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“You didn’t raise us from the beginning, Meredith. Remember that.”
“If I had my choice, I would have.”
“What do you mean by that?” I ask, stepping in closer. She picks up her glass and leans back in the chair.
“Exactly what I said. If I had a choice, you would have been with me since you both could walk. Then I wouldn’t have to deal with this vigilante shit.” She shakes her head and mumbles, “Fucking foster system.”
I laugh. Vigilante shit? She was the very person who dragged us into this world.
“Do you even know their names?” I ask. “Our parents. Do you know their names?” Alek and I only looked into our family once. With something as common as Ivanov for a last name, we didn’t get far. But that’s because the moment Meredith found out, she was a raging storm, and she forbade us to focus on anything past her domain and rule.
“No, why would I?” She huffs, but the way she says it makes me question her honesty. She pulls a cigarette out and lights it with the gold-dragon-engraved lighter. “You two have been fucking up everything I’ve created these last few months.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I snap.
“Watch your tone with me!” Her eyes narrow.
“Or what, Meredith? You’re going to fucking shoot me?”
“Don’t think you’re an exception, girl,” she says in a threatening tone, and it provokes my own lethal edge.
“Don’t forget you’re becoming senile, you old bitch. None of this is yours.” I sweep my finger in the air. “This is what Alek and I created. So you had a few standing ovations at the auctions you had in your day, but you could have never built it to what it is today without us. This is none of you and all of us.”
She scoffs. “You’d be nothing without me, you ungrateful brat.”
I laugh again. “Is this why you sent Rick to me, to try to control me? Have you truly lost your fucking mind? You think because I’m seeing someone that it’s going to destroy everything I’ve built? How weak you’ve become if you’re so easily shaken by any man’s presence.”
Her hand slams on the desk. “I fucking made you, and I will take you out of this world just as quickly if you do not obey me!”
I choke on a laugh, and silence fills the void. I shouldn’t be shocked, but I am.
“You wear his jewelry like some branded whore,” she accuses. “What happened to your loyalty to your brother, Anya? Seems short lived since you’ve taken your men off tracking him. Where’s your loyalty to your family?”
I don’t need to tell her that Alek called me days ago to call off the search for him. I didn’t want to, but I chose to. For him. “You wanted me to announce Alek dead only days ago, and now you’re using him against me and telling me I’m not loyal.” I flash a wicked grin. “My, your manipulation is getting rusty, you old bitch.”
Her teeth grind.
“I suggest you leave,” I say as I approach my desk and stare down at her. I grab the gold lighter she always carries and light the flame. “Before I torch this mansion with you inside.”
“You wouldn’t dare. You love your auctions too much.”
I grin. “I have other auction houses. And I can rebuild any mansion whenever the fuck I please. I will continue to grow this empire. You can either stand in my shadow or crumble with a small piece of it.”
“You’ll come to your senses real fucking soon, girl. You will beg for my mercy,” she snarls as she stands. “You’re nothing without me.”
“I don’t think I will. Now, get the fuck out.”
I drop the lighter, and she snatches it up, her chin raised high, not bothering to look at Clay and Vance as she leaves.
“Are you sure it’s okay to let her leave?” Clay asks.
A weight shifts inside me, and for some reason, I feel stronger. More powerful. “Yes. I think it’s quite all right. This is my empire now. Entirely.”
“If Alek comes back?” Vance asks.
“He grovels,” I say, leaving no room for argument. I don’t want to do this without my brother, but I sure as hell can. “Then I’ll see which leg I’ll break first before I let him back in.”
I might be heartless, but I don’t want to lose the only two people I’ve ever been able to call family in one night.
