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“Okay. Have you notified Ruslan, Lom, or Eset?”
“No, sir. You were my first call.” I appreciate Paulo’s loyalty to me, but I do need to let my siblings know we have her. I dig my phone out of my pocket and send a text message to my brothers and my sister with the address Paulo gave me. I tell them to knock when they get here, and someone will let them inside. Once I’ve sent the group text, I look back at Paulo.
“All right, take me to her.”
Paulo walks me down the foyer area and stops in front of a door. He opens the door, which reveals a set of stairs, and we both head down. The second my foot hits the top step, the distinctive sound of a metal chair jolting against a cement floor echoes through the space. Sure enough, I get to the bottom of the stairs and find my mother tied with ropes. There’s duct tape around her mouth, and her eyes go wide when she sees me. Her eyebrows rise, and she thrashes against the ropes, trying to tell me something.
I walk right up to her and rip the tape off her lips. “Nazyr! Let me out of this mess this instant. I need to go. I need to go right now! There are things you don’t understand. Things I have to warn your sister about!”
I furrow my brows at my mother’s words. Things she needs to warn my sister about? Is she really trying to act like she had nothing to do with what happened to Eset earlier today?
“What could you possibly need to warn Eset about?” I crane my neck slightly as my curiosity gets the best of me.
“You… you wouldn’t understand, Nazyr.”
“You’re right. I wouldn’t understand. It seems I don’t understand a lot about you, Mother. I don’t understand how you lied to Eset and me since we were children, allowing us to think Anzor was our father for our entire lives. That was despicable, but more than that, it was wrong. I don’t even want to talk about any of that pointless shit, though. You’ve already made those decisions. You made them a long time ago, and you didn’t give a rat’s ass about how it would affect us. What I really want to know is why you had your men go after Eset and Meryem today.”
My mother reels her head back a bit and looks at me like she has no idea what in the fuck I’m talking about. I’m not foolish enough to think she’s in the dark. She orchestrated this madness. She must have.
“What happened, Nazyr?” she questions.
I furrow my brows and stare into her dark eyes. She’s really playing this card. Wow. “You’ve got to be kidding me right now,” I hiss at her.
“I’m not! I need to know what you’re talking about.”
“Exactly what I said! You had your men go after Eset and Meryem, and you don’t even fucking care, do you? They could’ve been killed because of you.” I shake my head and close my eyes, still unable to believe the atrocities our mother is prepared to commit on her quest for power.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Nazyr. I… I have people who told me they were going after my daughter. I knew Eset might be at risk, but I… I knew I needed to find my daughter first.”
“Eset will be fine. She has us. As far as you not having any knowledge of what’s happening, I’m not buying it. I think it’s total horse shit,” I grumble, looking into her dark eyes as I search for some sort of answer.
“I’m not talking about Eset! I need to get to your other sister!”
I blink a few times, knowing she can’t be serious. She’s trying to convince me that we have another sibling, one I know for a fact none of us have any knowledge of. “Don’t play games with me.” I’m making my point very clear to her. I’m not in the mood for games. All my life, she’s been playing games with me, and quite frankly, I’m sick and tired of it.
“I’m not playing games, Nazyr. Her name is Xava Beno, and she was raised by some extended family of mine who resides in the Czech Republic. She was the last embryo I had made with your biological father, and I had a surrogate carry her to term.”
I scoff. “You can’t honestly expect me to believe that?”
“I know you have no reason to, but it’s true. Xava Beno. Please. Please go find her before my enemies do. Your sister doesn’t deserve to die. She doesn’t even know what kind of life we’re involved in. She doesn’t know about me or about any of you. She was adopted by distant cousins of mine, Nazyr.”
The more my mother speaks, the more I believe her… but I shouldn’t. I know better than to believe any word that comes out of her mouth. Over the last year and a half, she’s shown her true colors to our entire family and me.
“You really think you’re going to fool me?” I shake my head and laugh. “I’m not as gullible as you think.”
“I’m not lying to you, Nazyr. I… I have another child, a girl, named—”
“Xava Beno. Yeah, I got it. Why in the fuck would you have a surrogate deliver a fifth child?”
My mother licks her lips and shuts her eyes, then looks right up at me. “She was an insurance policy, just in case something happened to the rest of you.”
For the first time in probably ever, I think my mother is telling me the God’s honest truth.
“I wanted to have at least one heir to the Umarova throne tucked away for safekeeping.”
“You are something else, Mother. All you’ve ever cared about is your own self-sustainability. You’ve never given a shit about us, only how you can stay alive and keep yourself powerful. It’s been clear to me for a while now, but right now, it’s crystal clear. I’m done with this, and I’m done with you. I’m tired of your lies, and this will be the last time I ever hear them again.”
I pull my gun out from under my suit jacket, pull back my safety and shoot her in the head. There isn’t even a split second of doubt, and I wish there was. I wish I could’ve felt some remorse for what I just did, but there isn’t any. I don’t have an ounce of it.
