Page 90 of Soulless Rivalry

“He’s a member of The Order, Elyssa.”

ELYSSA

Betrayal worked in mysterious ways. So much so that even after it’s been revealed, you can never quite wrap your mind around it.

As soon as the words were out of Konstantin’s mouth and Lorenzo didn’t deny them, it felt like my world came crashing down for the hundredth time this month.

“You’re lying. Please say it’s not true, Lorenzo,” I all but begged, my voice trembling.

But my cousin didn’t say anything, he simply stared down at the floor and had the decency to look guilty.

“Say something, goddamn you!” I screeched, lurching towards him, suddenly uncaring about the gun he still had pointing at me, but Konstantin’s arms wrapped around me and kept me from moving further.

“You don’t understand.”

“What, Lorenzo? What don’t I understand? That you killed your sister? For what? Success and money? You’re a fucking Bianchi, you already had those in spades!”

“I don’t want any part of that blood business! I never wanted to be a fucking thug all my life!” he boomed, his usual calm persona finally breaking. “I always wanted to do more and that’sexactly what The Order is about; they take your potential and multiply it tenfold. They would have helped me get out of my father’s clutches, and start my real life elsewhere.”

“But at what price?” My voice broke, tears falling freely down my cheeks. “You killed your sister, Lorenzo,” I whispered.

That seemed to shake him, and he tried biting back a sob unsuccessfully. “I didn’t know it was her,” he cried. “You never know when it’s your time to make a sacrifice, you don’t even know what you’ll be sacrificing. You think Charles had a choice? Any of my brothers? They chose Mia because they knew she was the most important thing in the world to me. They—” He stopped, taking a breath. “they put a cloth on her head and–”

“And you passed her around, not knowing it was your sister you were raping,” Konstantin spat, disgust evident on his face, and his words made my stomach churn. “Because it would’ve been okay otherwise, right? You didn’t care about those girls from the village when they shared the exact same fate as your sister, but when it came to your flesh and blood, it suddenly became wrong.”

“Those girls from the village were nobody’s sacrifice! They were only to mark the opening of the new season, an offering to Tyche.”

I stared at my cousin through my tears. He looked insane, bloodshot eyes, dirt on his white uniform shirt, hair all over the place from all the times he’d run his hand through it. I couldn’t recognize him.

“Listen, you need to give me the book you found. If you don’t and they know you have it, they’ll come for you.”

“Oh, you’re trying to protect me, now?” I spat, looking him up and down. He dared to look hurt.

“Listen, Elyssa, I never wanted to hurt Mia.”

“But you still chose to go ahead with their plan and kill her after you found out it was her.”

He closed his eyes, his hand holding the gun wavering. “She looked so—destroyed. When they took off that cloth and she looked up at me with tears and blood soaking her face…” He squeezed his eyes shut, like he was trying to erase the mental image talking about it brought back. His shoulders were shaking and snot and tears drenched his face. He was having a breakdown. “I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself and what I’d done to her. And I had come too far to let that destroy everything by then.”

I didn’t even bother to dwell on how selfish he sounded, how egotistical. Mia was dead because of his greed and he still tried to make himself look like a victim, like a good guy.

Lorenzo ran a hand through his hair before inhaling deeply and finally opening his eyes again.

That’s when I noticed movement behind him. Someone had managed to enter the Mill through another way and they were slowly walking up behind Lorenzo who clearly had no idea they were there.

“So you’re gonna kill me too, right? Rob another mother of her child?” I asked, doing my best to distract him and give more time to whoever had come to our rescue.

Next to me, Konstantin’s hand grabbed mine and he squeezed, sending me some of his strength. I squeezed back, basking in the feeling of peace that his skin on mine brought me.

“I don’t have a choice, Lyssa,” Lorenzo whispered, sounding truly sad that he had to do it. “You know way too much. The Brotherhood comes first.”

“Yeah, I got that part. Even before your own sister, right?”

His lips trembled but he nodded once, drawing his gun again and pointing it toward me.

Konstantin moved fast, pushing me further behind him. “If you kill us, you’ll never know peace, Lorenzo. My family will hunt you down and exterminate you.”

“So will The Order if I let you live. At least if I kill you now, I can pretend Batista or Luca did it, and your family will believe that. Even Korolovs can’t kill someone who's already dead.”

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