“It’s not true!” Celine wails. “I swear, Ilarion. It’s not true!”

  “Of course she’d lie to you about it,” Benedict spits. “Of course she’d tell you it didn’t happen. Just look at her. Does she look like a woman who’s been held captive?”

  She ignores him this time and whips around to face me. “Ilarion, I promise you, it’s not true. He did treat me well. But I was still a prisoner. I couldn’t leave or take calls. He would come and talk to me every day and I…I listened, but—”

  “Enough.” I hold up my hand.

  She immediately falls silent. Her eyes churn with fear. She’s not scared for her life, though.

  No, she’s scared of losing me.

  I can hear the promise I made to her mother echoing in the back of my head. I swore that oath in good faith, and I’m not about to renege on it now. Not just because I’ve discovered I’m more human than I once believed.

  Tears cascade down her cheeks as Celine waits for me to say something. I have one eye on Benedict, who’s still smiling maniacally, convinced that he’s managed to drive a wedge between us.

  He’ll be very disappointed in just a moment.

  “I believe you, Celine,” I tell her.

  Her face twists with relief at the same time that Benedict’s face flushes with anger. “You’re lying.”

  I shake my head and look him in the eye. “Do I look like I’m lying?” I laugh. “You know why I asked Celine to marry me? Because I knew that I could trust her.”

  His eyes glow like tiny embers. His sweaty hand grips and re-grips the gun again and again, like all his problems will be solved if he just holds it right.

  “You want to believe it,” he growls. “That’s why—”

  “No.” I shake my head. “I believe Celine. In any case, I can rest easy knowing that after a woman has been with me, she’s not about to settle for anything less. And you, Benedict Bellasio, are far less.”

  His teeth grind together. “You motherfucker—”

  He jabs his gun at me just as Celine lunges toward him to stay between us. I’m lunging along right after her, roaring, ready to drag her to the ground and blanket myself on top of, when all of the sudden—

  BANG!

  The gunshot rings through the air.

  Celine falls against my chest, a horrified gasp caught in her throat. I look up, expecting to see the smoking tip of Benedict’s gun, the last thing I’ll see before he ends my life.

  But it’s not there.

  His hand is empty. His weapon is on the floor.

  He’s not the one who fired the shot.

  He’s not even standing anymore. He’s sprawled on the floor, groaning incoherently, while blood wells between the fingers clasped to the meat of his shoulder. And above him, standing framed in the doorway with her jaw wide open and a pistol clutched inexpertly in both hands…

  Taylor.

  44

  TAYLOR

  For a moment, nothing moves. Not space, not time, not the beating of my heart.

  I hear my sister’s voice. I see her standing in front of Ilarion, like a soldier ready to lay her life on the line. I see a skeletally thin, dark-haired man with his back to me and his gun pointed at Celine.

  And I act on instinct.

  I have no real idea how to handle a gun, but Mila gave me a quick lesson while we were waiting out in the forest. She hadn’t actually expected me to use it. Hell, I never actually expected to use it, but when chaos descended down on us, I couldn’t just sit in the armored car and wait for someone to bring me my sister.

  So I waited until all the Bratva troops, including Dima and Mila, were otherwise engaged. Then I snuck into the house.

  Up until I stepped into that room, everything felt like it was happening at high speed. Gunshots, screams, angry yells and shouted orders and the groans of dying men. I smelled smoke and blood and the taint of death in the air. I passed more bodies than I could count.

  But the speed helped. It was like I was fast-forwarding through the experience just to save myself some trauma later. Because who are we kidding—I really can’t afford therapy.

  And then I caught sight of my sister. I looked at the man who held her at gunpoint.

  No one noticed me.

  I raised my gun, remembering everything Mila taught me, and fired. I didn’t even really aim to kill. I just knew I had to shoot before he did.

  I sucked in a sharp breath when the bullet hit his arm. But even though it wasn’t a fatal shot, it succeeded in forcing him to drop his gun. That’s when I looked at Ilarion.

  And that’s when the high speed slowed to absolute stillness.

  Our eyes lock and I see the shock on his face. It’s nice to see something I’d never seen before. Then the shock disappears slowly, and it’s replaced by Ilarion’s default emotion.

  Anger.

  The three long seconds that follow hold an entire conversation in the pregnant—no pun intended—silence. And then the noise filters back into my ears. Life smashes the Play button.

  “Taylor!” Celine cries.

  I blink and lunge towards my sister, but Ilarion steps around her and blocks my path. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing here?”

  He snatches the gun from my hand, tucks me behind him, and points it at Benedict where he’s lying on the ground.

  “No!” Benedict says in a strangled cry. “No, you can’t kill me.”

  “And why the fuck not?”

  “My b-brother.” Spit flies from his mouth as he clutches his arm as though it’s about to fall off, though I think I barely even grazed him. “My brother… We have an army…He’ll come for you…”

  “I’m not scared of your fucking army.”

  “No!” Celine and I scream at the same time.

  “Our father. He still has Dad!” I say.

  Benedict lets out a bubble of bloody laughter. “Exactly… I…I have their father. And if I die…he joins me.”

  Ilarion glances between the two of us, his eyes murky with conflict. Footsteps thunder on the stairs as we wait for him to make his decision.

  “Ilarion,” I gasp, grabbing his arm and forcing him to look at me. “Please—he’s our father.”

  A heartbeat later, with Ilarion’s gun still hanging in the balance, Dima appears at the threshold of the door, several men clustered close at his back. He scans the room and catches sight of Benedict. “Ah—see you caught vermin. Glad I got here in time to witness the bug get squashed.”

  Ilarion’s jaw twitches wildly, but I know when the hardness settles into those misty blue eyes that he’s made his choice.

  “Not today,” he tells Dima. “Gag and bind him. We’re taking him with us.”

  45

  TAYLOR

  “W-what?” Dima stammers, gawking at Ilarion in bewilderment. His gaze swings to me and he does a double-take. “Taylor?!”

  I give him a wink. The adrenaline crash is making me giddy, like I’m high or dreaming. “Hi, Dima. You don’t happen to have an iriski in your pocket, do you?”

  He just continues to stare at me with his mouth hanging open.

  “Dima!” Ilarion barks, pulling him out of his state of shock.

  “Right,” Dima mumbles. “Right. Talk later. The situation is contained downstairs, by the way. Every Bellasio man on site is dead.”

  He shakes his head and turns to oversee the men as they bind and gag Benedict. Ilarion waits until they drag him out of the room before he turns to me. “What the fuck, Taylor?”

  He wants me to cower and crumble in the face of his anger. But I won’t. I’m riding this high of having the upper hand for as long as I can.

  God only knows when I’ll get another chance.

  “I told you before: I’m not some shrinking violet. I can take care of myself. More importantly, I can take care of my family.”

  “It’s not your responsibility to—”

  “She’s my sister,” I interrupt furiously. “Of course it’s my responsibility.”

  “Like fuck it is,” he growls, stepping forward. He’s so close to me now that if he leans in just a fraction of an inch more, the tips of our noses will touch. “Who brought you?”

  “No one brought me. I stole Mila’s gun and shot her in the foot. Sort of. Then I stole her Hummer and made her drive me here.”

  “Do you really expect me to believe that?” he asks coldly. “On second thought, never mind. Foolish. Fucking foolish. Why the hell did you think you belonged here?”

  I gesture incredulously at the trail of blood on the carpet. “Are you blind? That’s why! I just saved you! Both of you!

  Ilarion runs a frustrated hand through his hair. “You’re out of your mind.”

  “That’s a weird way to say, Thank you.”

  He splutters with rage. “Thank y—? No. No. Get the fuck downstairs. Now!”

  He grabs my hand and twists me towards the door, and I swipe my nails at his face. We’re about to thrash into our own battle when we both hear a scream that stops in our tracks.

  “Stop it! Both of you!”

  Guilt and shame flood through me when I realize that I’ve completely forgotten about Celine’s presence. I yank my arm from Ilarion’s grasp and turn to face my sister.

  She’s looking between the two of us with an expression that’s one part shock, two parts disbelief, and ten parts anger. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen her cheeks go quite that red.

  “You realize that I’m in the room, too, right?” she demands. “I’m the one who was kidnapped!”

  “Celine…”

  She turns to Ilarion, expecting him to finish his sentence. But for once, he seems at a loss for words.

  “Okay. Clearly, I’ve missed a lot,” she whispers, her voice trembling. “And I know this is an intense situation. But I’m here, I’m safe, and everything is okay.”

  “No, it’s not, Cee,” I say, grabbing her hand just to remind myself that she’s alive and everything is okay. Or rather, that it will be okay—once we rescue our father and get our family the fuck away from Ilarion forever. “You can’t trust him. He’s not who you think he is.”

  “Tay—”

  “Please, listen to me.”

  “I am listening to you,” she insists. “You’re the one who never listens to me.”

  I drop her hand. “What?”

  “I’ve told you before: I chose Ilarion. I trust Ilarion. And that means that whether you like it or not, you’re going to have to accept the fact that I’m with him.”

  I’m about to say something when she holds up her hand. The same way that Dad used to do when I got mouthy with him. My lips snap shut, and my cheeks burn with embarrassment.

  “That’s enough. You think I don’t know who I’m marrying. I’m marrying Ilarion Zakharov, pakhan of the Zakharov Bratva. He told me who he was on our first date, Tay. I knew the risks going into our engagement and I chose to accept them.”

  “He doesn’t really l—”

  “STOP!” Celine screams so loudly that I take an instinctive step back. “Just…stop.” She takes a deep breath. “I love you for wanting to protect me, but you don’t have to do that. I don’t need your protection. I need you to trust me. To trust that I know what I’m doing.” She meets my gaze and holds it. “Can you do that for me? Please?”

  When she asks like that…what choice do I have? I don’t so much as glance in Ilarion’s direction as I nod silently to my sister.

  She smiles and floats forward to hug me. “Thank you,” she whispers in my ear. “I know this isn’t easy for you, but it’ll all work out. You’ll see.”

  And Ilarion called me delusional.

  I release Celine, and she turns to her fiancé. “Ilarion,” she murmurs. “I…oh my God! You’re bleeding!”

  His eyes flicker to mine for the briefest of moments before they divert back to Celine. “It’s nothing. Just a scratch.”

  “Let me see it,” Celine insists, taking his arm tenderly.

  I turn and walk out of that room as fast as I can. I don’t stop until I reach the truck that we arrived in. Mila is standing by the open passenger door, one leg on the runner, the other on the forest floor.

  “Dima filled me in,” she says, watching me with incredulous respect. “You shot Benedict Bellasio?”

  “Yeah. But I missed. Mostly.”

  She stares at me for another long moment. Then she bursts into laughter. “You’re full of surprises, Taylor Theron. I can’t wait to see what you do next.”

  Yeah, I think miserably. Me neither.

  46

  ILARION

  “I’m fine,” I snarl. “You don’t need to keep fucking petting me.”

  Celine freezes, her hands hovering inches away from my skin.

  I curse inwardly as I attempt to act like a normal human being to my fiancée. “Fuck. Forget it. I’m just—”

  “On edge,” she fills in. “I know. It’s okay.”

  I look up to see her eyes filling with tears. “Celine, I believe you, okay?” I say. “I don’t have faith in a word that fuck said to us.”

  She smiles self-consciously, but shakes her head. “No, that’s not what… I mean, I’m glad that you believe me, of course.”

  “There’s something else on your mind?”

  She nods, her hand still fluttering like a wounded bird over my arm. “You and Taylor seem really…”

  I find myself holding my breath, waiting to see what will follow. Suspicions? Accusations? Instincts? Either way, I’m tempted to just answer with the truth.

  Not that I know what the fuck the truth is at this point.

  “Really pissed at each other,” she concludes. “Did something happen?”

  “Lots of things happened, Celine,” I tell her with a grimace. “You and your father were abducted, for one. In case you forgot.”

  “Right.” She looks down and shuffles her feet on the carpet. “That must have been hard on Mom and Taylor.”

  A lightning bolt of unease strikes me out of nowhere. Oh, fuck.

  She doesn’t know about her mother.

  I should tell her immediately, but as I open my mouth to do it, I change my mind. Why not give her a few more hours of blissful ignorance? She’s been through a lot. And when the time does come, why should I be the one to tell her?

  “You will get Dad back, won’t you?” she presses. “They’re not going to hurt him, especially now that you have Benedict?”

  “Gregor isn’t really known for reining in his worst instincts,” I murmur. It’s only when I see the look of horror on Celine’s face that I realize I’m saying too much. “He’s not going to risk his brother’s life, though. Don’t worry.”

  She sighs. “All I do is worry.”

  It’s hard to look at her and see a person. I see those tears and I can imagine what it feels like to be the one crying them, but at the same time, she’s not a person to me. I can’t afford to let her be that.

  She is a pawn. She is part of a plan. She is Taylor’s sister.

  All good reasons to keep my distance.

  “Let’s get you home,” I tell her wearily. “Mila and Taylor will be waiting for us.”

  “Taylor’s living with you?”

  I make a mental note to have a meeting with my dear sister once I confirm she is not, in fact, limping on one foot. We need to coordinate lies. “Taylor has been living at the Diamond until Zakharov House is rebuilt. I didn’t think it would be safe for her to go back to her apartment.”

  Celine smiles shyly. “I’m glad. Tay can be stubborn sometimes. I’m happy you managed to convince her to stay where it’s safe.”

  I snort as I guide her to the exit. “I didn’t convince her to do anything. I didn’t really ask, to be honest.”

  Celine frowns. “I’m beginning to realize why she seems to hate you so much.”

  I bite back another sigh. If only that were true.

  47

  ILARION

  When we get back downstairs, I see that Dima has loaded the restrained Benedict into the back of one of the armored trucks. He’s surrounded on all sides by thousands of pounds’ worth of loyal Zakharov soldiers.

  “Don’t let him out of your sight,” I order Dima.

  “No chance of that,” he assures me. “Where are we taking him?”

  “Zakharov House. We can keep him confined to the cellars until I decide on the next move. We’ll drive with you until the interstate and split up there.”

  The rest of the truck caravan is waiting, engines purring, for us to board and depart. At the lead vehicle, Mila and Taylor stand shoulder by shoulder.

  I do a double-take when I see them. Taylor is dressed much like my sister, in dark jeans and a dark tank top that shows off her toned arms. Blood, grime, and sweat mingle on her tanned skin and capture the light until it looks like she’s glowing. But what catches my eye the most is the resolute set of her jaw, the fire in her eyes, the grace in her stance.

  She doesn’t look like a fish out of water. Not the way that Celine does.

  She looks like…

  Like she belongs.

  I tear my gaze from Taylor and focus on my sister instead. Mila gives me a guilty smile and starts sauntering towards me. “Celine,” I say. “Why don’t you get in? I’ll only be a minute.”

  She doesn’t question me; she just nods and gets into the backseat of one of the cars. I shut the door and turn to Mila, whose feet look relatively intact.

  “This explanation better be good,” I snarl.

  She doesn’t have to ask to know what I’m talking about. “She had me at gunpoint. What was I supposed to do?” She’s not nearly as contrite as I expected her to be.

  “Is that a joke? You could have disarmed her in seconds. Not to mention the fact that you had her outnumbered ten to one.”