Page 8 of Vendetta Crown

She pauses at the doorway, nodding once. No empty reassurances, no meaningless platitudes. Just that simple acknowledgment of a truth we both understand.

Then she's gone, Artyom following silently behind her.

The door clicks shut, leaving me alone with my nieces and their two guards.

My family, I realize.

What's left of it.

"Uncle Ruslan," Mikayla's voice is barely above a whisper. "What happened to Aurora?"

The question cuts through the haze of medication, bringing a fresh wave of guilt crashing over me. How do I explain to a fifteen-year-old that I failed to protect someone I promised to keep safe?

"I wronged her," I manage, the words thick on my tongue as the drugs pull me deeper into their embrace. "I didn't trust her when I should have. And now she's in danger."

Mikayla's eyes fill with tears. "It's my fault," she whispers, her shoulders hunching forward. "I helped Mama break into the security system without even knowing it."

"No." I shake my head, my movements clumsy but determined. "You don't need to apologize for your mother's sins, Mika."

Her hand joins her sisters in mine and I can't help notice how they're all trembling.

"What will you do?" she asks, her eyes searching mine.

The question is loaded with implications. About Aurora. About her mother. About all of us caught in this web of betrayal and blood.

"I don't know," I confess.

I should lie. I should tell her everything will be fine, that I have a plan, that the monster can't hurt them as long as I'm around. But the words won't come. I've never lied to my nieces, and I won't start now, even if the truth offers no comfort.

Mikayla's eyes drop to our linked hands. "I'm scared, Uncle Ruslan."

"It's okay to be scared,dorogaya," I whisper, giving my nieces' hands a gentle squeeze. "That's the only time you can be brave."

Slowly, the drugs pull me deeper into darkness with each passing second.

"Be good to each other," I manage to whisper as my eyelids grow too heavy to keep open. "I'll see you when I wake up."

The words slur together, floating away from me like smoke. I hear Sofia's muffled sob, feel Stella's small fingers squeeze mine one last time, sense Mikayla's solemn presence beside the bed.

Then nothing.

Darkness swallows me whole, but it's not empty.

Aurora appears, her image crystal clear against the void. She's not how I feared I'd see her. Cowering, broken, and begging for my help as that monster drags her away.

No.

Myzarechkastands tall, her chin lifted in defiance. Her hazel eyes burn with a fire I've seen flickering beneath her gentle surface from the moment we met. The look of a woman who crossed an entire country to escape a monster once before.

The look of a survivor.

Even in this drug-induced vision, she's breathtaking. Strong. Fierce.

In my vision, she speaks without words, her eyes telling me what I need to hear.

That she won't give up. That she'll find a way. That the girl who rebuilt her entire life from nothing isn't about to surrender now.

I reach for her, but my limbs are leaden weights. She's slipping away from me, but her determined look never falters.

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