Page 74 of Merciless Queen

In two years of being Pakhan, I’ve heard and seen a lot of fucked-up shit, but this is something else.

I have a younger sister.

When I was a kid, I used to be jealous of Anastasia and Lev’s close sibling bond and wanted something similar. Impossible, given Mama was no longer around and Papa never brought another woman around—also to my dismay. Second to wanting a sibling, I hoped for a stepmother. Someone who could give me the motherly connection I never got to experience.

When Dimitri and I grew closer, he became like a big brother, and it was enough. We bonded due to our fathers’ relation and close roles within the Bratva. It got better when Dimitri and Ivan moved into the mansion and helped ease the depressive feeling that arose when seeing Anastasia and Lev together because I finally had something similar. I stopped wanting a sibling because I had a family I chose—Dimitri, Anastasia, and Lev.

But now I have one. Kind of. A half-sibling with no ties to the Volkov family other than the traumatic past her mother suffered at the hands of my father. I have a sister simply because of Papa’s actions.

There’s not even a proper term for what Papa’s done to women.

To me.

To Zeno and Serafina’s mother.

To the strangers stolen from their families and forced to endure sickening acts all whileheprofited from them.

Bile rises from my throat. It keeps rising until?—

I bolt, streaking across the bedroom and into the bathroom, reaching the toilet just in time for something to come up. My stomach is painfully empty from lack of food, which in this instance, I’m thankful for. A few gags and I’m catching my breath, unsteadily climbing back to my feet.

When I stand, my gaze catches in the wall-sized mirror above the sink. My hair is a mess from the fight in my mansion, the flight here, and sleep last night. My pale skin is somehow shallower, sickly, which causes the dark marks, a result from stress, exhaustion, and smudged eyeliner, beneath my eyes to seem more vivid.

In the mirror’s reflection, I not only see my chaotic self; I see the solution: the shower behind me.

At this point, there’s nothing more Zeno can do to me, so I strip my clothing, which reeks of the past days’ events, and leave them in a pile by the door. The water, which I allow to warm for a moment before climbing in, pelts my back with a pressure that’d otherwise feel soothing, if I wasn’t so tense being in enemy territory.

My hair falls forward, a partially drenched curtain on either side of me, as I stare at the drain where water swirls before disappearing. If only getting to freedom was as easy.

As I stand, stare, and numb myself, I wonder where Zeno’s gone off to. Probably to see his sister—oursister. He brought her out of hiding to make me realize everything Papa did, and it worked. Papa destroyed a woman’s sanity and security, murdered a man and left a fourteen-year-old boy fatherless, all for a pointless age-old war that neither side needed to continue.

A laugh bubbles out of me. Not at the horrors these villa’s walls have witnessed decades past, but at myself. At this. At what my life’s become. My laughter is maniacal and, well, a bit unhinged, achieving Zeno’s goal to make me so.

Somewhere in this house is a girl who shares my blood. For better or for worse, whatever Zeno denies, that girl and I are blood-related half-siblings. And that’s…

It’s…yeah.

Papa. Why?Why, why, why?

My legs buckle until I’m leaning on the shower wall, and then sliding into a crouch beneath the spray until all my strength evaporates and my knees slam into the dark coloured tile.

It’s just…it’s so much.Toomuch. Too much to comprehend. Too much to accept. I took on a lot of Papa’s debts when becoming Pakhan, but this war is something I never could have guessed at. The reason behind it even less probable.

At some point, I go from kneeling beneath the spray to pressing against the door, only my feet beneath the water. I don’t know exactly when my knees draw up to my chest, or when my head bows forward until I’m curled in a tight ball: the ideal hiding position.

Hiding from Zeno. From life. From the past. And what’ll be my unknown future.

This is pathetic and so unlike the woman I’ve clawed my way up from the bottom to become. I spent months—hell,years—proving to Russia, the world, Papa’s long-gone soul, and myself that Icando the job. Can be who Papa should have allowed meto grow into. But right now, I’m not entirely sure I recognize myself.

Liquid streams from my eyes. Water dripping from my hair? I wipe beneath my eyes, fingers bringing black streaks of my makeup with them, and realize it’s not water falling but rather tears.

I’m crying. Crying, and this shower now feels warmer, like the walls are closing in, and it’s too much. They’ll slam into me, squish me, make me into nothing. My next inhale is a hard shudder instead of a smooth breath. The next three are the same, and at some point, my nails are clawing at my ankles, my legs, any part of my body they can reach. I think I’m having a breakdown. Or a panic attack. A something that I’ve never experienced before.

This makes no sense. I laugh again, but it’s more stilted between shallow breaths. I didn’t break down when witnessing Papa’s murder, or when I stood up in front of the Bratva’s heads and fired them all. So what makes now of all times so impactful?

“Volkov.”

For once, a name I wish I could burn right alongside my father’s corpse. A name linked to destruction and a family’s trauma. A name I can never live up to in the way Papa would want me to, because I’m not like him. Once, I coveted nothing more than to be recognized as a Volkov: to follow in his steps. Even Dimitri got to experience the freedoms associated with the name while I was stuck behind walls. The walls of my boarding school Papa sent me off to year after year. The walls of the mansion when I returned. The walls of a persona, built by him for specific purposes and desired outcomes.

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