“Leo told me everything,” I say quickly.
She leans back into the armchair and nods slowly, like she’d always known this day was coming. “Did he now?”
I take a deep breath and sit down in the chair opposite hers. I look at her, and I can’t make heads or tails of what is her mask and what is her.
“Do you still hate me?” she asks.
“A little.”
She laughs. “I don’t blame you. I bet you still have a few souvenirs of our time together.”
“You don’t sound particularly remorseful.”
“Oh, honey,” she says. “If I felt remorse for every bad thing I’ve done, I’d never get out of bed in the morning.”
“Why even do it then?” I ask, blurting out the same question I’d asked Leo last night.
Her wry smile dims. “I didn’t really have a choice.”
“You could have chosen to leave. Go someplace new, meet someone new. Live a life away from all this.”
She cocks her head to the side. “That would have involved loving Pavel a lot less than I did. Less than I still do.”
“Moving on doesn’t mean you don’t still love him,” I say. “He would want you to find someone—”
“There will never be anyone else for me. Ever,” she says with finality. “The best I can hope for is to make it right.”
“But how do you…”
“What?” she asks patiently.
“How do you stay sane?” I finish quietly.
“Sanity is a fickle thing. Honestly, during that first year with Belov, I wasn’t sure I could do it,” she admits. “I had to play this character. A femme fatale—no conscience, no remorse. I had to seduce the man who’d murdered my fiancé while I was still in the depths of grieving. The first time he touched me, I had to physically stop myself from crushing his throat.”
This is the first real conversation we’ve ever had. I feel like I’m speaking to the real person beneath all the beauty and bravado. Not some distorted, nightmare version of her that’s meant to intimidate and terrify.
“The first time he took me to bed, it felt like a small piece of my soul was breaking off, splintering away from the rest of me.”
“And yet you’ve done this for years now.”
“Yes… because it is the only way,” she says. “I want more than justice for Pavel. I want revenge. I want that fucking bastard to suffer before he dies.”
I nod, drinking it all in but not sure how to process it just yet. “Can I ask you a personal question?”
“You’ve asked me a few already,” she points out. Then she sighs and gestures. “Go on, out with it.”
“You’ve probably been alone with him countless times over the years, right?”
“You’re wondering why I didn’t just take one of those opportunities and kill him.”
“Well… yeah.”
“Because it’s not as simple as that,” Ariel explains. “The man is paranoid. He never lets his guard down. It’s one of the reasons he’s risen through the ranks the way he has.”
“But surely you could just—”
“If it was as simple as slashing his throat, I would,” Ariel interrupts. “But you want to hear something honest? A part of me is truly terrified of him. If I make one wrong move, I don’t just die. I die in the most painful way possible.”
She runs a hand down her cheek and over her elegant throat. “Don’t get me wrong: I’m ready for death, Willow,” she says softly. “I’ve been ready for death since I lost Pavel. But I don’t want to deal with any more pain than I already have. Every time that monster touches me, I suffer enough.”
I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to look at Ariel and forget Brit, but right now, I can at least see why Leo respects her so much. There is strength in there. Fire. Admirable fire.
“Have you thought about what happens after?” I ask.
“After?”
“After you get what you want? After you get your revenge?”
She looks towards the windows. “I have no fucking clue. I’ve been in this so long that sometimes, it feels like it’ll never end.”
“It’ll end. Everything does.”
The way we’re talking, I expect there to be tears in her eyes when she turns to me. But her blue eyes are bright. Her face is smooth, unbothered. She’s perfected the mask Anya tried and failed to teach me to wear.