Page 114 of Blood Mosaic

“Of course you fucking do.” Zara slapped her across the face, and Tatyana’s ears rang. “You betraying cunt. You helped me set everything up and then you go to my bastard of a father and rat me out?” She slapped Tatyana again, and her lip burst open.

Tatyana tasted blood.

“You think because he’s fucking you that he cares?” Zara snorted. “He fucks anything that moves. He’d have fucked me if I wasn’t his blood.”

“Zara,” Elene called out. “Listen to me. Leave Tatyana alone. She was just trying to help her family. She doesn’t know about our world.”

“Bullshit.” Zara stood and turned to Elene. “How do I get my money, Elene?”

“I can help you.”

“No, you won’t. You never ever did!”

She was a child. Tatyana watched Zara stomp around, kicking her foot and lashing out at everyone and everything around her. The realization was almost comical.

Except it was so, so horrible.

Zara was like a lethal toddler having a temper tantrum, only she wasn’t just stomping her foot and screaming, she was beating Elene to death.

“I want my money!”

Slap. Punch. Zara kicked Elene’s shin, and yet the woman didn’t cry out. Her silence only seemed to enrage Zara more.

“God, what kind of cock does he have that you all justworshiphim, huh?” She sneered at Elene. “He used to fuck you before you got old, right?”

“All I want” —Elene spat out blood and tried to speak calmly, but her face was so swollen that her words were starting to slur— “is for Tatyana to be able to go home and for you to get your inheritance.”

“Yes. Itismy inheritance.” She pointed at Elene, grabbed her chin, and yanked down, making Elene cry out in pain. “Isn’t it my right? Luana wantedme. He couldn’t stand that, could he? She didn’t want him anymore. She wanted me. And she wanted me to have her jewelry and her gold and her house, didn’t she? She wanted that for me.”

“It’s only fair,” Elene said. “Luana loved you very much. I know that, Zara.”

“And he took it all because he was hermate.” Zara spat out the word and slapped Elene again. “What the fuck did he give her? Nothing but grief! Nothing but bitching at both of us for causing problems. And then…” Zara’s angry rant caught in her throat. “And then…”

Elene made her voice soft. “I know. It was wrong, Zara. It was wrong and everyone knows it.”

“Not Athens!” Zara screamed. “Not the self-righteous fuckingcouncil.”

“It was wrong.” Elene repeated it over and over. “It was wrong, Zara. It was so wrong.”

“I know it was fucking wrong!” Her sorrow turned to madness again, and she lifted her fist to Elene and punched her across the jaw. “But you were his right hand, weren’t you? You filed the paperwork to takeeverythingfrom me. Don’t think I don’t recognize your signature, dearest Elene. My father’s” —slap— “dearest” —punch— “bitch.”

“Stop!” Tatyana was desperate. Zara was losing it, and she was losing it on Elene. “Stop—I’ll get it all back for you! I promise I’ll get it all back! I promise, I promise, I promise. Zara, stop!”

“Please.” Elene cast her gaze toward Tatyana and shook her head slowly as her brilliant blue eyes started swelling shut. “If you kill me, Zara, you know he will hunt you to the ends of the earth. He will take your freedom, he will lock you up, and no one will stop him. If you killher, it will be even worse. He will end you.”

“No, he won’t. I’m his own blood, so fuck you.” Zara drew her hand back punched Elene again.

Tatyana heard Elene’s head snap to the side, and the chair cracked as it fell on the floor.

Elene, still tied to the chair, didn’t move.

“No!” Tatyana screamed.

“Dammit.” Someone in the shadows shouted at Zara in a language Tatyana didn’t recognize. The man sounded pissed off.

Tatyana stared at Elene’s collapsed chair, willing her body to move.

Please. Please, Elene. Please.

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