Page 7 of The Pretty Savage

And Tyler—my sweet, soft, and caring Tyler—only wanted to impress Heinrich, so that maybe, one day, he would be able to join the Crimson Roses. A squadron of soldiers used by governments around the world to do their dirty little deeds. He was only eighteen when he disappeared, and he was the last person I allowed myself to love.

Neither one of us knew that The Schatten wasn’t welcome anymore at the Academy. It took me years to figure out why Tyler was sent there, when it was obvious that an invitation couldn’t have come through regular channels, but I never found out the truth.

"Open it, Vega," Alena urged me, her eyes pleading. To play along, to do what Heinrich wanted by being a good little soldier one last time and keeping my mouth shut. She didn't want me to compromise her entire plan, and I hated her just a little bit for it.

With steady hands, I turned the envelope around, seeing the golden seal of St. Vasili's Academy, with the two lions and vine leaves around them, my heart thrumming in my chest, the unsteady thump-thump echoing in my ears.

I ripped it open, destroying the seal, and pulled out a letter the same color as the envelope, unfolding it slowly. The envelope fell onto my lap as my eyes traced the white ink on the black paper, stuck on the first sentence that I kept reading over and over again.

Dear Ms. Konstantinova,

Congratulations! The committee at St. Vasili’s Academy has reviewed all the eligible applicants for our esteemed institution, and we are happy to offer you admission to the 2023/24 term.

"This is bullshit," I murmured, more to myself than to them.

"What was that, Vega?" Heinrich asked, his voice filled with false sincerity.

"I said," I looked up at him, "this is bullshit. How the fuck would they know about me?"

"Vega!" Alena admonished, but I didn't want to look at her.

"No, seriously. How would they know about me when we make it our mission to keep all of our agents in the shadows?" Heinrich fidgeted in his seat, his eyes refusing to meet mine. He pulled the strings, I got that, but The Schatten only functioned because we stayed vigilant and we were always careful not to leave any trace of any of us in the world. Not to mention the fact that they couldn’t have known that I worked for The Schatten. If they did, they never would’ve sent this.

Vega Konstantinova was the name that was given to me the moment I stepped inside this building, but she only existed in theory and nowhere else. I didn't have a social security number, medical records—nothing. So why would he do this?

Tyler wanted to go to St. Vasili's Academy, and while my thirteen-year-old brain couldn't understand why, I let him go, promising we would write as much as we could. It was a gamble, him going there, and look what that gamble got him. It sent him to an early death, because I had no doubt that his body laid somewhere at the bottom of Lake Valenheim, located just underneath the cliff that housed the Academy.

"What lies did you sell them, Heinrich? What did you tell them when they asked who I was and which family I belonged to?"

"Vega! Stop this. It's not?—"

"But it is, Alena," I cut her off, this time looking at her. "I did many reckless things in my short life, but we all know that going to the Academy and lying to those people is a death sentence. Come on, dude! The committee, as they so eloquently put it, hates The Schatten. It is controlled by the Zylla family."

"Exactly," Heinrich spoke, grinning from ear to ear when I looked at him. "It is being controlled by the Zylla family—for now."

"What do you mean?" I didn't like this. I didn't like it one bit.

"The Zylla family has been on top of the food chain for many, many years," Heinrich continued talking, getting up from his chair and walking toward the bookshelf located just behind him, pulling out a book with a frayed brown cover, whose title I couldn't see. "They hold too much power, too much influence in our world, and this stops now." He sat down, dropping the book between us on top of the desk. "This is their history, basically everything you need to know about them, up until today."

"I don't understand."

"Their son, Adrian, is going to be at the Academy this year, and I want to destroy them from the inside. I want Gerard Zylla to lose everything he has, all thanks to us. He thinks he's better than us, smarter than us," he kept on ranting, cursing the Zylla corporation and their entire family, and I realized that there was more to this story than meets the eye. "Vega, I wanted to tell you this sooner, but the Zylla family, their oldest son…" Heinrich suddenly looks uncomfortable. "I suspect they are the ones that killed Tyler."

His words pierced through the stitches I had arranged over my heart to stop it from bleeding out when I realized I would never get to see Tyler again. When my last connection to anything good and pure shattered, I made sure to stitch my heart well enough to withstand anything coming my way in the future. But his words…

I had spent years thinking about the things that could have happened. I went to Wolfhöle, the little town located just at the bottom of the Alps, where the Academy was located, trying to figure out what went wrong, but I never found out the truth. I couldn't pull a definitive face from the list of culprits I blamed for Tyler's death, and it bothered me more than I cared to admit.

I knew what Heinrich was playing at. He wanted to use my anger to do his dirty little job, to gather everything I could on the Zylla family, and to destroy them how they destroyed Tyler. And if it was any other situation, any other person, I would've laughed in his face. I would've told him to find somebody else to do it because I was out, because he promised. I would've killed him on the spot if he tried to deny me my freedom, but I couldn't.

I made a promise seven years ago that I would find whoever hurt Tyler. I promised him, wherever he was, that I would make sure they pay.

"What about my freedom?" I asked instead of blindly accepting the mission, keeping my eyes on the book sitting between us. "You made me a promise, Heinrich. You told me this mission would be my last one."

"And I lied." He nodded. "But I need you for this. We," he looked at Alena, "need you to do this. I have all the information here." He pulled out a brown manila file, handing it over to me. "Your past, who you are, who your parents are, where you're coming from. My friends from Russia have vouched for you and have added you to their records. This will be easy. You won't even have to stay until the end of the year. As soon as you get everything we need, you can get out of there and have your freedom."

I looked at him, then at the manila file I was holding in my hand now, along with the letter from the Academy, and then at Alena who kept on nodding slowly, trying to persuade me to accept it. We all had our reasons for why we did some things, and I knew Alena needed me to play along. She needed me to do this so we could hit the bigger shark in the end.

It was all part of our plan, but plans could change and going to the Academy wasn't a part of mine. But I had to admit, the mere thought that I would be able to find out what happened to Tyler and why it happened, made me happy.

---