Bleeding Through the Veil of Scars

𝙷𝚎𝚛 𝙽𝚊𝚖𝚎 𝙸𝚜 𝙴𝚔𝚊𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚊

The office was silent, thick with the scent of aged leather and power. 

The soft glow of the desk lamp cast long, skeletal shadows on the walls—perfect for monsters like me. 

I leaned back, the leather chair cradling me like a throne built for betrayal, and let the silence soak in.

The performance was nearly over. 

The final act waited, poised and loaded with carnage.

I had played the innocent, the delicate girl with wide eyes and a loyal heart. 

Lucien had swallowed the illusion whole, never questioning the lies that dripped like honey from my lips. 

His arrogance had made it easy—he thought himself untouchable, thought me harmless. A fatal miscalculation.

Behind closed doors, behind bedroom smiles and whispered affections, I had been engineering his ruin.

The phone buzzed against the polished wood. 

I didn't flinch. I lifted it with gloved precision, dialing the only number that truly mattered. 

The connection rang, each tone like a knell for those about to fall.

And then—his voice, a velvet blade.

"Ekaterina," he said. My true name. No soft disguises. No western softness. Just the icy syllables that spelled blood and empire.

"Uncle," I replied. Cold. Sharp. Efficient. "It's time."

A beat of silence, then, "What news?"

"Serafina Moretti has been leaking false intelligence. She believes she's orchestrating a trap, manipulating us with fabricated trails. She's trying to fracture our alliance. Her arrogance blinds her."

There was a pause—charged, lethal. Dimitri always appreciated irony.

"Continue," he said.

"She thinks the lies she feeds me will shatter your trust in me. She wants me cast out. Exposed. But every step she takes only tightens the noose around her neck. She's dancing on a stage I built for her."

I could hear the grin in his silence. 

Could see it—wolfish, gleaming.

I went on, clinical and cutting. "Lucien has unknowingly handed me everything. A comprehensive tour of his empire. His bars, his stash houses, storage locations, encrypted delivery routes. I've mapped his entire supply network down to the last shipment. He doesn't realize he's fed me the arteries of his power. And we—we—will slit every vein."

"Excellent," Dimitri said. "What do you propose?"

I stood, walking slowly toward the window as the city sprawled below me like prey. My reflection ghosted against the glass—hard eyes, sharper smile. A predator.

"We strike at every artery, all at once. Supply chains, laundering points, safehouses. We bury the Italians and French in chaos. While they scramble to survive, we rip the spine from their operation. The Russians will not just win—we will erase them."

"And the Americans, Mexicans, the Asians?"

I didn't hesitate. "Let them watch. Let them see blood in the streets and smoke over cities. Let them hesitate while we plant our flags in territory they thought untouchable. By the time they react, they'll be boxed in. We'll make their alliances irrelevant."

Dimitri's laughter came like thunder before the storm. Cold. Triumphant.

"A new era, then," he said. "Ours."

I didn't smile. I didn't feel triumph. This was not joy—it was inevitability.

"This world was always meant to kneel before us," I said. "The old guard forgot what fear feels like. I'll remind them."

His voice dipped low, reverent. "Proceed."

The line went dead.

I set the phone down with mechanical calm. The silence returned, thick and knowing.

Lucien. Foolish, beautiful Lucien. 

I had studied him the way predators study prey—patiently, without pity. 

I had touched him with hands that would destroy him. 

Kissed him with a mouth that fed lies into his soul.

He would never know how thoroughly I gutted him.

The more time I spent with him, the more certain I became: Lucien was not just vulnerable—he was a liability to his own legacy. 

His misplaced sense of loyalty, his emotional entanglements, his desire for something resembling peace—they had made him soft. And softness was fatal.

He had exposed everything to me, thinking it was an offering of love. In truth, it was a sacrifice. His blood for our future.

I walked to the mirror hanging beside the bookshelf. 

My reflection stared back at me, cold and perfect. 

There was nothing soft about me. Nothing redeemable. 

I was the legacy of generations of brutality, the blade hidden beneath silk.

I remembered being a child in Moscow—watching as my mother slit a traitor's throat at the dinner table without spilling a drop on her pearls. I remembered the lesson etched into my skin with every scream and shattered bone: mercy was for the dead.

I had taken that to heart. Ekaterina Ivanova did not love. She consumed.

And Lucien was my final feast before the slaughter.

As I moved through the office, I felt no remorse. No lingering sentiment. 

He was nothing but a ladder. A stepping stone crushed under my heel as I climbed to dominance.

The façade of affection had served its purpose. Now, it would be discarded like a bloodied glove. Ekaterina no longer needed to hide behind a smile.

Outside, the city buzzed. Naive. Loud. Unaware.

Soon, they would feel it—like a shift in gravity, like the breath before a bullet tears through bone. The Russian flag would not wave. It would consume.

And I, the architect of this coming ruin, would watch the world burn from the throne built on ash and deception.

The night air was cool when I stepped out, laced with the scent of gasoline and the quiet hum of anticipation. 

The city blinked beneath me like prey under a hunter's gaze. I lit a cigarette, inhaling the fire, watching the tip burn bright like the promise of war.

Tomorrow, blood would spill. Empires would fall.

And I—Ekaterina—would be the last one standing.