BLUE BLOOD

39 | silence is an answer

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[entry]

"You're lying to me, Ella. You don't have what it takes to be a Du Sang."

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We missed the ball, but not the afterparty.

After changing out of our formal dresses to cocktail ones, everyone eagerly filed into the old dormitory of the academy and started the party. I watched down from the second floor, thinking of how lucky I was to avoid my father and stepmother tonight.

I found myself wandering to the portrait of my mother, which still embellished this hall. I wasn't usually in the mood to drink, but I closed my eyes and took another shot. It burned down my throat, just like the guilt that burned in my stomach.

Erik. He had almost kissed me the last time I stood here.

"Fraud," I said, approaching him. "Embezzlement. Bribery. Corruption. Tax evasion. Your hands are dirty, Erik, so dirty."

His eyes flashed. "Shut up."

"You worked hard," I said, quietly, after a long moment settled between us. "I know you did. In the years we grew up together, I watched you pour hours into this. Why? Why did you start-"

"Because everything was failing," Erik snapped, and the brunt of his anger revealed that other side he had. "Everything was failing, Vesper. Why do you think I've been so absent these past few weeks? It was all falling apart. I was just very good at concealing it."

"But-" I shook my head, "How? I don't get it. You were so successful that-"

"Competitors won out. My father was my biggest investor. The second?" He looked down. "Your father, until he cut ties."

I blinked once. Twice. "Say that again."

Bitterness tinged his words. "He offered me a deal. He would keep investing, and even considered handing me his empire, so long as I protected you, cherished you, and..."

"Kept tabs on me. As long as you monitored me like he wanted you to, he would give you everything." I shouldn't have been surprised, but I was. More than that, it hurt. He would use me too. Even the boy I grew up with and loved.

He loved me too. Just not as much as he loved everything else.

"Once you left without a word, your father threatened to cut off all ties unless I told you where you had gone."

"But I never told you a thing," I whispered. I had fled in humiliation after finding out he had cheated on me. "How did you...?"

Nausea rolled up in my stomach when he looked to the ground. "I had a tracker on you. The promise ring."

Oh my god. "You sick-"

"He only stopped investing once he had people do an investigation. Your father found out I cheated on you and hated me. That was it. I've been trying to keep the company alive for the past few years. It's gone to shambles now."

I took another shot. And another. We had this conversation only hours ago, but it still felt like it happened a minute ago. I gripped the wall, stumbling, and wondered if it was the alcohol or the feeling that twisted my heart.

"I'm leaving, Vesper. The moment you came back into my life was the same moment I found you were with someone else." He smiled sadly. "Avery Dragomir. I would have never guessed, but in hindsight, I should have."