Chapter 18 Chapter 18
I wrench my arm free, but before I can say anything in return, my uncle knocks me to the ground again. I'm lying on the floor bleeding, I pull myself up using one of the chairs and spit blood onto the Macassar ebony wood floor and wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. My lower lip is split open on the side from one of the blows and my left eye is already almost swollen shut. If I had to bet, I'd say my nose is broken and I definitely have a concussion. Nevertheless, I stand upright in front of my uncle again, with clenched jaws. "Why the hell does he have to be there at all? Why would he be safer there than here? Nicolai is your heir! My cousin! He should be here with us and not married to that... that..." "Man," my uncle interrupts me sharply. "married to that man! The De Lucas and us, we've always kept our distance from each other, there were always disputes until five years ago when Viktor suddenly wanted a deal with you and you two decided that Selena and Alessandro should get married to seal that deal, and when she dies before the wedding, you two let Nicolai take her place? Why?" Rafaele takes a deep breath, so controlled, so calculated, that it pisses me off even more. This man could negotiate with a broken rib and a bullet in his thigh without raising his voice. He doesn't even wipe my blood off his face, as if it's completely normal that his office looks like the antechamber to Hell right now. "You want to know why?" he asks without any emotion. I clench my fists. "Yes, damn it. Why?" He goes to his bar and pours himself a glass of Old Spice whisky and sits down on the couch in his seating area. "Because there was no other way." "Bullshit," I growl immediately. "There is ALWAYS a way." Rafaele raises an eyebrow. "Not when the man standing across from you is named Viktor De Luca." I hesitate for a moment. Not out of fear. But because of the way he says the name—clipped, controlled, but with an undertone that says everything: submission. "He wanted a deal," Rafaele continues. "One that should pull both our families out of the abyss we'd slipped into in recent years. And he wanted a sign. A sacrifice. A bond that can't be easily broken." "And you offered Selena as a sign?" I hiss. "I offered a solution that was supposed to protect us ALL." His voice sharpens. "You have no idea how close we were back then to being completely crushed." I shake my head. "So she was a pawn, a tool, nothing more." "She was an option," he confirms. "And one that would have worked." "Until she died." His gaze narrows minimally, and for Rafaele, that's almost a nervous breakdown. He doesn't say a word. "AND THEN YOU TAKE YOUR SON?! Your damn last real bond?! WHY? Why Nicolai? Why him?!" Rafaele lifts his head slowly, as if weighing every syllable. "Because that's what Viktor wanted." "And you just said YES?" "Because otherwise he would have declared war." I laugh bitterly. "Then we would have fought!" "And lost," Rafaele cuts in. "Completely. Utterly. You, Elena, me, our entire family. You think we're still strong? We're nothing more than a name that's slowly bleeding out since Nicolai left us." I just shake my head at my uncle's statement and sit down next to him on the couch. "We're strong enough to hold our own without Nicolai too!" As soon as I say it, I could swear the room temperature dropped by at least ten degrees and a shiver runs down my spine. I've crossed way too many lines today. "No, not anymore! This family needs a strong leader, a healthy leader. I can barely manage the day-to-day business anymore!" The words hang heavy in the room. Too heavy for a man like Rafaele Petrovich. "What... what are you talking about?" I ask quietly. Not weak, but irritated. Rafaele never looks tired. Or battered. Or... old. But now? Now he looks like a man who's realizing that time has caught up with him. "I'm getting older, Vito," he says calmly. "And I've made mistakes. Big mistakes." I swallow. I've known him long enough to know that if he admits it, things are worse for him... and for us... than I thought. "Why didn't you ever tell Nicolai that?" I ask. "Why didn't you ever tell him that you... that you needed him? That you wanted him back?" He sighs and runs his hand restlessly through his stubbly hair after finishing his glass and setting it down on the table. Something I've never seen him do before. "He wasn't ready to let her go! I don't know why, whether it was just because they were twins, but Selena was always Nicolai's weakness, and the fact that she despised me and the life we lead drove Nicolai away from us! The two of them were always like day and night, as if she got all the humanity and Nikolai all the darkness, like two sides of a coin, and he could never be without her, but he understood that Selena would have dropped him immediately like she always did, no matter if he had changed his entire life for her, which he did for her! How was I supposed to tell him the truth when he wasn't ready to see it?" He leans back, as if he's finally spoken the words that have weighed like lead in his chest for years. But his face remains hard. No trembling. No blurred remorse. Just icy realization. "Selena was his weakness," he says tonelessly. "And you can't rip out a weakness without ripping the person out with it, Vito." "Because it was necessary." He looks at me as if I'm the one who doesn't get it. "She hated us. Hated me. Hated everything we are. And Nicolai... he loved her. Not healthily. Not rationally. He used her as a moral compass. And she used him to feel like someone above us." "You're talking about her like she was a problem, not a person." "She was a problem." The words fall like stones. "A problem that weakened us all so much that Viktor smelled it like a shark smells blood in the water." I clench my hands into fists, but not out of anger, out of the clarity in his voice. This man doesn't lie. He's admitted it to himself mercilessly long before I confronted him with it today. "Nicolai would have come back to me if she'd lived longer," he says. "But he would have come back broken. Useless. Wrecked from a war he'd have fought for HER, not for US." I whip my head toward him, fixing my gaze on him. "You let them kill her," I say, almost tonelessly. "You let them kill her even though Nicolai could just as easily have died!" The thought of how lucky Nicolai was just a few days ago when he tried to protect Selena with his own body drives me mad; I clench my hands into fists on my knees. "Yes and no! They weren't supposed to kill her, just kidnap her and make it look like she was dead! I never would have expected Viktor to uphold the deal and that Nicolai should take Selena's place!" I gasp for air. Not from shock, but from the crystal-clear brutality of this logic, but my uncle just keeps talking. "She wasn't really supposed to die; Nicolai was just supposed to believe it so he wouldn't have to live with a mask to please his twin!" Rafaele doesn't blink. Not even a twitch, no damn sign of guilt. "I didn't have her killed," he says calmly. "I ordered a kidnapping. A staging." I laugh shortly. "A STAGING that ended in a body bag!" "Because she didn't listen." His voice is so smooth it almost makes me sick. "Because she broke out alone again. Without protection. Without a plan. Because she thought she could outsmart us. And because the men who were supposed to pick her up were surprised by a second party that was only identified after the attack." I stare at him, my heart pounding like madness against my ribs. "You're blaming her for her own death." "I'm blaming her for the fact that Nicolai almost died." That hits me harder than his punch. Harder than anything before. "If he'd been dead," he continues, "we wouldn't have had anything left—no future, no power, no chance." He looks at me, and this time I really see it. A hint of fear. Not for himself, but for the loss of an heir he can't afford.