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Galina answers, but she looks at Nikolai instead.

“I heard you talking to your lawyers, weeks before the school incident,” Galina says. “You were making her your heir. Everything your father and grandfather built was going to another man’s child.”

“So you decided to kill her?” Nikolai asks.

“I waited for you to come to your senses. Then you told them to prepare the papers, and I knew you never would.” Her voice rises. “I couldn’t let the Volkov legacy pass to bad blood.”

“Don’t ever call my daughter that.” His voice cuts through me.

He moves in front of me without thinking. His body blocks Galina from view, but I can still hear her breathing, still feel every word she has said pressing down on my chest.

Galina laughs quietly. “You see? You are doing it again already.”

Nikolai turns back to her. “Explain the car.”

Her expression becomes guarded.

“You drove it yourself, didn’t you?” he says. “You were well-versed in Anya’s schedule; you couldn’t let someone else mess it up, so you had to do it yourself.”

“I didn’t⁠—”

“You did,” Nikolai says.

I feel the old pain in my shoulder as if the car has just struck me again. The pavement beneath my hands. Galina looks at me and doesn’t look sorry.

“You were a problem from the beginning,” she says. “An outsider in this house, acting as though you had a right to decide what was best for the child. Unfortunately, my plan backfired. Not only did it not kill the bastard, but it also created another problem for me.”

She means me. I’m the one she meant to send away.

Nikolai doesn’t give her room to speak. “Then there was the bracelet.”

Viktor turns his gaze toward Galina. Irina’s hand goes to her throat. I immediately clock that it has something to do with what they told me today morning.

Galina’s eyes move between them.

“That part I don’t get,” Nikolai murmurs.

“I do,” I say. My gaze cuts to Viktor and Irina. They had told me the truth this morning. Unfortunately, everyone in this house had their own secrets; otherwise, Galina’s truth would have come out a long time ago.

“You knew they had been taking Sofia’s things,” I say. “You knew Viktor and Irina were meeting in the attic and passing some of her personal things to her parents.”

Irina looks at Viktor, angry and frightened. “You told her?”

“I didn’t tell anyone,” Viktor says shaking his head.

“You didn’t have to,” Galina says. “You were careless.”

“You stole the bracelet,” I say.

Galina looks at me. “You took it because you wanted Nikolai to find it and think they had stolen it.”

“I wanted him to see what they were doing behind his back.”

“You wanted to use it against them later,” Nikolai says. “You kept it hidden until you needed it.”

Galina doesn’t deny it.

“But Kirill got blamed instead,” I say.