“I built my own.”
“You built around the wound instead of cutting it open.”
“So you decided to do it for me.”
Her breathing changes. She realizes how much she has given me.
Too late.
I lean back against the edge of the desk and let my voice go quieter. “So you found Dmitri.”
“I didn’t find him. He never knew who I am. I presented an opportunity and he took it to feed his bruised ego.”
My hand curls once at my side.
She sees it and smiles faintly. “You know I’m right.”
“Keep talking.”
“He was drunk the first time. Pathetic. Ranting about how she had made him look weak. About how you had stolen what was his.”
“She was never his.”
Larisa ignores that. “He wanted revenge. He wanted proof that she still belonged to him in some way. I gave him an idea.”
“There it is.”
Her chin lifts. “A photograph. Nothing more.”
“You told him a photograph would break me.”
“I told him men believe what their pride fears most.”
“She only went because she’s better than all of us,” I say.
Larisa’s expression turns cold with disgust. “That’s exactly what I mean.”
I stare at her.
She says it like goodness is a disease.
“You watched me fall in love with her,” I say.
For the first time, Larisa goes silent.
I almost laugh. So that’s the part she hates most.
I say it again, because I want to watch her hear it. “You knew before I did.”
Her eyes harden. “You touched her like she mattered,” she says. “You looked for her when she left a room. You stopped listening when her name was spoken. Men reported to you and your eyes went to the stairs because you expected her to come down.” Her voice is quieter now, more controlled, but the disgust is still there. “Love makes powerful men stupid in very ordinary ways.”
Larisa saw all of it. And hated her for it.
“You saw me becoming weak,” I say.
“I saw you becoming your mother.”
I step closer again. “My mother was not weak.”
