“An old-school homebrew to force a miscarriage.”
He hisses, a sharp inhale. “Someone tried to kill the baby?”
My hand tightens around the phone. “So it would seem. The bitch who helped her run, then jammed the knife in her back. Freya.”
“Where is this bitch now?” Lev asks.
“She made a run for it before I could catch her,” I say. “Before I even saw her. But it doesn’t matter. I know who she is.”
“Anton… you’re starting to lose me again.”
“Doesn’t this feel familiar to you, Lev?” I ask. “She used to pull these fucking deceptive mind games all the time.”
“Anton—”
“Listen to me, Lev.”
The silence on the other line is heavy. He’s already caught up—he’s no fool—but I keep talking anyway. There’s something cathartic about walking him through my process of realization. It helps curtail the rush of murderous adrenaline that shoots through my body every time I think of the bitch who tried to kill my family.
“We never saw Marina’s body, did we?”
Lev grunts in frustration. “Yulian did.”
“Exactly. Yulian fucking did.”
It takes Lev a second to understand what I’m suggesting, but then he scoffs. “What reason would Yulian have to lie about the body?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “But I’m going to find out.”
“Listen, the devil knows Yulian and I have had our differences over the years. But there’s no way he would—”
“He was sloppy, Lev,” I say. “He was clumsy. He got rid of it before I could verify if it was her or not.”
“Did you see her there today?” Lev asks.
“No. She made a run for it right before I arrived.”
“Then how do you know it’s really her?”
“Instinct,” I say. “Experience. Fate.”
“Fate?” Lev repeats incredulously. “Since when do you believe in that kind of hocus-pocus bullshit?”
“I should have been the one to kill her,” I snarl. “I wish I had done it. I wish I deserved the rumor that’s being spread as we speak.”
“Oh, fuck. She spread it,” Lev whispers, connecting the dots.
I nod grimly. “Who else?”
“And her father died for it.” Lev exhales. “She was alive all this time and she didn’t even go to the man who raised her. He died not knowing she was still alive.”
My grip on the phone tightens. “She doesn’t trust anyone. She wouldn’t have wanted to risk her plans by going to him. Rodion would have tried to talk her down. And when that failed, he would have come to me himself.”
“She gambled with her father’s life. She lost, but he paid the price.”
“I don’t think you need to be reminded of what a heartless bitch she is. And in this case, I don’t mean that as a compliment.”
I can practically hear him cracking his knuckles, a thinking habit of his. “Okay, so why involve Jessa?”