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He and Caesar are eerily similar.
What did he mean by that? And why did I feel like he was trying to tell me something? I knew the story of Julius Caesar well. His friends stabbing him one by one, displaying their betrayal before his eyes was always a point that stuck with me. It taught me that I could not rely on anyone. Everyone was capable of deceiving and hurting you.
Is that what had happened to my father? Had the people closest to him been the ones to organize his death?
No. I shook my head, trying to rid myself of those thoughts. My father would have never been careless to have a viper within his midst. But then, Julius had been careful too, and look what had happened to him.
A cold shiver ran down my spine. I stabbed the fine wood with my father's knife and twirled the handle in between my fingers. My thoughts were running mad and I felt like I was going crazy. I had vowed to myself almost ten years ago that I would use this very dagger to slit the throat of the person responsible for their deaths.
Back then I believed I would catch the killer within a matter of weeks. But here I was, nine years down the line, and still no killer.
“Fuck!” I stabbed the wood of the desk, creating permanent dents in the expensive material. “I will find you, even if I have to die trying.”
My phone buzzed, and when I saw the name flash across the screen, I felt some of the frustrations dissipate. I swiped across the screen and placed it against my ear.
“Uncle,” I greeted him as soon as I picked up. “You took long.”
“Good to hear from you too, Vina. I have been well, how have you been, cara?” The sarcasm dripped from his tone. “That is how you greet properly, Savina. I taught you better than that.”
I rolled my eyes. “Small talk is for people I actually don’t like.”
“Vina, cara, how are you keeping up in Manhattan? I know you don’t like it, but it’s for your safety.”
I leaned back in my chair and blew out a tired breath, the heat in my body rising for some reason. “Well, I am yet to murder my husband in his sleep, so I will call that progress.”
Dimitri’s deep chuckle filtered in from the receiver. “Violence is not the only way to solve things, Vina. Sometimes you can just talk through your issues.”
I scoffed. “The day I start talking about my feelings with Andres will be the day hell freezes over. That man and I will never see eye to eye, even if the fate of humanity depended on it. I’m only here at your request, uncle. Otherwise, you know I would be at the townhouse right now.”
I trusted Dimitri with my life, and if he thought that being here was good for me, then I would follow his lead.
“Enough about my farce of a marriage. Did you find anything new about the men we captured over the years?” I had tasked Dimitri with looking into the men we executed who were working with my family’s killer. I had made sure to make a public example of them. At the time, I had been overrun with a plethora of emotions, and should have rather handled their judgment away from the public eye.
“I don’t know why you want to look into them again, Vina. We already gathered as much information back then. Four out of the six men were contracted by one of Vladimir’s close contacts. And the other two were more or less mercenaries. They did not belong to a specific family.”
This was not the news that I had been wanting to hear.
“Cara, what’s going on? What has you looking into this case so closely again? Did something happen? Are you having nightmares again?”
My breath hitched in my throat. After the murders, I couldn’t sleep through the night. I was riddled with nightmares of that night for months before I finally got on medication and got the nightmares under control.
“No,” I quipped, “I’m just frustrated and tired. Felipe is right, I should have caught their killers by now, but I—”
“Felipe? Vina, don’t listen to that idiot. He knows nothing.”
I was a little taken aback by the heat that backed his words. Uncle was never one to show his true feelings about people, but over the past few weeks he made it obvious that he did not like Felipe. Even though it was the two of them who had struck the deal for my marriage.
“He may know nothing, uncle, but at least he caught his wife’s killer.”
“Is that what he told you?” Why could I sense the growing rage in his words? This was a very odd reaction from him. “The devil is known to tell lies, Vina.”
“You think he’s a devil?”
“If not worse.” He cleared his throat. “I don’t want to talk about him anymore.”
“Testy today, aren’t we?” I mocked him a little, but I was genuinely concerned about his reaction. It felt a bit… rash. “How is Martina?”
I missed her. She was my balance. In the same way darkness could not exist without light, I could not properly function without her. She was the yin to my yang. She balanced me out, and now that I had spent an extended amount of time away from her, I could feel the shift.
