I turn my face away from him and gaze out my window. “It’s not about being smart,” I tell him quietly. “It’s about the fact that I’ve seen scarier.”

  That gets his attention.

  “The first time Mom was diagnosed with cancer, that was the first time I experienced pure, unadulterated fear. The kind that sinks into your soul so deep that you have nightmares every night until you’ve processed it. Cancer scared me. Losing my family—that scares me, too. Everything else? I can deal with.”

  “Cancer can be fought,” he suggests quietly.

  I snort. If he was a different person, I might have thought he was trying to comfort me. I know better, though.

  Comfort. He doesn’t know the meaning of the word.

  “Cancer fights, but it doesn’t fight fair. You can fight, and make decisions, and decide to show mercy or not. You know who to aim at and who to avoid. Cancer doesn’t know or care whether the victims are young or old or rich or poor. It doesn’t even care if you’re Bratva.”

  Ilarion’s lips are pursed. He doesn’t glance my way, but somehow, I just know he’s looking at me. “That doesn’t mean you give up. That doesn’t mean you stop fighting.”

  I shake my head. “At what cost? My mother has been fighting her cancer for years now. It’s ripped at her from every side, taking bites out of her until what’s left of her is unrecognizable. I worry sometimes we won’t even have a body to bury.”

  His nod is slow. Now, he does glance at me. “Worse than a bullet to the head.”

  I hear the hint of sympathy in his voice. I’m not sure I’m ready to receive it. Not right now. Not while we’re driving to see my mother who is now dealing with both cancer and bullets.

  “We were all different people B.C. And now… Well, this is the part they don’t tell you about. It’s not easy looking after someone who’s sick. It takes its toll on you, too, no matter how much you love them.”

  “What did it take from you?” he asks gently.

  “It took my mom. It took my dad, too, in a way. It took my adolescence and my innocence all at once.” I replay my answer back in my head and cringe. “I sound like a selfish bitch, don’t I?”

  “You sound like someone who refuses to lie to themselves. That’s admirable.”

  I glance at him from the corner of my eyes. I’m over here pouring my heart and soul out on the dashboard, and yet there’s not one crack in that steely armor of his. “My mother’s dying, Ilarion.” I sigh heavily. “And I find myself getting resentful because I can’t live a normal life. Because I have to miss parties to take her to chemo. Parties. Fucking stupid, meaningless parties. If that’s not selfish, I don’t know what is.”

  “You’re human,” he says. “You’re allowed.”

  “I’m a human second. I’m my mother’s daughter first.”

  The ghost of a smile dances along the corners of his lips. It brings back a vivid memory from the night we met. Those full, sure lips traversing the plane of my shoulder…down to my breasts…the scrape of his beard against my thighs…

  Stop!

  “Is that it, then?” Ilarion asks. “Your entire identity revolves around other people?”

  “Doesn’t everyone’s?”

  “No,” he says softly. “Not everyone’s.” His eyes are darker now, and I wonder if he’s thinking about things he’d rather forget, just like I am. “Not everyone has people in their life worth sacrificing so much for. You’re lucky in that regard.”

  I raise my brow. “Who are you talking about?” The air has the charged feeling it gets when someone is holding a memory in their head that still hurts them. When fresh air reaches somewhere it hasn’t reached in a long, long time.

  Then his eyes flicker to me, and that steel armor clanks right back into place. “What makes you think that I’m talking about anyone?”

  I sigh. I should’ve expected him to retreat.

  Ilarion isn’t just some heartless, hardened mob boss. There’s a soul somewhere underneath all that iron. There are wounds buried deep down that he’s trying to hide from me. He absolutely doesn’t want me—or anyone—to see it…but I do.

  Which makes me actually care what he thinks about me.

  That’s the last thing I can afford to do.

  25

  TAYLOR

  Two giant men stand just outside my mother’s hospital room like bouncers at a club. Some of the hospital staff eye the men warily as they inch by. Others pretend they can’t see them at all.

  “They work for me,” Ilarion explains when he sees me looking. “I wasn’t about to leave your mother alone in a hospital room without any security.”

  I don’t say anything, but I appreciate the gesture. I’d assumed he’d just dumped her by the entrance of the hospital and driven off. I would’ve been pleasantly surprised if he’d even had the car come to a complete stop before kicking her to the curb. This is…above and beyond my admittedly-low expectations.

  We’re walking up when the door opens and a nurse walks out. Like every good nurse I’ve ever met, she’s a weary older woman with a weathered face that keeps her emotions tucked out of sight.

  “Are you Celine Theron?” she asks.

  My breath catches and, for some reason, I turn to Ilarion. “This is Taylor,” he fills in, because apparently, I’ve turned into a moron who can’t even speak for herself.

  “Ah! Taylor,” the nurse says with a soft smile of recognition. “Your mother’s been asking for you. For both her girls.”

  Her girls. That’s how she used to refer to Celine and me all the time. We were Fiona’s Girls. Celine used to joke about having a ready-made band name if we ever became famous.

  “She’s awake?”

  The nurse nods, but the smile on her face wavers in a way I don’t like. The forced-calm veneer of someone managing a crisis. “She’s awake. But she’s…weak.”

  “She has cancer.”

  “Yes, we were given a full report of her condition when she was admitted,” the nurse tells me. “Mr. Zakharov passed along her medical details.”

  I glance at Ilarion in surprise. “Oh. Uh, okay. Well…”

  “Why don’t you sit down, Ms. Theron? I’ll have her doctor come and—”

  “I don’t need to sit down,” I say politely but firmly. “I want you to tell me what’s happening.”

  She glances over my shoulder at Ilarion. I slide over to intercept her gaze. “With all due respect…” I read her nametag and finish, “Madison. With all due respect, Madison, he may have been the one to admit her, but I’m her daughter. If there’s anyone here you should be sharing information with, it’s me.”

  Madison pauses, then gives me a sympathetic nod. “Your mother’s condition isn’t likely to improve, Ms. Theron. We’ve got her hooked up to some machinery right now, but it’s the only reason she’s still breathing.”

  My body chills rapidly. “B-but… She’s been asking for us. For me. For me and Celine. Isn’t that what you said?”

  “She can still talk, but it tires her out.”

  I swallow and nod. “Okay. Thank you.”

  She moves aside to let me pass. But I don’t move. I can’t. I’m frozen in place, terrified of what’s awaiting me in that room. I can’t see either one of them, but I sense the glance that Ilarion and the nurse exchange over my head.

  Then I feel his breath tickle my ear. “Taylor,” he says, gentler than I ever would have thought he’d be capable of, “do you need me to come in with you?”

  No. That’s my gut instinct. And it’s the right one, I think.

  But for some reason, simple as it is, I can’t make my mouth form the word. Nor can I bring myself to ask him for help. Not this kind of help, anyway. The only person who should be leaning on him that way is Celine.

  His fiancée.

  A few seconds tick past, filled only with the murmured beeping and groaning of the hospital around us. He takes my silence for what it is: terror.

  “Come on,” he says, his hand gently pressing to the small of my back. “One step at a time.”

  I draw in a deep breath as he coaxes me through the door.

  The room beyond is much larger than I expected. Cancer makes you intimately familiar with hospitals. You learn the cadence of the machine beeps, the tang of disinfectant, the way the nurses’ shoes squeak on the tile. You start to have a sense for the space and shape of a room and for what the temperature of the air tells you about the people trapped inside of it.

  I was ready for this one to feel like death.

  But to my surprise, it doesn’t. Sun pours in through the floor-to-ceiling windows and it fills the space all the way up to ceilings that are a touch higher than I’m used to.

  It doesn’t feel like death. Not yet, at least.

  There’s a sliver of hope left.

  I force my eyes to the sickly woman lying on the bed. It’s hard to reconcile her with the mother who raised me. She isn’t wearing any yellow, for starters, and it just looks so wrong.

  She hasn’t spotted me yet. Her eyes are closed and her face is tilted to the side as though she fell asleep praying. She looks so—

  I whirl back around abruptly and smash into Ilarion’s chest. Forehead pressed against him, I shake my head. “I can’t do this. I can’t say goodbye to her.”

  “Then don’t,” he says. “Just say hello.”

  He grazes the bottom of my chin with two fingers and tils my face up. Our gazes meet. The blue of his eyes is calm today. An ocean at rest. Just mellow enough to put me at ease, to make me feel like maybe—just maybe—everything will turn out alright.

  Even if it’s a lie, it’s one I desperately need.

  “I’ll be right here,” he murmurs.

  And, God help me, I believe him.

  I pivot around and inch slowly up to Mom’s bedside. I slip my fingers through hers, tender as I can, and her eyes blink open. When she groans softly and squints up at me, though, her gaze is blank. For a moment, I wonder if she even recognizes me.

  Then I see that familiar surge of love, and my heart shatters all over again.

  “Oh…honey…”

  There’s so much relief in her voice that the dam I’ve been building to pen back my tears crumbles and they all pour loose. I bend down and hover over her chest as I sob. Big, loud, full-body-wracking, ugly-girl sobs, the kind that hurt as they come. Mom pats my head with whisper-soft touches, and lets me cry it all out.

  When I finally lift my head, I feel both relieved and ashamed. “I’m so sorry,” I mumble. “You’re the one in the hospital, and I’m the one crying.”

  She makes an attempt to wipe the tears from my face, but her hand trembles from the effort. I take that hand and hold it to my chest as I perch on the bed beside her.

  “I know this is a stupid question and I honestly kinda hate myself for asking it, but…how are you?”

  “Been better,” she croaks. Her mouth twitches in a smile that she’s too weak to see all the way through. “Celine? Archie?”

  I lie immediately and without an ounce of guilt. “Don’t you worry about them, Mom. They’re fine.”

  Mom frowns. “I saw…Celine. They…t-took her.”

  I stiffen, but this is no time for heartbreaking truths. Mom needs hope. Healing and hope. I won’t be the one to steal that from her. “Ilarion went and got her back,” I reassure her. “Dad, too. They’re both safe at one of his houses. They told me to send you their love.”

  She coughs. It’s so faint I could almost start crying all over again. “Thank you for lying to me,” Mom whispers. “But I’d really rather have the truth.”

  I gnaw my lip. They don’t prepare you for this kind of thing in school. You learn calculus, you learn that the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell, but who teaches you whether or not to lie to your dying mother?

  “Ilarion is going to get them both back,” I promise her. “They’ll be here at your bedside soon enough.” She cringes, and I reach out to stroke a loose bang from her forehead. “Are you in pain?”

  “I’ve been in pain for a long time, honey. I’m just tired now. You fight and fight and fight and then… Oh my. There are days I just want to stop.”

  My stomach drops. “You can’t talk like that, Mom,” I insist. I’ve never heard her say anything of the sort. She’s always been so stoic about her illness. “You’re just weak and—”

  “I am tired,” she interrupts. “I just want to rest now.”

  I squeeze her hand tight. “Think about Dad,” I beg her. “Think about Celine. They need you.”

  “No,” she says. Her voice trembles and breaks. “No, they don’t. I’m the one who’s needed the three of you all these years. And I hate how much that’s cost all of you.”

  “Cost? What cost? We love you, Mom. We all love you so much.”

  “Oh, honey, don’t you think I know that? But I don’t want any of you to spend your lives playing Nurse for a sick old woman. I want you to live.”

  “I am living!”

  “Are you?” she asks. Even in such a weakened state, she manages to squint at me in that I-see-you-for-who-you-really-are way that only a mother can do. “Last I checked, you were majoring in a field you hated, in a college you chose purely because it was close to home.”

  “I wanted to do that for you.”

  “Exactly,” Mom says with a nod. “But you shouldn’t be doing anything for me. You should be doing things for yourself. You and Celine both.”

  I’m a mess, full stop. Tears, blubbering, the works. My heart has never ached so much in all the rest of my life put together. “I still need you, Mom.”

  “No,” she tells me. “You haven’t needed me for a very long time.” She closes her eyes and a solitary tear slips down her cheek. “And Celine…everyone underestimates her. But she’s stronger than they give her credit for. When I couldn’t be your mother, she stepped up for both of us.”

  “Mom, please,” I beg her again. “Stop talking like this is the end. You’re not dying today.”

  The protests lodge in my throat. I furiously shake my head. I can’t accept this. I won’t accept her surrender. “Mom, no—”

  But my words die on my lips when she folds her thin fingers over mine. “Sweetheart, when I got shot, I remember lying in the grass, looking up at the sky. I wasn’t in any pain. In fact, I stopped feeling pain altogether. All I felt was relief.”

  I want to say something to change her mind. But my mother—my sunflower-loving, dance-in-the-kitchen-while-she-cooks, can’t-drive-to-save-her-life mother—has never been one to listen when other people tell her no.

  And I can’t find the words anyway. They’re all caught in my throat, all the things I didn’t say enough. I love you and I miss you already and thank you for sharing a part of yourself with me. But my voice won’t work and any air I manage to draw into my lungs burns away in an instant like useless fumes.

  Then I feel a presence at my shoulder, and suddenly, I can breathe again. It’s a big presence. Powerful. It smells like whiskey and leather and summer rain.

  Ilarion’s hand rests heavy on the back of my neck. “Fiona, you have nothing to worry about,” he tells her in a quiet rumble. “I will make sure your daughters are safe and comfortable for the rest of their lives.”

  “I want both those things for them, Ilarion,” she whispers. “But above all, I want them to be happy.”

  I glance at Ilarion. A war is playing out on his face. The promise she’s trying to extract from him is not something he can give her. Because there’s no way he can make us both happy.

  It’s one or the other. Celine or me.

  And if it were up to me, I’d take Celine’s happiness over mine any day.

  26

  TAYLOR

  “Stop it!” I cry, breaking up the quiet moment. “Both of you, just stop it!”

  “Taylor, honey—”

  “No!” I leap to my feet. “You are not dying, Mom. Not ever! And you,” I growl, glaring at Ilarion. “How dare you come in here and act as though letting her give up is a gift that she’s owed?”

  “Look at her, Taylor.” There’s actual sympathy in his eyes, but I don’t want to see it. Not at all.

  “She’s my mother,” I hiss. “She’s our mother. Do you think Celine will thank you for encouraging her to throw in the towel?”

  “Sweetheart,” Mom says, “come here.”

  I watch as her hand falters and falls back onto the thin hospital sheets. Sobs are clotting up in my chest and the urge to scream is overwhelming. Then I look back up at Ilarion. His face isn’t emotionless, but it’s like I’m seeing that emotion through a thick wall of ice.

  I need some of that in my life. Everything feels too hot and spiky and real. He looks like he could stare Death in the face without blinking.

  My mother’s eyes look more like mine than his. They’re liquid with fear. Not fear of death, but fear for what—and who—she’s leaving behind.

  A wave of guilt crashes over me. I drop back onto her bed and clutch her hand. “I’m sorry, Mom.”

  “You have nothing to feel sorry about,” she whispers. Every breath, every word is an effort, and I’m clinging to each one like it’s about to become the last. “You’ve been the best daughter. I couldn’t have asked for better girls.” She kisses my hand and then drops it. “Ilarion, I’d like to…” She stops short for a moment, wincing. “I want to talk to you.”

  He steps up to her bedside. “I’m here.”

  There’s something calming about his presence here. Ask me two hours ago, and I would’ve said he’s the last person on Earth I’d want with me in a moment like this. But now…Now, my world is spinning out of control, and he’s gravity itself.

  He’s stable.

  He’s solid.

  He isn’t going anywhere.

  “Celine will never admit it, but I’ve let her down more times than I can count.” Mom’s confession surprises me. “She was just such a strong, independent child that it felt like she didn’t need me. The truth is…I suppose I didn’t know how to mother her.” Mom closes her eyes for a moment. “Even when she was a little girl, she used to make me breakfast in the morning. She’d pour me a glass of juice and toast bread and bring it to me while I was nursing Taylor. That’s who she is, Ilarion. She doesn’t love easily, but when she loves, she loves hard.”