“Fyodor, you do realize that the Chernykhs are smart and they have the Ungodly Brothers as their support. They know exactly how to find people who have disappeared, and they know exactly how to remain undetected. So why exactly would they need her cooperation,” Ilana asked quietly, “to attack you?”
The words landed heavily.
“They might not have needed her. But she helped them anyway.”
“No, Fyodor, this is where you are wrong. She did no such thing. They tracked you independently,” she continued. “Your movements were all being tracked, as were your supply lines. They also knew about your internal fracture with Kliment, even if the news was not certain. But they knew everything.
My silence stretched.
“They acted on instinct,” she said. “On pride and on blood, because they thought you had kidnapped their sister and they wanted her back.”
“Even if this is true, she was still standing with them rather than fighting with them. She still chose them and left withthem rather than staying with me, and that says everything in itself.”
“She was unarmed, and they are her brothers. What did you expect her to do?”
I looked at her sharply. “You weren’t there. You would have understood exactly what I mean if you had been there and would have seen her make that choice in that moment. It was clearly visible to anyone.”
“No, I wasn’t there,” Ilana said calmly. “But I still have eyes.”
My pulse ticked up, “What do you mean?”
“She has done nothing,” Ilana said slowly, “since being brought back except fight everyone who has come near her.
The words hit like a blow.
“What?”
“She has refused to speak to anyone, especially Iosif and Avgust. She is not eating, sleeping, or being complacent. She keeps demanding to return to you and keeps asking everyone for news of you and if you are doing alright. She has accused all her brothers of destroying the one place she chose to stay and of taking away the one person she wanted to stay with.”
“She has not been eating?” I asked, my mind stuck to that one sentence. It was already difficult to make her eat, but this sounded even more serious.
“No, because all she does is scream at them,” Ilana continued. “For hours.”
My hands curled into fists.
“She didn’t call them,” Ilana said quietly. “They tracked you through Viktor’s courier line three weeks ago. Viktor mighthave accidentally left the line unblocked at one instance when he made an invitation delivery to you, and they found out your address through it.”
Viktor.
Damn it.
“They waited,” Ilana said. “Until your guard shifted. Until you fractured from Kliment. They moved because they believed you were weakened and extracting Elisse would be easier at a time like this.”
I leaned back against the counter slowly.
“She told you she loved you.”
It wasn’t a question. I could see she already knew. Elisse might have told her. So I remained silent and didn’t answer.
“She told them the same thing,” Ilana said. “Again and again. She keeps telling all of us that she loves you and that she just wants to go back to you. That she is a Romanov now. Iosif and Avgust are being very heartless right now and are refusing to listen to her, but Clara and Zehnya begged me to come talk to you because we cannot see her like this anymore. She is losing herself.”
My head snapped up, and the room seemed to tilt.
“She said it was her choice,” Ilana added.
The memory replayed in brutal clarity. Her voice in the living room.I’m choosing him.The look in her eyes. The way she had stepped between guns. Between pride and escalation. And I had been so blinded that I had asked her if she had called them. I had doubted her. In the worst possible moment.
“She saw your face when you left,” Ilana said quietly. “She knows what you think. She knows that you believe that shebetrayed you, and that is what pains her even more. The fact that you might hate her. She keeps saying how she will never be able to live with herself if you hate her.”
