Page 148 of Royal Bargain

I nod, even though the pain is starting to crack through the fog.

But the real storm—the why of all this—is only just beginning.

The antiseptic stings like hell as Liam cleans the wound on my foot, but I barely feel it.

I can’t stop staring across the room.

Anatoly stands with his back to us, one hand braced against the wall, the other twitching slightly at his side. He’s murmuring to himself in Russian—low, rough words I can’t quite catch.

But I understand the tone.

He’s rattled.

I’ve never seen him like this. Not even when the deal with the Irish collapsed years ago. Not when Aleksey got shot. Not when I walked out and didn’t look back.

But now, he looks… haunted.

“I should’ve known,” he mutters, voice thick and raw. “She was always clever. Always watching. Mira never disappears—she just hides.”

His shoulders rise and fall as if the air is heavy, too heavy to breathe.

“She’s been out there this whole time,” he whispers, almost to himself. “Playing the long game. Watching us rot from the inside.”

I swallow hard, my body sagging against the cushions. The adrenaline’s fading now, leaving nothing but exhaustion and a bone-deep ache in its wake.

Liam finishes wrapping my foot and presses a kiss to my temple, gentle, grounding.

But nothing feels solid anymore.

Dariy tried to kill me.

My father saved me.

And Miranda—Miranda, the woman who gave me a stage, who told me I was special, who promised me a future outside of my father’s shadow—she is the one pulling all the strings.

My throat tightens.

None of it makes sense. Or maybe it makes too much sense and that’s the problem. The betrayal burns, deeper than the bullet wound. I want to cry, scream, run… but I can’t even move. I’m so tired.

“I didn’t see it,” Anatoly says again, quieter now. “She played us all.”

For once, I believe him.

Anatoly turns from the wall at last.

His face is pale beneath the hard angles, and for once, there’s no mask—just a man who’s bleeding in a different way. He drags a chair across the floor and sinks into it across from me and Liam. For a long moment, he doesn’t say anything.

“I should have recognized her.”

I look up sharply.

He rubs a hand down his face, slow and tired. “Her name was Mira, once upon a time. And she was my sister.”

A beat of silence.

“Our father married her mother when we were just kids. I was four. Mira was two. Everyone expected me to resent getting a new sister, but Mira and I… we were inseparable at first. I was overjoyed to have a sibling. Someone to play with.”

He pauses, his eyes drifting somewhere far beyond the walls.