99
AURORA
“Yenin?” Lucian repeats the name softly, and a pained flash of recognition crosses his face.
My heart becomes a rock, sitting down in my gut, pumping heavily. How the hell does Vincent know my real name?
“Look at you, harboring the enemy too? Lucian, my boy.” There is no affection in Vincent’s voice, only anger. With a wave of his frail hand, two of the armed men surge forward. They shove Orion out of the way and grab Cassian before he has a chance to react. One uses the butt of their rifle and slams it into the back of Cassian’s right knee, forcing him down onto his knees with a snarl of pain. The weapons remain trained on him.
Orion moves close to Lucian who looks like he’s coming apart at the seams. Darkness moves like a shadow over Orion’s face as he looks at Vincent.
“What the fuck are you talking about? How dare you come here when Lucian already made it pretty fucking clear that you’re not welcome?—”
“Orion.” Lucian’s voice was different. He sounds like himself and yet as if a piece of him had broken off in the few short minutes between the fight and his father’s arrival.
My heart starts to pound. This is bad. This is more than bad. Already I am wracking my brain for an excuse, a way to deny whatever bullshit is about to come from Vincent until I can tell Lucian the truth. But words clog my throat and I can’t speak.
I can’t do anything. If my heart pounds any faster, I’m certain I will shake apart into tiny pieces and there will be nothing left.
“Yenin,” Lucian repeats and he looks at Orion with such pain in his eyes that my heart shatters. “You know that name, Orion.”
Orion’s lips part repeatedly and he looks around before settling his focus on me. “What the fuck is going on?”
“I don’t—” I try to say, gasping out the words but Vincent cuts me off.
“You,” he sneers. “Your little whore is a spy and she has been, this entire time. You, Lucian, were too fucking enamored with her cunt to notice.”
“No,” Lucian says and his heavy eyes land on me. “Father, you’re lying. You’re lying.”
“Show him,” Vincent barks. One of the guards moves out from behind Lucian and shoves a red folder into his hands.
“Do you want to tell him or shall I?” Vincent’s cold gaze pins me in place, stripping me bare as if the fabric around me doesn’t exist. I’m numb. I can’t think of anything to say and still, I cling to the hope that Vincent knows nothing worthwhile.
Lucian opens the folder slowly. Orion leans over to read too as Vincent starts to speak.
“Aurora here is a rat. Her real name is Aurora Yenin, daughter of Ana Yenin. Is that name familiar?” He glances at Lucian, Orion, and then Cassian, but only Lucian half nods his head as he reads.
“Yenin?” Orion asks, taking the file from Lucian’s hands because his were trembling too much for the words to be clear.
“I remember the name,” Lucian says tightly.
“Do you remember the night your brother died?” Vincent said, turning and spitting in my direction.
I’m stunned. His brother? Lucian had mentioned a brother the night he confessed everything to me, but I fail to see the connection to all of this. I need Lucian to look at me. If he looks at me, maybe I will find my voice.
“Do you remember when he came to me, telling me that there was a family rising up quietly? That had more money and power than they let on, gaining loyalty like it was there’s to take?” Vincent spoke slowly and his eyes never left his son. “Do you remember how many shipments we lost to them, how many men we lost when we were getting attacked nightly?”
Lucian nods slowly, turning to meet his father’s gaze. Orion takes over the file and the paper begins to crumple under the strength of his grip as he reads whatever is on the page.
“All of that, the destruction and the death, was all orchestrated by the Everhart so your brother, being the good son that he was, went to take care of it. Didn’t he?” Vincent continues.
The connection begins to weave together within my own mind and iron tangs at the back of my tongue.
Oh no. Please, no.
“He killed them. He took men and he wiped out the entire Everhart family line as revenge for the bloodshed but not before one of them got a good shot off.” Vincent’s mouth twists. “I held your brother as he died, and the only thing that made his sacrifice worth it was knowing the Everhart had been wiped out. He died, removing their stain from this world and avenging every man we lost in that war! Only one survived.”
Vincent’s eyes narrow at me, and another ice-cold chill runs down my limbs. I already know how this story ends. I’ve heard it enough times.
“A girl. The youngest daughter crawled out of that wreck. Ana. The little wretch grew up and changed her name, married an American to hide who she was, and then she had her own daughter. A bitch she raised and trained, and then planted right under your very nose!”
Orion’s head raises slowly and the dark shadow across his features deepens. I don’t know where to look. The only one that gives me eye contact is Cassian, but through my building tears, I can’t tell if he hates me or understands me.
“And now look what’s happened,” Vincent snarls. “Your own child is in the hospital!”
“No!” I surge forward suddenly, causing all eyes to snap to me. “That wasn’t me! I would never hurt Selene; I love her like she’s my own. I had nothing to do with that, nothing at all so don’t you dare say that! I would never hurt her!”
“But you would hurt me?” Lucian’s face is as dark as thunder and his voice is so empty, so emotionless that he’s unrecognizable.
“N-no,” I stammer. “I would never, I didn’t!”
“Is he lying?” Lucian snatches the file from Orion’s hands and holds it up, causing papers and photographs to scatter down to the ground. Pictures, some grainy and some clear, depicting my past family and a few of me with my mother. The lie clings to my throat, waiting to be spoken despite the evidence in front of me.
“Tell me!” Lucian yells deeply and I flinch, clutching at my robe.
“No! No…he’s not lying. Your father is telling the truth,” I say shakily. “But please, it’s not what you think. It’s not what you think at all, if you’d just let me explain!”
Something inside Lucian snaps. I see it in his eyes, as the last flickering warmth in them snuffs out. The folder crumples to nothing in his hand and he slowly stalks forward.
“You came into my home. I allowed you into my life and I let you near my child. I trusted you with things I had never shared with anyone. I fell in love with you and all this time you were a snake, waiting in the grass to poison me.”
“No, I?—”
“You’re nothing but a lie. A lie wrapped up in this perfect parcel for me. I fell for you and you’re nothing but a ghost. What were you going to do, huh? Poison me in my sleep? Slit my throat? Weaken me so you could bring me to your bitch of a mother?” His voice gets angrier and angrier with every step closer.
I shrink back, utterly thoughtless. All I need to do is explain and maybe he will understand.
“Please, let me tell you the truth!”
“I wouldn’t believe the truth if you stripped naked and had it tattooed on your body,” Lucian spits. He’s so close that the hatred visible in his eyes seeps into my mind like a fog. Gone is the warmth, the affection, and the love I’m so used to seeing there.
There’s only death.
“Was it you that told Cassian’s men he was here?”
“What?” My heart rattles desperately in my chest. “No! I never?—”
“Did you tell anyone that he was here?!”
“No! I—” The lie chokes me, and the truth bleeds onto my face. I’m exhausted. I can’t keep up with this and I’m losing. “Please,” I gasp wetly, tears finally falling. “Let me explain.”
“You’re dead to me.” He’s an inch away from me and his words cut deep like blades. He’s going to kill me. I see it in his eyes and I understand it.
It’s what I always feared he would do if he found out the truth. In dreams, I tell him the truth and he holds me close and understands. Understands that I had no choice and was raised on my mother’s truth. Understands that I learned things on my own and changed my outlook, and that I would never hurt him.
Reality is different. Colder. Selene is in the hospital and all he sees is a traitor.
Behind him, Vincent’s sharp yet smug look is sickening. He knew this would happen. I don’t know how deep his involvement goes, but I know he’s my reaper.
Suddenly, Orion is between me and Lucian, his back to me.
“Lucian, let me take care of her,” Orion says, his voice flat. “Let me do it.”
Lucian doesn’t break eye contact with me, pouring his hate into my soul with as much venom as he can muster.
I take it all. I deserve it.
“No,” Lucian growls.
“You need me to do this,” Orion says. He places one hand on Lucian’s chest and finally, Lucian looks away from me to his bodyguard. “Let me take care of her, once and for all.”
Orion or Lucian, it doesn’t matter who kills me.
I just pray that it’s quick.
