“She’s never felt neglected by you, Fiona,” Ilarion reassures her.

  Something inside of me constricts. He knows so much about our family. He knows more about Celine than I thought possible.

  “Then she’s done a good job of hiding it from you.” Mom attempts a small laugh. It comes out more like a series of wincing gasps. “But I know she feels like Taylor is the favorite daughter. She would never say so to me, or to her father, because she’s generous, in soul and in spirit. I may not have done as much as I should have for Celine, but I still know my daughter.” She winces again, and I can tell it’s taking a lot of effort to keep talking. “Promise me you’ll look after her, Ilarion. She deserves to be happy. She deserves to have someone take care of her for a change.”

  He kneels down and takes her hand in his. I used to think the sight of her fragile fingers next to mine was jarring. It’s almost horrifying to see just how skeletal she is compared to him.

  The whole thing is wrong on so many different levels. I’m watching something that doesn’t quite fit together the way it should.

  It has nothing to do with them, though.

  It’s me.

  I’m the problem.

  Because every time I look at Ilarion, I’m not seeing my sister’s fiancé; I’m seeing the father of my child. And when I see him talk to my mother, I feel this strange sense of warmth that should belong to Celine, not me.

  “I know you’re a dangerous man, Ilarion. But…” She coughs and starts again. “But I realized this morning that I don’t care if you’re a dangerous man—as long as you’re not dangerous to her.”

  “You have nothing to worry about on that front.”

  Mom sighs. Her body unclenches slowly as she fades into her bed. “Okay then,” she says, as though she’s signing off for the night.

  I’m terrified she’s signing off forever.

  “Mom.” I pick up her hand again. “Mom. Listen to me, please?”

  She turns her face toward mine and offers up a dreamy smile. It’s a smile that’s already somewhere else, some place I can’t reach. So instead of doing everything I want to do—begging and pleading for her to stay with me—I just do the only thing left for me to do.

  I lean in and hug her.

  She hugs me back as best as she can. As frail as her arms are now, they still remind me of my childhood. We’d moved houses three times, changed cars six. We’d lost grandparents and pets and neighbors we loved. But those arms—those were always constant.

  I can’t lose them now. Not when they’re wrapped around me and the baby inside me.

  “Go home,” Mom whispers in my ear. “Get some rest.”

  “Come,” Ilarion murmurs to me when I linger a moment too long. “She needs to rest, too.”

  Reluctantly, I tear myself away from her and rise. She’s asleep before the hug even breaks. Eyes closed peacefully, her breath a mere trickle through her parted lips.

  He presses his hand to the small of my back and steers me towards the door. The soles of my shoes scrape the clean white tile on my way out, leaving a few faint scuff marks in my wake. I don’t even manage a backward glance at Mom. I’m too far inside my own head, fighting a battle against a relentless rush of dread.

  It’s a battle I cannot win.

  27

  TAYLOR

  The moment I’m in the corridor, I double over and brace my elbows on my knees. Tears sting hot in my eyes and my stomach burns. “Oh, God…”

  “Taylor.”

  He’s right. He’s only said my name but I hear the whole damn speech contained in those two syllables. You can’t lose your shit right now. Pull yourself together. Get back up and keep going. Accept it and move on.

  You want me to fall to pieces? That’s what he asked me on the way here. It was obvious what he thought—that falling to pieces serves nobody. You can’t help anyone else hold themselves together if you yourself are scattered to the wind.

  So—for my mother, for my sister, for my father—I take a deep breath and stand up tall.

  I round on Ilarion. “You have to do whatever it takes to get them back!” I demand. “You saw Mom in there. It’s going to take all three of us to rally around her, get her to stop this insane—”

  “Is it so insane?” he asks abruptly.

  I stare at him like he’s suddenly sprouted three heads. “Excuse me?”

  “You’re being selfish.” He shrugs. My mother is literally dying on the other side of the door, and he’s shrugging.

  “I’m being selfish?” I ask. “I’m being selfish?!”

  Of course he nods. Of course he doubles down. He’s not the kind of man to take back his words. He’s certainly not the kind of man to throw them around loosely, either. I’d suspected as much the night we met, and it struck me as an attractive trait at the time. But now…

  Now, I want to slap them out of his fucking mouth.

  “You clearly don’t know the first goddamn thing about family.”

  His eyes narrow and those dusky blue irises grow darker. “I know far more than you do,” he hisses, boxing me in so close that I can count each and every last one of those thick lashes. “I know that you don’t force someone you love to suffer simply because you’re bad at goodbyes.”

  My hand twitches with the urge to hit something. Him, preferably. But I have a feeling I’d just hurt myself in the process, so I keep it fisted at my side.

  “Listen, motherfucker: you may be engaged to my sister, for now. But that does not make you part of this family.”

  “No?” He puts a hand to my midsection to push me back against the wall. I feel his palm, flat and huge, against my stomach. “And what about the baby you’re carrying? How does that factor me into the family?”

  “It makes you the sperm donor. Nothing more. A mysterious sperm donor with no name. There’s no reason you need to be a part of my baby’s life at all.”

  “If you think I’m the kind of man who’s going to walk away from my own child, then you’re fucking dreaming.”

  “I’m doing the exact opposite of dreaming, actually.” I’m furious at how shaky my voice is. “Ever since I met you, my life has been one gigantic nightmare. Why does it come as such a shock that I want to wake the hell up?”

  “You—”

  Whatever he’s about to tell me is drowned out in a siren call that has the nurses looking panicked. They start darting around, pressing buttons, grabbing equipment that I don’t recognize. Then they form a stampede heading…

  In our direction.

  “W-what’s going on?” I stammer. One of the nurses brushes past me to charge into Mom’s room. The moment she disappears through the door, I feel the blood drain from my face. “No…”

  I’m about to burst into the room when Ilarion grabs me from behind. His arms are steel. Every bit as immovable as the man himself.

  “Ilarion! Let me go!”

  “Let her go, Taylor.” His voice is low in my ear. Every bit as soft as his grip is firm. He keeps my back pinned to his chest, and no matter how hard I thrash, I don’t get even an inch freer. “It’s time.”

  “No!” I cry, straining against his weight. “Mom! Mom! Please, Ilarion!”

  To my shock, he actually releases me. I fly forward and hit the door so hard that my palms throb from the impact. But by the time I get inside the room, the commotion has died down. It’s eerily quiet in here. Three nurses stand helplessly around my mother’s bed, and none of them seem to have any idea what to do.

  “W-what are you doing?” I yell. “Help her! Fix it!”

  I feel a breeze on the backs of my legs as the door opens. I assume it’s Ilarion, but instead, a tall doctor in a white coat steps through. I spin on my heels to beg him for help. “Doctor, please…my mother…”

  He walks over to her bed and looks down at my mother. She might as well be sleeping. That dreamy smile is still on her lips.

  He sighs. It’s the only sound in the room. Then he turns to me with a mask of professional sympathy. All he says is, “I’m sorry.”

  “I don’t understand,” I sob as I reach out to the wall for support. “I was… I was just in here!. She was awake, she was breathing—”

  The doctor picks a chart up off the foot of the bed and frowns. I don’t really hear much of what he’s saying, or how the nurses respond. My heartbeat is drumming too loud in my ears for me to give them all my attention. But I hear enough.

  “Pulled out the IV…”

  “…Forcibly…”

  “…Difficulty breathing…”

  “…Suicidal…”

  The doctor looks at me. Says something that’s vaguely an apology. Instead of reaching for paddles or syringes or anything that could possibly bring her back, the nurses reach for the sheets and carefully draw them over her face.

  I’m about to scream at them to do whatever it takes to bring her back to me. To stop this nonsense and do their jobs.

  Then I catch sight of Ilarion by the door.

  That’s the sight that makes it all real. Him standing there, framed by the rectangular trim, tall and huge and so grim-faced. When I see that, I know I’m not dreaming. I’m not having a nightmare, either.

  This is real.

  I can’t breathe. The doctor’s condolences are drowned out in my own despair. I just want to close my eyes and sleep forever. When my knees buckle, I expect pain to follow immediately after.

  But someone catches me. I know who without having to look.

  And despite everything…

  It feels good to be caught.

  28

  ILARION

  Taylor falls asleep before we even arrive back at the Diamond. I carry her up to the master bedroom and lay her down on the bed. Her dirty blonde hair fans around her face, but she never stirs, not even when I slip off her shoes and pull a cover sheet over her goosebump-riddled skin.

  When was the last time I put someone to bed like this?

  The memory forms clear as day. It was years ago now, and I was on the cusp of becoming pakhan. Mila hadn’t been nearly as deathly still as Taylor is now, though. She’d tossed and turned, her sleep as fractured and broken as the nightmare that was her waking life. I’ll never forget the smear of blood at the corner of her mouth. The busted lip. The fingerprints practically tattooed across her throat.

  “What are you doing?”

  Speak of the devil. I turn towards the door and find Mila standing there, watching me watch Taylor.

  “She fell asleep in the car,” I explain gruffly, glancing away.

  “That’s not what I meant.” She strides into the room and stops at my side. “I mean, what the hell do you think you’re doing marrying one sister and romancing the other?”

  “Mila—”

  “No, don’t ‘Mila’ me. You use that tone any time you know you’re wrong but you’re still trying to outrank me. You may be the pakhan, but you’re still my brother.”

  “So you insist on reminding me.”

  “Only because you refuse to listen,” she snaps. “The baby’s yours, isn’t it?”

  Denying it would be meaningless at this point, and I don’t have the energy to go through a whole song and dance. “Yes.”

  “For God’s sake,” Mila breathes. “How could you—”

  “You think this was planned?” When I hear how loud I sound, I wince and drop my voice lower. Even though she’s out cold, I don’t want to risk waking Taylor from her much-needed sleep. “You think I chose this?”

  Mila arches a brow. “You expect me to believe that this is a coincidence?”

  I grit my teeth and lean against the bedpost. “I met Taylor first. Nearly ran over her in Evanston. Celine and I didn’t meet until two weeks later.”

  “You met her in Evanston?” Mila asks. “And that didn’t tip you off?”

  “How the hell was I supposed to know? There’s a hundred thousand people jammed into that town. And it’s not like the two of them look alike.”

  Mila scoffs. “Oh, sure, and it’s not like you had plenty of time to do your research, either. Gather intel. Verify relations.”

  Taylor stirs a bit in her sleep. Incensed, I grab Mila’s elbow and drag her out of the room. She shakes me off when we’re on the other side of the door, her nose scrunched in disdain.

  “Where’s Dima?” I ask her.

  “Oh, no, you don’t,” she snaps. “We were in the middle of a conversation.”

  “Which I’d rather not have.”

  “Tough—we need to have it. If for no other reason than to figure out damage control for this huge fucking oversight.”

  “I can handle it myself.”

  “Can you?” she scoffs. “Because from where I’m standing, this whole thing is a ticking time bomb about to explode in your face.”

  “Celine, I can handle,” I growl. “Taylor…I’ll find a way to handle.”

  Mila holds a hand up, dangerously close to pressing against my face. “I’m still trying to wrap my brain around how you missed this. Didn’t you check the family before you even went?”

  Not well enough. I grind my molars together. I know I rushed through what should have been a much more thorough reconnaissance. I just cannot afford to openly admit it.

  “…Yes.”

  I know she can smell the bullshit. “And didn’t Celine mention having a sister? Even casually?”

  “She did,” I admit. “Often. But the woman I almost hit with my car didn’t give me her name.”

  “You turned a narrowly avoided traffic fatality into a one-night-stand? Even for you, Ilarion, that’s scraping the bottom of the barrel.” She tries to hide the derisive laugh behind her hand.

  I want to throttle her laugh away. Not because it’s irritating—but because it’s irritatingly well-deserved.

  I nearly committed vehicular manslaughter, and my first inclination was to fuck a baby into the unsuspecting pedestrian.

  Yet another thing I absolutely cannot afford to openly admit in front of the Bratva. These are the people who depend on me to make wise decisions and always act with a carefully thought-out strategic plan. The people who trust me to lead with my brain and not my dick. The people who would riot if they knew what I’ve done.

  “Mila—”

  “Wow,” she breathes before I can deliver my mea culpa. “That must have been one hot night. Gives a whole new meaning to the word ‘plowed.’”

  I glare at her. “It wasn’t meant to happen at all. It was…a lapse in judgment on my part.”

  She guffaws. “Ya think? It’s kind of amazing, actually. You kept yourself off the shelf for so long, and when you do finally jump into the dating pool—you catch your fiancée’s sister? When they say there’s more than one fish in the sea, I don’t think they mean that there’s only two of them.”

  “I’m glad you’re finding all this so amusing. I don’t. It was—”

  “Yeah, a lapse in judgment—you said that already. I know what it was. You know what else it was? Stupid. It was so fucking stupid, Ilarion. And your plan, which apparently you’re still sticking to, is insane.”

  “Which is exactly why it’s going to work. The Bellasios aren’t going to see this coming.”

  “Maybe not. But neither will your woman. Excuse me—women,” Mila points out. “At some point, Celine is going to figure it out. She’s no dummy.”

  “She’s in love with me,” I say, unable to keep the regret from my tone. “I can convince her of anything.”

  Mila flashes me a sarcastic smile. “Charming. Love that plan. And what about her?” She glances at the bedroom door. “Something tells me this one’s not going to be nearly so easy to emotionally manipulate.”

  “Like I said—I’ll figure it out.”

  Just as soon as my sister is done psychoanalyzing my every move.

  Mila crosses her arms and smolders. I find myself wondering how I missed her transition from giggling little girl who used to follow me around like a puppy to this spitfire woman constantly questioning me. Constantly challenging me to be a better leader.

  I love her for it—but my God, it’s a pain in my fucking ass.

  “There’s going to be a baby in a few months, Ilarion.”

  “I understand how pregnancies work.”

  She rolls her eyes and sighs. “I suppose none of this really matters until we get Celine back. If we do.”

  “There’s no if. We will get Celine back,” I snap. “That part is imperative.”

  She shrugs. “But still. If we don’t…at least we have a spare.” She jerks her chin in the direction of Taylor’s room. Her eyes are hooded with darkness, her features foiled together with detached professionalism.

  Is that new, or was that always there?

  She had been such a lively little girl. Her laugh came easy and her smile was constant. Somewhere around her fourteenth birthday, she lost that smile, and it never quite came back.

  Even after I’d delivered her the head of her monster.

  It just goes to show—killing your demons doesn’t really end the torment. Real monsters leave behind damage. You can slay the beast a million times over—but the scars they inflict last forever.

  29

  ILARION

  “Come,” I say, leading Mila to my office.

  It’s bright in here. I had them rip out the curtains when I first made this place my home away from home. I hate dark spaces. Always have. Mila does, too. It’s the reason she still sleeps with a light on.

  Makes it easier to spot when there’s a monster coming.

  I take a seat on the brown leather sofa. Mila bypasses the seating area and goes right to the bar. She doesn’t have to ask what I’m drinking—she just pours two vodkas and brings them back over.