That gets a reaction.
Not much. A flicker in her eyes. Insult, maybe.
Good.
“He was never in my fold,” she says.
“No?”
“No.”
“Dmitri is not bright enough to come up with all of that by himself,” I say. “I know for a fact he wasn’t working alone.”
“And you thought I helped him?” she scoffs. “You’re truly blind.”
I smile without humor. “You’re giving him too much credit.”
“Dmitri is foolish, not brainless.”
“He’s a spoiled dog that bites because no one trained him properly.”
Her lips press together.
There. She agrees.
I use it.
“You hated him,” I say. “Almost as much as I do.”
“I hated what he represented.”
“My father’s legitimate son.”
“My sister’s replacement,” she snaps. “He and his vile mother both. They never deserved what they got.”
I watch her breathe.
There’s the wound. Old, infected, never cleaned. My mother was not only mine to grieve. Larisa lost her sister and let that loss grow teeth until it needed someone else’s blood to feed on.
“You wanted Dmitri dead,” I say.
“I wanted Kirill to pay.”
“But I wouldn’t go far enough.”
Her eyes lift to mine.
Now the truth has begun to come out of hiding.
“You had his warehouses,” she says. “His men. His routes. His debts. You were choking him slowly.”
“That is how wars are won.”
“That is how cowards pretend patience is strategy.”
I say nothing.
She steps toward me, anger finally breaking through the polish. “He destroyed your mother. He gave Dmitri everything and gave you scraps. You should have burned his house years ago.”