She doesn’t push me away. Her eyes stay trained on Dr. Baranov. “How slim is ‘slim’?”

  His perfectly orchestrated mask cracks just enough to let her see just how much hope he has for Celine’s recovery: vanishingly little.

  He doesn’t say a word, but I can feel Taylor collapse in on herself. “No…” She whispers it so softly. So heartbreakingly hopeless.

  She takes a shaky breath and her legs give out underneath her. I grab her before she can even falter, plucking her up into my arms. She’s weightless and limp. Her head lolls against my chest like a newborn fawn.

  “Let me check her,” Dr. Baranov says to me with concern. “The stress can’t be good for the baby.”

  “No…” she mumbles weakly. “Please, no…”

  The faint hint of hazelnuts and vanilla lingers in my nostrils as I give the doctor a nod. “Tomorrow. For now, keep an eye on Celine,” I tell him. “Make sure someone is with her around the clock.”

  I turn and leave the medical bay, carrying Taylor with me. I take the last flight of stairs up to the third floor and settle her onto the bed. Her eyes flutter open when I place her on the soft duvet cover, but they’re glassy and unfocused.

  Her clothes are raggedy and covered in the grease and grime of battle. The speckles of blood make me wince, but I quickly see none of it’s hers. She’s okay.

  She’s okay.

  “I’m going to have one of the maids come up and help you change,” I murmur.

  She doesn’t respond. Doesn’t even acknowledge that she’s heard me.

  Sighing, I straighten up and turn to go, when Taylor’s hand jerks forward and grabs my wrist. “I don’t need to change. Just…stay with me. For a little bit.”

  It’s the first time I’ve seen her this vulnerable. No, that’s not exactly true. The first time I saw her vulnerable was the night I almost ran her over. That ended in disaster, which is why I’m more than a little reluctant to agree to her request now.

  She meets my gaze. “Please?”

  Fuck.

  “Okay.” I sigh. “I’ll stay. Don’t move.”

  I leave her on the bed and dip into the bathroom. I splash some cold water on my face, then I do the same with the white hand towels hanging next to the bath sheets.

  I walk them back to the room, sit down on the edge of the bed, and gently rub them over Taylor’s skin. She lets a sighing little gasp escape past her lips. As the towels come away dirty and stained, one after the next, the last of the tension in her body eases until she’s melted into the blankets.

  Her voice, when she finally speaks, takes me by surprise. “Celine used to give me massages when I got sick as a kid.”

  I let my hand come to rest against her hip. The blankets are between us, bunched up and tucked around Taylor’s frame, but I still relish the heat of her body where it seeps through.

  “I had bronchitis all the time. All the other kids in the neighborhood used to go swimming in the public pool, but I couldn’t. I’d try, I’d want to hold my breath and play with them, but it gave me these crazy asthma attacks. Celine could’ve gone with them. She could breathe; she could swim. But she didn’t. She’d stay with me and rub medicine into my chest until I could finally inhale again.”

  Taylor cracks open an eye to look at me. I’m holding my breath—partly out of some kind of bizarre sympathy for the air-starved little girl she once was, and partly because I see where she’s going with this and I already know it can’t possibly end without more heartache.

  “She was always so selfless. There weren't very many things she asked for. It was enough for her to be of service. To be there for me…for all of us. Do you know what she did with her very first paycheck? She spent a whole summer scooping ice cream, and as soon as she had money, she took the family to dinner.”

  “Taylor—”

  “It should have been me,” she concludes, a sob escaping her lips. “It should have been me.”

  “She is going to be okay.”

  “You don’t know that. And you have no right to promise me that.”

  “I think you need to rest now.” I’m barely resisting the urge to touch her face. It feels alien and uncomfortable to sit here with my hands so close to her but not close enough.

  “It should have been me,” she says again. “It should have been me. It should have been—”

  “Stop!” I snarl. “ Stop, Taylor.”

  Her eyes meet mine, lit from within by a fever only she can feel. “Why? Am I wrong?”

  Don’t answer that, I tell myself. Don’t you dare answer that, because if you do, then the last pillar holding up this disastrous fucking house of cards will tumble and everything will come crashing down.

  I take a deep breath and prepare to lie…

  And then the truth comes out instead.

  “Because I need you alive,” I hear myself say. “I need you with me.”

  Taylor blinks at me as though she’s sure she heard me wrong. Something starts to surface in her eyes—hope, perhaps. It has to be hope. I know that glow, that trust, that daring to believe that a better world is possible.

  I saw it in my car while rain poured around us and Taylor came so beautifully on top of me.

  That hope needs to die.

  “I’m sorry,” she says softly. “I shouldn’t have asked you to stay.”

  I drop my hand, letting the dirty towels fall to the floor. Then I get up and walk out of the room. I try to leave the regret behind, too, but I don’t have much luck.

  It follows me wherever I go.

  52

  TAYLOR

  Who would have guessed that twenty-four hours could go by so slowly?

  I watch every passing minute with hope and dread. Hope that Celine will wake up. Dread that another minute will waste away without any update, bringing us that much closer to the three-day cliff where all my dreams will die.

  I stay in my room unless I’m visiting Celine. The first time I go, I stay an hour. I try to talk to her, but nothing I think of saying seems right. Nothing I’d come back from a coma for if I were the one in the hospital bed.

  The second visit, I whisper a few clumsy words. It ends up feeling more like a eulogy than an apology. I slip out again, tears burning tracks down my face.

  The nurses keep telling me to rest. I know they’re right, and it’s not like I haven’t tried. But every time I close my eyes, I think about the fact that Celine can’t open hers. I think about the fact that our mother will never open hers again. And then I remember that Dad is still in the hands of the psychopath who killed our mother and abducted Celine.

  It’s too much. I’m sinking under the weight of it all.

  The only time I feel a spark of something like energy is when I hear Ilarion’s footsteps down the hall. He comes to check on me as faithfully as I go to check on Celine.

  And every single time, I rush into bed and pretend to be asleep. He’ll walk in, hover over my bed just long enough to make sure I’m still breathing, and then he leaves again.

  I try not to read too much into it. I also fight the urge to ask him if he sits with Celine this often.

  I’m perched on the window seat, staring unblinkingly into the gardens outside, when I hear footsteps again. Same old song and dance—I race into bed, pull the covers up over my chin, and let my breathing settle into the soft rhythms of a fake sleep.

  The door groans softly as it opens. I barely hear Ilarion as he circles the bed and his shadow falls across my face. His scent is off, though. The dark muskiness that I’ve come to expect has been replaced with nutmeg and merlot.

  “Cut the shit, girl. You’re not fooling anyone.” My eyes fly open and I sit upright to see Mila standing over my bed with her arms crossed. “Mhmm. That’s what I thought.”

  Sighing, I draw my legs into my chest. “Are the Zakharov siblings on suicide watch or something? There’s really no need for all the random check-ups.”

  Mila looks mildly interested at that tidbit. “Ilarion’s been checking up on you?”

  Dammit.

  “Uh…no?”

  She rolls her eyes at my terrible lie and nudges my legs away so that she can sit down. It’s weird how she feels so familiar now. Like a sister I never knew I had.

  “I hear you’ve been visiting Celine like clockwork. I’ve come to tell you that you’re going to drive yourself crazy.”

  “What if I’m already there?”

  “Doubtful,” Mila scoffs. “You’re a tough cookie. It’s gonna take more than that to break you.”

  Her certainty startles me, mostly because I feel none of it. “How do you know that when I don’t even know it?”

  “Intuition. It’s never let me down.” She smiles as her eyes dance over to the food tray on my nightstand. A transparent cloche hovers over the still-uneaten sandwich on the plate beneath. “You need to eat, Taylor.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “I’m not concerned about you,” she says fiercely. “I’m concerned about the baby in your belly.” I flinch as though she’s used a dirty word. Those eagle eyes of hers miss nothing. “Forgot that you were pregnant, hm?”

  I shoot her a glare. “Of course not. I just…I don’t like being reminded.”

  “I got news for you: seeing your belly grow is going to be reminder enough.”

  I inch away from Mila, desperate for some space. Sometimes, I feel like she’s stealing away my oxygen just to hoard it all for herself. I feel that way about her brother, too.

  “Have you checked on Celine?” I ask. “Are there any updates from Dr. Baranov?”

  “Not since you last checked in yourself,” she says. “Celine’s still being fed through a drip. She’s still getting oxygen from machines. And yet she’s still alive.”

  I close my eyes. “It feels like déjà vu. First, Mom; now, Cee.”

  “Enough doom and gloom. You’re neither a doctor nor a fortune teller. Now, eat the sandwich.” I shake my head and she sighs. “Don’t be stubborn, Taylor.”

  “I don’t deserve to eat.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because when Dr. Baranov told me that Celine might never wake up…” I choke on a sob, and I have to wait until it passes to continue speaking. “I…I had this thought, this horrible little thought, that Celine not waking up meant I would never have to tell her that I’m pregnant with her fiancé’s baby.”

  Mila just looks at me, her expression devoid of judgment. “It’s an understandable thought to have.”

  “No, it’s not,” I snap. “It’s inexcusable. It’s…it’s despicable. I accused Ilarion of wanting the wrong thing for selfish reasons, and here I am, guilty of the exact same sin.”

  “A stray thought does not define you, Taylor. We all have instincts. Some of them are bad. That doesn’t make you bad.”

  I lift my gaze to hers. She really is trying to comfort me now, and that’s a far cry from where we started. “You’re being kind.”

  “Trust me—no one has ever accused me of that.”

  “Then what would you call it?”

  “I’d call it being strong,” she says simply. “You go through enough shit and you learn not to blink too much, if you get what I’m saying. You just keep on going.”

  “If that’s the only way to do it, I’d rather not.”

  “You say that, but you’re already stronger than you realize. A coward would never have hijacked the rescue mission and invited herself along for the ride. I mean, goddamn—you shot the Benedict Bellasio. Not many seasoned vors can claim that.”

  “I got lucky. I was just running on adrenaline and fear.”

  “Well, what the hell do you think the rest of us run on?” She snorts. “Superhuman strength and heroic conviction?”

  She’s chuckling, but my face feels weighted down, like I’ll never laugh or smile again. “I’m not really strong or brave, Mila. I’m just pretending to be.”

  She scoots closer and palms my hand. “My point is, what’s the difference?” she asks. “The strongest of us have the deepest scars. I was twelve years old when I was first raped by a man three times my age and size. I thought it would break me; it almost did. But I survived it. And here I am, ready to fight another day. Sometimes, life kicks you between the legs, Taylor. You just gotta get back up and keep going.”

  I blink stupidly for way too long. All I can conjure up is a weak, pathetic, “I’m sorry.”

  “Why?” she asks. “You didn’t molest me.”

  “Ilarion didn’t know?”

  “He didn’t know until I told him, and that wasn’t until years after it started happening. Of course, he tried to save me. He was always trying to save me back then. Still is.”

  “Save you from what?”

  “Myself, mostly. I was this close to saying, ‘Fuck it all,’ and jumping off the top of the house,” she says with a bitter laugh. “Those were bad days. But now…I’m fine. Mostly fine. The only bad days left are the ones where I remember how long it’s been since I let anyone else that close. You start to wonder if it’ll ever happen. But who needs it, right?”

  My eyes go wide. “You mean…you’ve never…?”

  “No,” she says with a firm shake of her head. “I haven’t been able to. The idea of another man, any man, touching me like that…It makes me feel…” She shudders and I lean in instinctively to put my hand on her leg.

  She flinches, but she doesn’t move away.

  “I hear you,” I murmur. “It’s okay.”

  Mila sighs and fiddles with her bracelet. “I don’t talk about this with many people. In fact, I don’t talk about this with anyone at all.”

  “I’m honored.”

  “Don’t be,” she says. “It’s just a testament to how broken you are that I’m bringing up my own shit.”

  I smirk. Classic Zakharov—lash out to keep the attention off of yourself. “Still, I appreciate it.”

  She sighs and relaxes. I watch how the tension in her shoulders eases just enough to let me see past the armor she’s built over the years to protect herself. Like a wild beast finally rolling over to show you the thorn in its paw.

  “Maybe you just haven’t met the right man yet,” I suggest. “Maybe that’s why the thought of being with—”

  “No,” she interrupts.

  “No?”

  “I’ve met the right man; I just can’t bring my walls down long enough to let him in. And since I can’t give myself to him fully, it would be selfish to get involved with him in the first place.”

  I loft a brow. “Maybe you should let him make that decision.”

  She shakes her head. “I’d much rather be alone. It’s simpler that way. I have only myself to worry about. That kind of independence is…freeing.”

  “It does sound that way, doesn’t it?” I muse. “But it seems to me that loving freely is more important than living independently.”

  Mila glances at me. Her eyes are murky with half-formed things. There’s doubt there, and a certain hungry restlessness that she’s not able to feed.

  Surviving is one thing.

  Living, though? That is another thing altogether.

  She focuses on me and smiles conspiratorially. “Look at you, being all optimistic in the face of grief. Maybe you’re not so broken after all.”

  I shake my head and scowl at her. “You’re just as much of an ass as your brother, you know that?”

  She laughs and the sound breathes new life into me. “Why, thank you. It’s one of our best qualities.”

  53

  ILARION

  “What do you smell?” I ask.

  “Piss,” Dima answers, wrinkling his nose. “And shit.”

  “Not that, mudak,” I say impatiently. “Sulphur. Do you not smell that? It’s everywhere. Sticking to the walls, under the floorboards…”

  I walk around the now-empty warehouse. By the tracks dragged through the dust and that groaning of the structure, I’d guess that it was vacated recently—and in a hurry. “Benedict’s been using this as a storeroom. He and that little shit of a brother of his are bringing out the big guns. Literally.”

  Huge windows loom on either side of the large space, but they’ve been boarded up. Only little fingers of light creep in, stretching to touch the dusty expanse of the floor.

  I see four dots marked in a square. Footprints. A scrap of rope. “He was scared,” I mutter under my breath. “I think he was keeping the old man here.”

  Dima meets my gaze when I glance up. “The fact that he’s keeping Archie alive means something.”

  “It could mean any number of things.” I leave it at that, vague as it is. I refuse to give voice to the doubts that are already starting to perforate through my resolve.

  “He knows that Archie is your future father-in-law.”

  “And for now, that’s the only thing we’re sure he knows,” I fire back. “There’s no point jumping to conclusions before we have all the information. We’re playing poker here, Dima. Neither one of us wants to show our hand.”

  “Based on the letter we got—”

  “There’s too many unknown variables.” I shake my head. “For now, the plan is simple. We find Archie; we get him back.”

  Dima strokes his chin, his eyes wary and watchful. “Have you thought about what it would mean if Benedict took Archie out?” he asks. “It would be simpler.”

  I stiffen. Not because he’s wrong—but because I’ve had the exact same thought too many times to count.

  I’ve never given a damn about lives lost in the struggle before. That’s just the nature of my business, of my world. But this one sits unpleasantly. The thought of digging a grave for Archie right next to Fiona’s makes my stomach churn nastily.

  A few of my men come around through the back entrance. Sergei leads the pack. “We combed through the entire property, pakhan. They didn’t leave anything behind.”

  I nod. “Start the engines. We can head back soon.”

  I glance up at the misshapen roof as Sergei herds the soldiers back outside towards our two vehicles. Bullet holes puncture the ceiling here and there. As I watch, I see a rat squirm its way through one and out into the night above.