I expected her to vent and rage at me. To spit in my face and call me a monster. But what she does instead surprises me.

  She makes a threat.

  “I’m going to tell you something now, Il-ar-i-on. From this day forward, for the rest of my life, my purpose will be to personally expose your entire operation and put you behind bars for all the criminal shit you’re clearly used to getting away with. I will turn over every rock and comb through every scrap of evidence you’ve ever left behind—unless you tell me exactly where the fuck my family is.”

  The balls on this woman. No one—no woman, man, or beast alive—has made that kind of threat about me, much less to my face.

  And yet here she is—half my size, half my weight, and none of my resources… and she’s threatening me.

  Remarkable.

  “Your mother is alive,” I tell her.

  She lets out a relieved gasp. Half broken sob, half delirious laughter. Fat tears slip down her flushed cheeks. “Oh, thank God,” she cries. “You’re sure? You’re sure she’s alive? Where is she? I need to see her.”

  “She’s unconscious at the moment.”

  “Just tell me where to go,” she says. “I don’t want an escort.”

  “I don’t care what you want,” I growl. “You’re not going anywhere without my permission.”

  “And who are you to tell me where I can and can’t go?” She storms up toward me, close enough that I can smell her. Vanilla and hazelnut. Enough to make my head swim and my dick stiffen.

  “Assuming you’ve told me the truth, I’m the father of your child,” I remind her. “And considering that wherever you go, my baby goes, I do have a right to tell you where you can and can’t go.”

  “Or what?” she asks, her feet brushing against my toes. “You’ll sick your big, bad minions on me? You’ll pull out your guns? Threaten me with violence?”

  “Don’t tempt me.”

  She laughs viciously. “I’m pregnant with your baby. You can’t touch me.”

  Oh ye of little faith, I think to myself. There are a million ways to break you that don’t involve a single touch.

  But my hands stay by my side. There’s something about her single-minded determination that I relate to. She is from a different world, but she’s someone who would die for her family. In fact, I’m starting to get the impression that she may just be someone who would kill for her family.

  I know exactly what that feels like.

  “Your mother is at Northwestern Hospital,” I tell her quietly.

  She nods. “Fantastic. Thanks for sharing.” She starts to step around me, but when I intercept her, her frown furrows deeper. “You must not have such good listening skills. I thought we just established that you have no right to tell me what to do.”

  “Did we now?”

  Her chest rises and falls. Desperation fills her eyes. “Ilarion,” she says, her voice cracking with the weight of her fear. “Please.”

  I hate this. I’d much rather have her fight me, claws out and nostrils flared. This fragility is so much harder to deal with.

  “Look at you, Taylor,” I point out. “You’re in no fit state to be seen in public.”

  She glances down at her ripped dress, as though she’s only just realized what she’s been through and the price she’s paid for it. “Crap,” she mutters under her breath. “There must be something here I can borrow…?”

  I gesture towards the pocket door on the other side of the bed. “Go clean yourself up and I’ll find something for you to wear.”

  She wavers in place, skeptical of my sudden generosity. Like she’s waiting for the other shoe to drop. “Y-you’re not going to lock me in there, are you?”

  I almost smile. “No, Taylor. I’m not gonna lock you in there.”

  But goddamn, I wish I could bring myself to do it. It would make everything so much simpler.

  23

  ILARION

  She nods once and heads into the bathroom. There’s blood plastered on the backs of her legs. I find myself watching her until she disappears through the door.

  Then I leave the room—only to find Mila waiting for me just outside the door.

  “What—?”

  “You knocked up the wrong sister?” She gapes at me in disbelief. “How the ever-loving fuck did that happen?”

  I shrug her off. “I don’t have time for this. Get me something that Taylor can wear.”

  Mila doesn’t move. I grit my teeth. I know that bulldog set in her face—she wants answers and she wants them now.

  But she knows as well as I do that this is not the right setting. The tension ripples through her jaw before she relents. “There’s a robe in the bathroom she can wear.”

  “She’s not here for a spa treatment,” I growl. “Something she can wear outside. We’re going to be taking a little field trip.”

  Mila raises her eyebrows incredulously. “Do you really think that’s a good idea?”

  “Of course not. But she wants to see her mother.”

  “And?” Mila asks. “You can’t say no to her, is that it?”

  I rake a weary hand through my hair. “It doesn’t look like Fiona Theron is going to make it to sunrise,” I tell her. “She might as well see her daughter before she goes.”

  The last of Mila’s tenacity fades away. “Fuck. Does she know?”

  “No. Not yet.”

  She nods. “I have some clothes here. I’ll get her something.”

  She disappears upstairs. As soon as I step back into the bedroom, I hear the shower turn off. I’m checking Dima’s messages on my phone when the bathroom door swings open and Taylor’s head pops out.

  “What’s the ETA on those clothes?” She’s half-hidden by the door, but I can see a bare shoulder and the edge of a white terry cloth towel wrapped around her torso. Her hair hangs down in dark, wet ringlets.

  A series of memories flash through my head rapid-fire.

  Her hair plastered to her throat by the rain.

  The taste of her lips.

  The vibration of her moans.

  I shake my head and drag myself forcibly back to the present. “Mila will bring them down momentarily.”

  Her face screws up. “I’m borrowing Mila’s clothes?”

  “Unless you’d rather dress in one of the maid’s spare uniforms, that’s your only option.”

  “Honestly, that might be better.”

  “The two of you got off to a great start, I see.”

  “If you say anything about a cat fight, I’m gonna fling something at you. My sister and I used to—” Then something passes over her face, and all the wind in her sails disappears. “Celine. I haven’t even… Fuck, I’m the worst person on earth. Are she and Dad with Mom?” She seems to forget the fact that she’s still in a towel. She steps out of the bathroom in her bare feet, but she stops when she sees the dark expression on my face. “T-they’re not, are they?”

  Of all the times to lie, now is it. So why can’t I?

  “No.”

  “Then—”

  “They’re not dead,” I tell her quickly. “So don’t start freaking out.”

  “Then don’t tell me shit that makes me freak out!” she counters. “Where are my dad and sister?”

  “The Bellasios have them.”

  “‘The Bellasios have them,’” she repeats. “Am I supposed to know what that means?”

  “If you were paying any attention at all today, then you should.”

  She takes a deep breath. “Do they have something to do with the fact that you’re a mob boss?”

  “Bratva don,” I growl. Technically, the term is “pakhan”, but I’m in no mood to split hairs.

  “From where I’m standing, it’s the same damn thing. So who are the Bellasios to you?”

  “An enemy mafia whose leader has been obsessed with taking down the Zakharov Bratva for as long as I’ve been in charge.”

  “Why?”

  “Why?” I ask incredulously. “For more power. Why else?”

  “Jesus,” she mutters. “Men.” She shakes her head to clear the thoughts and looks up at me again. “You have to get them back.”

  “Great point,” I retort, rolling my eyes. “Let me just go ask nicely.”

  “Have you tried that?”

  I glare at her. “Did you really think I would let my enemies take off with my fiancé and not do anything about it? For fuck’s sake, trust that I’m capable.”

  “Ha!” she guffaws at full volume. “Trust? Trust you? My sister trusted you, and look where that landed her! No, thanks. I’d rather trust in the people I know I can count on.”

  “Which is who? That Bradley fuck who tried pawing at you when no one was looking?”

  “My father. My mother. My sister,” she rattles off without breaking eye contact. “That’s it. All the people you put directly in harm’s way.” Before I can respond, she keeps going. “I had a bad feeling about this relationship from the moment she mentioned you to me. She didn’t even tell me your name, but I knew there was something off about this whole thing. Celine’s a pacifist at heart. She’s also the most moral person I know. If she knew about any of what you do—”

  “What makes you think she doesn’t?”

  She scoffs, waving a hand in my face. “There’s no way Celine would have agreed to date you, much less marry you, if she knew you were some big, bad villain.”

  I raise an eyebrow. “Are you so sure?”

  Her lip trembles as her confidence comes crumbling down. I saunter toward her, backing her up until she bumps into the doorjamb.

  “Maybe you don’t know your sister as well as you think you do, Taylor. She did know. She knew everything—because I told her. I told her exactly who I was… and she agreed to marry me anyway.”

  24

  TAYLOR

  I wish I could say he was lying.

  But in reality, I’m not so sure. It just feels so much like a lie. I know my sister, and Celine can’t have been okay with the fact that Ilarion is who he is. I watched him kill people with my own eyes. There’s no denying the truth of it. The raw, cold, brutal, hideously ugly truth of it. Of him.

  There’s always the chance that he’s sold her some weird, Disneyfied version of his life as a Bratva boss, but I can’t see Celine buying that. She’s naive, she’s kind, she was born wearing rose-colored glasses—but she isn’t stupid.

  “Celine would have told me if that were true,” I rasp. I hate how unsure I sound.

  He laughs cruelly. “She didn’t even tell you my full name. What makes you think she would have told you anything else?”

  How does he know that, too? What doesn’t he know?

  That’s when it finally sinks in. The only reason he could possibly know as much as he does is if Celine told him.

  Which means she trusted him.

  “You know what? We can have this conversation later, when Celine can join it,” I snap. “But for right now, I’d still like to see my mother.”

  Ilarion doesn’t miss a beat. He looks past me and gestures for whoever is standing at the door to come in. I turn and see that Mila is there with a bunch of clothes draped over her arms. She’s probably been listening in for some time.

  Great. Now, I’m humiliating myself in front of the whole damn family.

  Mila silently hands me the pile of clothes. I force out a reluctant, “Thank you.”

  “Try not to bleed on my clothes,” she says, utterly deadpan, before spinning on her heel and heading back out.

  I slink into the bathroom and swap out the damp towel for the jeans and t-shirt. They’re snug, because Mila is a twig, but they work.

  Enjoy this now. Everything will be too small in a few short months.

  When I’m dressed, I step back out into the bedroom, where Ilarion is waiting for me. I try to avoid his gaze as I follow him out of the room and through the house, but that’s about as easy as avoiding an oncoming truck. He’s watching me like I’m going to run at any moment.

  I’m not.

  Well, not exactly.

  “I, um…lost my phone in the chaos,” I tell him. “If you could call me a taxi—”

  “There’s no need,” he interrupts as we step onto the driveway, where a shiny black car is waiting. “I will drive you.”

  I don’t like that idea at all. “There’s no need for that.”

  “Let me put it to you this way,” he corrects. “If I don’t take you, you’re not going.”

  It’s a miracle how that imperious, slice-through-anything certainty in his voice that was such a turn-on the night we met can be so utterly, impossibly infuriating now.

  “You’re serious?”

  “Take a wild guess.”

  The instinct to push back is there, but I’m too desperate to waste any more time. My mom needs me more than I need to scrap and claw for my dignity.

  “Fine,” I snap. “You wanna play the chauffeur? Go right ahead.”

  I get into the passenger’s seat and slam the door. He doesn’t say anything as he walks around the front of the car, gets into the driver’s seat, and turns the engine on.

  I hate that he always seems to come out ahead of me. No matter how hard I try, it feels like I’m always lagging behind. And as much as I hate to admit it, it feels like a part of that is Celine’s doing.

  She wouldn’t have done it intentionally, of course. She was sharing parts of her life with a man she trusted. My problem is with how fast she chose to trust him.

  I mean, I’m her sister, for crying out loud. She’s known me a hell of a lot longer than she’s known him. Doesn’t that count for a little more loyalty? A little more diplomacy, at the very least?

  “How exactly do you plan on getting my sister and father back?” I ask, mostly because staying silent is like hurling lighter fluid on the blaze of my terrified thoughts.

  “We have to locate them first. Once we know where they’ve been taken, I’ll go in with a team.”

  “Will they be in danger?” I ask anxiously. “The Bellasios…They won’t hurt them, will they?”

  He shrugs without bothering to look over. “I can’t speak to that.”

  I stare at him in shock. “Are you serious?”

  “Let me save you some time and assure you that I am always serious. I can’t promise you something I can’t control, Taylor. The likelihood is that Celine and your father will be safe. They were taken alive for a reason. I don’t think Benedict will kill them, but hurting them…? That’s different.”

  I can only gawk at him for a long time, trying and failing to figure out how a human being could possibly be so cold.

  “What?” he asks eventually.

  “She’s your fiancée,” I whisper, just in case he forgot. “And you’re acting as though she means nothing to you.”

  “You want me to fall to pieces?” he asks in that same detached tone. “Would that make you feel better?”

  “Actually, yes.” This man makes me want to simultaneously scream and roll my eyes so far back I can see my brain. At least one of us has one. “It would reassure me that you haven’t just proposed to my sister for some nefarious, manipulative, bullshit reason. And since it’s pretty clear that she has actual feelings for you, I’m hoping that’s not the case.”

  “Tell me more about what you’re hoping for,” he says sarcastically. “I’ll pretend I’m fucking Santa Claus and deliver all your dreams to your doorstep.”

  What I’m hoping for. Great question. Isn’t that what he asked me the night we met? What do you want? I knew then what I wanted: him. So how do I answer it now? As the car hums and chews up the road, I think about it with the same kind of breathlessness I thought about it back then. And when the answer surfaces, I know in my heart that it’s true.

  I want two things. Two things that are in direct contradiction to one another, actually.

  I want to keep the baby in my belly.

  And I want my sister to be happy with the man who got me pregnant.

  “Can I ask you a question?” I ask softly. I can dispense with bickering for the sake of five minutes of honest conversation.

  “Go ahead.”

  “What made you propose to Celine as fast as you did?”

  I’m pretty sure I see his knuckles tighten on the wheel. But then again, I could be just imagining it. When he speaks, there’s nothing to suggest he has anything to hide.

  “She was a breath of fresh air,” he tells me. “She was so open and honest and…sweet. It was hard not to like her.”

  “That’s a nice answer.” It really is. It’s also vague as hell. “But it sounds like you read it off a Hallmark card. It’s hardly indicative of a whirlwind romance that’s wild, and passionate, and fiery, and…and all-consuming.”

  He raises his eyebrows in a silent question.

  “Well, it would have to be, wouldn’t it?” I press. “To have inspired a proposal in such a short span of time, I mean.”

  “The kind of love you’re describing sounds painful.”

  “‘The kind of love’?” I repeat, shaking my head. “That’s the only love there is, Ilarion. Real love is painful. It’s messy and chaotic and gut-wrenching. If it doesn't hurt, you’re doing it wrong.”

  We stop at a red light and he glances over at me with an expression that’s half curiosity and half pity.

  “What?”

  “I just realized how young you are.”

  I narrow my eyes. “Screw you.”

  He turns the corner hard the moment the light turns red. “You want to know why I’m not falling to pieces, tigrionok? Because I can’t afford to.” A vein in his jaw ticks as he takes a moment to chew on whatever thoughts are rolling through his mind. “I am the pakhan. Everyone—and I mean everyone—relies on me. If I don’t keep myself together, it all falls apart. If you see me unraveling, that’s when you should start panicking. Because that means it’s over.”

  “Are you trying to scare me?”

  “I’m not trying to do anything,” he murmurs. “But if you are scared, then maybe you’re smarter than I realized after all.”