“Having another PTSD-incident, are you?”
My eyes spring open.
The woman who’s just slithered into the bridal suite is a serpent in a Prada pantsuit. Her coiffed auburn hair is shiny and perfect, her features twisted in her typical haughty expression.
I push to my feet, chin jerking higher to meet her stare. She’s got four inches on me, even in heels, but I refuse to be intimidated as she sidles closer to me.
“Octavia. What an unpleasant surprise. ”
“Oh, come now — is that any way to greet your stepmother?”
“Perhaps not. But itisthe way to greet the bitch who’s been actively calling for my abdication on every news channel and radio broadcast for the past month.”
“So sensitive! It isn’t personal, darling daughter of mine.” She pauses. “Actually, I take it back. I suppose it is quite personal. Seeing as you have ruined my life, it’s only fitting I return the favor.”
“Iruinedyourlife?” I snort in disbelief. “That’s rich. Seems to me it’s been the other way around since the first moment we met. Or have you not made it your mission to delegitimize me since the day Linus claimed me as his child?”
Her eyes flash at the mention of my father. “Don’t you even say his name. You are unworthy of it.”
“He was my father!”
“He never should’ve claimed you in the first place. It was the beginning of his downfall.”
“Don’t you dare insinuate his death was my fault,” I hiss, feeling my anger rise to a boil. “That’s low — even for you, Octavia.”
She takes a step closer to me, her blue eyes narrowing to pinpricks. For the first time, I feel slightly uneasy at her proximity. I’ve never thought of Octavia as dangerous before. Malicious? Definitely. But never an actual threat to my safety.
Seeing her like this, though… there’s a bizarre light in her eyes I don’t like. Not one bit.
Where the hell is Galizia when I need her?
“You were a plague on his life from the first instant you became a part of it,” my former stepmother seethes. “I should’ve—”
“Should’vewhat?” I snap. “Taken care of me when you had the chance?”
“Trust me, it was not from lack of trying!One bloody sip!” She is practically quivering with rage, her breaths coming short as she spits the words at me. “But you, much like a cockroach, seem to be impossible to eliminate!”
I blink, slowly processing what she’s just said.
Not from lack of trying.
Octavia seems to realize, too late, that’s she’s said too much. That, unwittingly or not, she has admitted something she never intended to. I watch her throat work as she swallows down a sharp inhale, the muscles moving beneath her heavy gold pendant.
One bloody sip.
I feel strangely calm as realization moves through me, pieces of a puzzle clicking together into a complete picture that has long remained a mystery. I suddenly know, without a shadow of a doubt, what happened.
I can feel it in my bones.
“Enlighten me, stepmother.” My voice is colder than ice as I advance on her. This time, she is the one backpedalling. “When, exactly, did you attempt to kill me?”
“I— I’m certain I don’t know what you mean.”
“Oh, the time for lies is long over. You’ve practically admitted it already.”
“You’re hysterical. You misheard me.”
“Tell me the truth or, so help me god, I will allow my guards to interrogate you within the full extent of the law.”