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Beneath the photo, the first paragraph of the article reads: “Earlier this week, Konstantin Sokolov and Alexander McAllister announced the engagement of their children. Mikhail Sokolov, the oldest son of the elder Sokolov and heir to the Sokolov fortune, is marrying a relative unknown. All we were able to dig up about Alexander McAllister’s stepdaughter is her name: Cordelia St. Clair.”
I look up slowly, and Yasha is shaking his head. “I didn’t know it was a fake name. Cordelia didn’t appear as Alexander’s stepdaughter anywhere and there was nothing at all about Cora before a year ago.”
I stare down at the picture. At the woman who is clearly Cora—Cordelia, I suppose—with a beaming smile on her face and her arm wrapped around Mikhail Sokolov.
If she lied about her name, what else did she lie about?
If she did this,what else has she done?
84
CORA
“I don’t understand,” I say, even as the horrible truth is taking shape in my mind. “What are you talking about? What did you start?”
She sighs. “It’s a long story, Cora. You’ve been falling for my shit for so long now that I have to take it way back to make this clear for you. It’s going to be, ugh,soannoying to rattle off all the details. Do I really have to?”
She sounds bored, but I can see the excitement brimming behind her eyes. Francia is lit up in a way I’ve never seen before. She’s practically glowing. “Radiating” might be more accurate, because the shit coming off of her is pure toxic.
“You made it clear I can’t get out of here, so what else are we going to do?”
The thought of what else we could do down here is not something I want to think about. I have a feeling Francia doesn’t intend for me to walk out of here alive.
She sighs and twirls her hair around her finger. “This all started… fuck, I guess this all really started when I was a teenager at that godforsaken prep school. I was never enough for the ‘cool girls.’” She sneers. “I’ll give you three guesses who the Queen Bee of the cool girls was, and the first two don’t count.” I stare at her silently, but Francia waves me on. “Go on. Make a guess.”
I gulp. “Katerina?”
“Ding, ding, ding!” Her upper lip curls. “Katerina Sokolov ran that place. If you wanted to be anyone, you needed to know her.”
“Katerina…Sokolov?” I frown. “Was she—”
“Mikhail’s sister? Yeah. Fucking keep up,” she snaps. “How were you engaged to a guy and you didn’t even know his family?”
Because I wasn’t really engaged to him,I want to say. It was all for show. Our fathers set it up, and then suddenly, I was going to parties with Mikhail and picking out a ring. It all happened in a matter of weeks, and there wasn’t much discussion in between. Mikhail didn’t care who I was and I knew it was a waste of time to get to know him when I had no intention of going through with the marriage.
Francia continues on. “Anyway, everyone thought Katerina was God’s gift, so I got to know her. She treated me like her servant. Anything she wanted—‘Fucked-Up Frannywill do it!’”
I shake my head but it won’t settle into place. “Last time we talked, you said you wanted someone to take care of you. You said you were lonely.”
“God, you really ate that up, too.” She laughs cruelly. “I told you what you wanted to hear. It’s called strategic bonding. You wear your miserable backstory on your sleeve and I parroted a version back at you.Help me, Cora, I’m sad and lonely and I just want to be loved.Fuck that—I’m going to save myself.”
“How is this saving yourself?” I ask, gesturing around the dank room. “You are going to murder the only two friends you have? For what?”
Her face splits into a menacing grin. “Foreverything.”
“How? I don’t see how—”
“Then shut the fuck up and let me finish. I’m telling the story here. All you have to do is sit back and listen.” She huffs and continues. “So, I graduate. Katerina goes her way and I go mine. We never speak again, but I see her engagement announcement to Ivan Pushkin. I watch as her life carries on exactly as it was always gonna: high-profile marriage to a connected man, shit out his little brats, and live richly ever after. Every woman’s dream. But then something interesting happens.” She snaps her fingers dramatically. “Katerina disappears. Bam! No trace of her. Here one day, gone the next. Her father is desperate to find her and I see my chance. I call Konstantin Sokolov, I offer my condolences, and I tell him my plan.”
“What plan?” I ask, unable to keep the question inside.
“My plan to worm my way into Ivan’s life and figure out what happened to Katerina.”
My stomach drops. That’s why Francia had so many questions about Katerina. That’s why she wanted proof.
I just told Francia what happened to Katerina. Or, what didn’t happen to her, at least.
She didn’t die.
