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But when I reach her open bedroom door, I find it’s not Zenya inside. It’s Kristian.
He’s going through her things and hasn’t noticed me yet. He’s opening drawers, sorting through her clothes, peering into jewelry boxes. It’s infuriating that he’s invading her privacy like this, but the prominent emotion to flood my veins is envy as I see him standing tall and strong in his expensive suit. He has the rest of his life ahead of him, while I’m leaning on an oxygen tank in ruins.
It isn’t fucking fair.
“What are you doing in here?” I rasp.
Kristian glances over his shoulder and sees me, but there’s no flash of guilt in his eyes that he’s been caught going through my daughter’s things. “Oh, hello.”
“I said, what are you doing in here?”
“None of your business.” Kristian turns his back to me once more, continuing to touch Zenya’s things like he owns her. His bored, insolent tone makes fury rage in my heart. Kristian didn’t come back to this family because he thought he was needed. He came back for his own selfish reasons.
“You treat my daughter like she’s your property and you always have.”
Kristian lifts his head and stares at the wall, but he doesn’t turn around.
“Aren’t you going to deny it?” I ask.
When he speaks, his voice is cold and quiet. “You know nothing about how I feel about Zenya.”
All the anger, all the envy I’ve felt toward my brother since we were teenagers gathers in my chest. Kristian the troublemaker. Kristian the charmer.
Kristian thefavorite.
He exasperated our parents but they still adored him. Women have always fallen over themselves for his attention even though he treats them like trash. He’s never sincerely loved another person but himself. I’ve always suspected that of the two of us, Zenya loves him more. Now at the end, I believe it, and it fucking hurts.
“I know plenty. You’ve treated Zenya like she’s an extension of your own ego since she was fourteen years old. Everything you loved, she had to love too, without ever considering what that girl needed or what was appropriate for a child. She lost her mother. Her stepmother. Her innocence—”
“Her uncle,” Kristian growls. He takes something from her dressing table and slips it into his pocket. Turning around, he folds his arms and glares at me. “Thanks to you.”
There’s so much anger radiating from his eyes that it almost scorches me. Whenever he’s been in the same room with me since his return, he either looks right through me, or he’s looking at Zenya. His smiles are for Zenya. He treats me like I’m already dead.
“Without you, that girl had space to breathe. You were always a terrible influence on my daughter.”
Taking her to a shooting range when she was six.Six. Telling her more than she needed to know about the family’s true line of work when she was only twelve. Giving her weapons and teaching her how to use them. Letting her see him torture and kill. Daring her to try to break into his home. Zenya always idolized Kristian, and he manipulated her into becoming just like him.
“Without me, she became overworked, stressed out, and miserable,” Kristian snarls. “When was the last time you made her smile? When was the last time you opened your mouth and it wasn’t to demand something of your daughter? I make her laugh. I make herhappy.”
My fists clench so tightly they shake. “I’m making sure my heir has everything she needs to step into my shoes when the time comes.”
“Bullshit,” he says, his voice filled with scathing condemnation. “You use her. She doesn’t learn from you. She’s your tool. I give Zenya what she needs to survive in this life and protect herself. With me, she flourishes.”
“You give her far too much. She killed a man at fourteen because of you.”
“And if she hadn’t she would have been raped just like Chessa!” Kristian shouts at the top of his lungs. Suddenly he’s breathing hard and his teeth are bared. “Do you think she would have been better off that way? Fuck you, Troian.Fuck you.”
Pain rips through me. Of course I don’t think that. She’s my daughter. My little girl. I didn’t want that for Zenya any more than I wanted it for Chessa, but since that night, I’ve felt my daughter draw away from me and closer to Kristian, and it’s not fair. I should have been the one to give her that knife to save herself, yet I know for a fact that I wouldn’t have even if she’d asked for it because that’s not how I thought you should raise a daughter.
After she killed a man, I still didn’t know what to say or do around her. I failed Zenya. I failed her so hard and now I can’t help hating the man who’s rubbing my nose in all my failures with his mere presence.
Kristian paces toward me, his fists clenched at his sides. “What do I find when I come back here? Zenya’s completely unprotected. The men of this city circle her like starving wolves, and you’ve done nothing to stop them.”
“Well, what can I do?” I shout hoarsely. “I’m trapped in this wreck of a body. I let you come home, didn’t I? You’re meant to be protecting her. Instead, you’re back to your old ways, spoiling her and manipulating her into being whatever you want her to be.”
“I got down on my fucking knees for that girl. Perhaps I wanted—there was a time when revenge—” He breaks off as he struggles for words. “If you still think I’m here for my own sake instead of hers, you’re blindandpathetic.”
“I’m not as blind as you think I am,” I say coldly.
