Page 159 of I'm sorry, Princess

Alisa’s nostrils flare, ready to tear into him, but Kirill’s voice cuts through the noise like a blade.

“I know about Lorenzo and Serena.” His tone is calm, steady, but absolute. “And I support their relationship.”

The shock in Alisa’s face is almost satisfying. Almost.

Lev slams his hand against the table, grinning like a lunatic. “To war then!”

“No war, idiot,” Andres growls, exasperated.

Ice hasn’t moved once. He just stares, bored, like all of this is beneath him. But I know better. He’s calculating. Waiting. Always waiting.

And me?

I sit back in my chair, calm on the outside, but inside, my veins are burning with a single truth.

This isn’t about politics.

It isn’t about Beaumont or the FBI.

This is about blood. About my father. About Serena.

And I’ll tear the world apart before I let anyone take her away from me.

The room empties, chairs scraping against the marble floor as one by one they leave, Kirill, Ice, Lev, even Alisa with her disgust still clinging to the air.

And then it’s just me and Andres.

Silence. Heavy. The kind that presses down on your shoulders like a loaded gun.

I drag my hands over my face, feel the sting in my knuckles from earlier, the dull ache in my temples. Fuck. It’s been a long day. Too long. My body’s begging for rest, but my mind? My mind won’t stop.

All I can think about is her.

Her tears.

Her voice breaking when she said she loved me.

I hate her. God, I hate her for what she did, for what she didn’t tell me. But even in this rage, even in this spiral, I want her. No, I need her. If not out of love, then out of spite. If she betrayed me, I’ll chain her so tight she’ll never betray me again.

But this, this war I’m about to start, this isn’t just for her. This is for my father.

For the truth.

For the closure I’ve been denied for years.

For my mother, who’s too afraid to set foot in New York because of the shadows Beaumont and Archibald cast.

They think they can bury my father’s memory under lies and power? No. I’ll dig it out of their fucking bones if I have to. I’ll burn their names from history.

Andres steps forward, breaking me out of my storm. He doesn’t need words; he just pulls me into a brother’s hug, brief, solid, the kind that says I’ve got you, even if we both go down for this.

“Ready?” he asks quietly. He knows what’s at stake. We both do. This isn’t just another job. This isn’t just blood on the streets.

We’re about to strike at men who move the pieces of this country like gods. One wrong step and we’re finished. Not just us, Andres, Kirill, Lev, Ice, the whole Bratva. We could rot in prison, or we could die in a hail of bullets.

But if it comes to that?

We’ll kill every last one of them and make it look like a fucking accident.