took her in. And what did they do. Keep selling her to the highest bidder. If I’d have known about her, I could have saved her and that, well that eats me up like watching acid on skin.

“Give it a rest will you, Yelena. You make my head hurt.”

She spits at the ground as we sit outside in the back garden of the safe house. “I don’t want to live like this,” she tells me. I detect a softening in her voice but I am not fooled. What she did will burn in my soul and heart for a very long time. A lifetime.

“You should have thought about that before you did what you did.” I lace my fingers through themselves as I sit with my forearms resting on the beaten-up picnic table. It’s seen better days.

“You owed me, Nico and so did your father. What? You thought I wasn’t ever going to come and collect? Dumb fuck.”

I can hear Aurora in my mind telling me to get it over and done with. We all know that if Yelena gets out, she will try it again. I am left with no choice. Part of me is torn for the step-sister I never had who could have been brought so easily into our fold. And having to end it for her.

How am I supposed to make the decision? I can’t. Still.

“Giving you a slice of the action, Yelena will not change anything. You will abuse it and come after Lucky and I. You will not stop. You are too far gone. There is no choice but to remain here. I can send you somewhere else but you will always be guarded, Yelena.”

She narrows her eyes as she looks at me. Her scars are now fading nicely. Every week she gets a new batch of the best creams that my physician gives me to apply on a daily basis. Maybe I shouldn’t bother but like I said, I am consumed by guilt for being the child of my father who had it all.

I don’t expect anyone to understand. It’s kind of like survivor’s guilt. Why did a young girl have to suffer the way she did and give birth to a child only to have the child taken away? Why did that child have to endure her suffering being used as a plaything for older men who treated her like nothing?

“We are at a stalemate,” she says with resignation.

“Do what you will, Nico. But trust me when I say. Your weakness will be my strength.”