Page 76 of Beautiful Cruelty

"All my life, people have asked me if she was my real sister." Her voice is bitter as she speaks, and she reaches up to wipes her eyes with her free hand. "Just like how they asked if Mom was my real mom."

Lacey takes a breath before continuing, her voice still thick and heavy.

I resist the urge to brush away the tear that escapes down her cheek.

"As a kid, I thought about looking up my birth parents." She stares at our joined hands. "But I couldn't go through with it. What if they still didn't want me? And then after my—" Her voice catches, pain flashing across her delicate features before she cuts herself off.

The sudden silence hangs heavy between us. There's more there, something raw and recent that she's not ready to share.

"She passed away, didn't she?"

A single tear breaks free, trailing down her cheek. Without thinking, I reach out and brush it away with my thumb. Her skin is soft, warm beneath my touch.

"Six years ago," she whispers. "Cancer. It's what made me drop out of fashion school. To give up my dreams."

"I'm sorry,zvyozdochka." My hand lingers on her face as more tears fall.

Each one feels like an accusation. It feels wrong for me to reach out like this, like I'm using her grief as an excuse to touch her again.

But I can't stop myself from wiping them away, one by one.

I watch as Lacey's fingers trace the delicate chain, each movement filled with a mix of love and loss that makes my chest tighten. It's almost as if she's treating it like itdidbelong to her mother.

"Mom's necklace looked so much like this one. Three diamonds, with the center one slightly larger. But it didn't have the row of diamonds along the chain."

"What happened to it?" The words slip out before I can stop them.

Her jaw tightens, amber-flecked eyes hardening with an anger I haven't seen before. "My brother pawned it."

"Why?" My hand curls into a fist at my side. The rage building inside me is unexpected and fierce.

"He's been stealing things from the house to pay for his gambling debts." She practically spits the words. "First it was small things. Dad's cufflinks, some silver frames. Then Mom's jewelry started disappearing."

"And no one stopped him?"

"How could we? He'd just come back when no one was around." Her fingers curl protectively around the necklace. "Of all things he could've taken... that one hurt the most."

The pain and fury in her voice mirrors what I felt when I discovered what Pyotr did to my mother. That same helpless rage at watching someone destroy what should have been protected.

"Did you try to get it back?"

"By the time I found out, it was too late. He already sold it to some pawn shop in Tacoma. I went to every shop I could find, but..." She shakes her head. "Nobody remembered seeing it. Or if they did, they weren't telling me."

Her hands tremble slightly as she holds the necklace. "That's why I kept looking at this one. It's not exactly the same, but..."

"It reminds you of her," I finish softly.

She nods, blinking back fresh tears. "I know it's stupid to get emotional over jewelry?—"

"It's not stupid." My voice comes out rougher than intended. "Some things carry more meaning than their material worth."

I watch the emotions play across her face as she clutches the necklace.

"Thank you for this," she whispers. "It's beautiful, but..." She takes a shaky breath and closes the box. "It's not Mom's."

Something stirs in my chest at the raw pain in her voice. I've spent years building an empire through violence and cunning, yet here I sit, helpless before her grief.

But am I really helpless?

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