Dance Of Devils

Eight - Nadia

Chapter eight 

Nadia 

Sleep didn't come easily that night. Nadia knew the safe bubble she had created with Lorenzo was soon to burst and she would have to face reality, she just hadn't realized how soon it would be. She just got him back and now...

The bed was empty when she awoke, the sheets cold beside her. Lorenzo was nowhere to be seen, the room silent, his absence palpable and it took everything in her not to cry at the loss of him beside her, of his steady comfort and warmth. Even after she had lashed out at him, he had done everything in his power to ensure she felt secure, safe, loved.

It made sense. Him leaving. It made sense he wouldn't want to deal with her, knowing what she was, who she truly was. Knowing he truly did have the enemy in his midst. She couldn't blame him. But it hurt to know even the love he said he had for her wasn't enough to overcome his hatred of the Russians. And yet the way he loved jade, as though she was his own flesh and blood—

He was processing, she told herself, trying to take in this new information, it wouldn't change a thing between them. Laying there, the empty space beside her felt like another nail in the coffin. Nothing could salvage what had happened, and nothing could change the past, but she had the power to finish what was started, the power to end another war started by greedy men consumed by their need to win.

Nadia was up and dressed before she had even realized what she was doing, her body working on impulse alone as her mind struggled to work through the revelations she faced after visiting the damned Oracle, the new loathing she had for her past. For a fleeting moment, she wished that it was her that had died in her parents' stead. Her false parents, her real parents. She wished for the death that kept spitting her back out into the flames. Burning and burning and burning. She tasted the ash on her tongue, smelt the blood in the air.

A reckoning was coming, the second coming of the devil. Of the Reaper. Of Nadia Fucking Regarzza. Not the Russian daughter, not the heir to the Russian empire, but the wretched child born screaming in blood. The child that had been dragged through life kicking and screaming until she was silent and lethal.

That wasn't certain, but there was a distant part of her that ached at the revelation, in her bones, she knew why she always had a knack for destruction. She was created by it, in it, and for it.

There was no solid proof, she had to remind herself, there was nothing that proved she was the missing Russian heir or that tied the two girls together other than some mutterings from an unreliable source and a gut feeling. Nothing had survived the desecration of the Russian empire all those years ago, and anything that might have made it would have been destroyed when Ivan disappeared. Nadia knew they needed that proof before she could even consider her next move. But she didn't care, she would twist and manipulate and devour the assholes who did this.

Lorenzo had rules he had to abide by, people he needed to keep safe, and businesses to protect. He had to play the game to search for the truth and appease the people who relied on him. But Nadia...  Nadia didn't have anyone who relied on her or any rules she had to stick to, not anymore.

She had known what needed to be done for days, but with the new knowledge she had, her decision was all too certain. Nadia had put it off for too long in the hopes of finding another way, to protect Leo. But Lorenzo had an army behind him, he didn't need her. Not truly. None of them did.

There was one person who would have all her answers and only one place she would find them.

Nadia decided it was time to end it, once and for all.