Page 5 of Sweet Deception

I panicked.

My hand shot out. I grabbed the nearest thing, a plate from the untouched breakfast and hurled it at his shoulder.

It shattered.

He didn’t flinch.

I grabbed a fork.

“Let her go!”

And then, instinct took over. I thrust it deep into his arm.

He grunted, his grip faltering. Elisabetta crumpled to the floor in a heap, gasping and coughing, eyes wild.

Blood dripped from Gleb’s sleeve in a thin, clean line.

He turned toward me, slow and controlled, and pulled the fork from his arm with an awful crunch.

“Why?” he asked, voice quiet. Measured.

My throat tightened. “You were going to kill her.”

Stillness.

The kind that made your skin crawl.

Then, he looked down at Elisabetta, who now knelt on the floor, clutching her throat.

“She’s been poisoning you,” he said.

My breath caught.

“No.” My voice cracked. “That’s not possible. You’re lying.”

His tone remained infuriatingly calm. “Ask her.”

I turned to Elisabetta. “Tell me he’s lying.”

She didn’t speak.

Gleb’s voice hardened. “Confess. Or die.”

Her shoulders trembled. Tears streaked down her face. “I’m sorry, Anna.”

My heart squeezed.

“Elisabetta, no. Tell me the truth.”

She choked out a sob. “I was following your father’s orders. He said... he said you had to stay weak. That you could never walk again. I... I just did what he told me.”

The floor dropped out beneath me.

My father.

The man who kissed my forehead, who told me bedtime stories and called me his princess.

Five years.