The unbelievable truth didn't come from a ledger or a secret server. It came from a letter delivered by a courier from my mother's cottage in England.
My Dearest Jessy, it began. There is a weight I have carried since before you were born. Your father was a weak man, yes. But I was a desperate woman.
I felt a coldness start at the base of my spine, a frost that had nothing to do with the air conditioning of the Tribeca penthouse. I read on, the words blurring before my eyes like ink in a rainstorm.
Years ago, when your father first got involved with the Volkovs, I was the one who went to Yuri's father. I was the one who made the deal. I told them that if they ever needed leverage against Malek, they should use the Ledger he was building. I sacrificed your safety to ensure our financial security before you were even out of the cradle. I didn't want you to be a key—I wanted you to be a reason for them to keep us alive.
I dropped the letter. The paper fluttered to the marble floor with a sound like a dying bird. My mother—the woman I had burned down an empire to save, the woman I had bled for—had been the architect of my cage since the very beginning. She hadn't been a victim of the Volkovs. She was their silent partner, the one who had priced my soul and sold it for a quiet life in the countryside.
Yuri walked into the room, seeing the letter on the floor and the shattered look on my face. He didn't ask what it said. He didn't need to. The grief in his eyes told me he had already read the fine print of my life.
"I found out a week ago," he said, his voice devoid of emotion, as flat as a dial tone. "I intercepted her original correspondence when I was cleaning out the last of the digital archives. I didn't want to tell you. I wanted you to have one person in this world you could believe in."
"So everything," I whispered, the words scratching my throat. "My whole life... it was just a series of transactions between my parents and yours?"
"Yes," Yuri said, his silhouette stark against the window. "And that is why I can't stay."
The penthouse was no longer a home; it was a museum dedicated to a life I had set on fire. I walked through the halls, my bare feet silent on the cold marble, feeling like a ghost haunting my own recovery. Every corner held a shadow of him. I stopped at the glass doors of the balcony, pressing my forehead against the cool surface, looking at the city that didn't know I was the one holding its leash.
I could still feel the phantom pressure of his hands on my waist from that final night. The memory of us—the raw, desperate hunger we shared as the world fell apart—clung to me more tightly than the silk robe I wore. It hadn't been just sex; it had been a collision of two dying stars, a frantic attempt to burn bright enough to forget the darkness closing in. I remembered the way his breath hitched when I finally gave in, the way his eyes searched mine as if looking for a reason to stay in a world that had betrayed us both.
But the Wolf was gone. He had left me the keys to the city, the biometric overrides, and the encrypted accounts, but he had taken the only thing that made the city worth living in.
I sat at the terminal, the blue glow reflecting in my eyes, casting me in the color of a digital ghost. The UNI was in shambles, their leadership exposed by the data leak I had orchestrated. My father's name was cleared of the "accident" by the public, but forever stained by the "legacy" he had built into my DNA.
I wasn't a girl anymore. I wasn't a key. I was Jessy—the girl who broke the world to save herself, only to find she was the only one left standing in the rubble.