sat in the same place and ate the same three meals. He always took a sip of wine before every bite and ate his meat before his vegetables.
I’d hated him as well.
“Elena, how was school?” he asked, his words warped and dream-like.
I opened my mouth to answer but nothing came out.
My father looked up at me, his green eyes growing brighter and brighter. “Elena, how was school?” He repeated.
Suddenly, his face began to shift. His nose grew, his skin tightened, and gray hair darkened to brown. I watched as his chin changed shape, and his eyes blended into a familiar brown.
Thaddeo was now peering at me from across the table. “Elena, where were you?”
Once again, I could not answer.
He repeated his question. “Elena, where were you?”
His words echoed through my head, growing louder and quieter, hard and softer. I couldn’t form an answer, couldn’t manage the words—
“Elena, why would you do this?”
I snapped my gaze back to Thaddeo, but he no longer looked at me. Instead a feminine face stared at me from across the table, golden hair bouncing down her shoulders and blue-grey eyes cold.
Tatiana held a flower between her fingers, the familiar lilac color and horn-shaped petals indicated what it was immediately. Foxglove.
“Elena,” she said again, voice too mean and nasty, “why would you do this?”
I woke up with a start.
It took a second for my body to tell me that I needed to vomit now. Lurching from the bed, I skidded to the en-suite and crouched down into the bath. I had passed the toilet but there was no time to go back.
As I pressed my forehead to the cool tiles, uncomfortable with the sense of burning nausea up and down my throat, all I could hear was Tatiana’s voices ringing in my mind.
Elena, why would you do this? Why would you do this?
Why had I done it?
The soft tinkering of the lab calmed me as my thoughts grew wilder and wilder. Listening to the bubbling of beakers and crunch of powder managed to help narrow my thoughts, give them proper direction.
I fiddled with the thermometer in my fingers, using it to trace out invisible answers and theories in the air.
Options sat before me. None of them ideal.
But time had forced my hand, the threat of the world around me had forced my hand.
And if I was being completely honest…Konstantin had pushed me into action, not because I wanted to be free so bad, or because I wanted the upper hand.
No. It was something else entirely.
I rubbed my forehead but forced myself to concentrate as I contemplated my options.
One, give Konstantin the instruments he needs to figure it out all on his own.
To do this, I would point him the right direction, drop a few hints, but there were already too many variables attached to this idea. Would Konstantin even come to the realization on his own? His devotion to his family could blind him from seeing the truth.
Also, how would I drop hints? A few sly comments or catch her in the act? But how could I possibly do that?
Two, don’t say anything, claim my freedom and leave.
I would be lying if I said it wasn’t a tempting option. Leaving them to their own devices, their own traitors, could save me a lot of grief and time. At the end of the day, these people were not my family—and they certainly didn’t consider me theirs.
So why was it my job to unravel the deception in their midst?
But…some part of me physically could not do this. I don’t know where my selfishness had gone, my calculating nature, but when I called upon it to make me apathetic, it refused to answer. Instead my heart and gut physically hurt at the idea of leaving without saying anything.
Leaving them in danger.
Last but not least, the third and final option.
Three, tell Konstantin.
Option one was too iffy and option two made me feel physically upset. But option three…If I told Konstantin outright, who was to say he would believe me? He could react in such a myriad of ways. He could trust me, accept the evidence and deal with the situation as he saw fit, or he could deem me a liar and treat me how Bratva traitors were treated.
My tongue curled at the thought.
But option three was the only immediate option. The only one that could guarantee the truth being exposed.
I drew little columns in the air with the thermometer, sorting out the options. Advantages and disadvantages were ticked and