Dima moves to my side, radiating broodiness. His silence is starting to grate at my nerves. “What is it?” I snap.

  “If we get the old man back…that might be a problem in its own right.”

  “You think I haven’t already thought about that myself?”

  Dima clamps his mouth shut, but it doesn’t take a genius to realize he isn’t satisfied. Muttering under his breath, he digs into his pockets and pulls out an iriski. He tosses the wrapper onto the floor and pops the candy into his mouth.

  “You still carry those things around with you?” I ask.

  “Yeah. Reminds me of home.”

  I roll my eyes. “You were born in California.”

  “Yes, but the motherland is ingrained deep.”

  I couldn’t agree less. For Dima, the home of our ancestors has life. Mysticism. History. For me, it’s a frozen tundra that gave birth to the man who gave birth to me. Of all its sins, that one is by far the worst.

  Maybe that’s why I rejected so much of my heritage. Because it was the easiest way to piss off my father.

  I exhale sharply. “I know Archie will be a problem. But there’s no point planning ahead when the road is unpredictable.”

  “In other words, you’re procrastinating,” Dima says, swirling the toffee in his mouth. “He’ll have to be dealt with, Ilarion. There are a few vors who know.”

  “I’ll deal with them,” I say. “My priority right now is T—Celine.”

  Dima gives me one of those piercing gazes that says you aren’t fooling me. “You’re always a second away from saying Taylor’s name,” he muses. “One day, you just might slip.”

  I scowl and glance away from him. “That won’t happen.”

  “Because you won’t slip?” he asks. “Or because you’ve decided to take my advice and swap the two sisters out?”

  “You clearly don’t know much about women, do you?” I growl. “And even less about these two. Neither one will go for it, and I’m not about to make the suggestion.”

  “Because you’re worried she’ll say no?”

  He’s skating on thin ice right now, but he pushes through anyway. It’s the reason he’s lasted this long at my side. It’s also the reason I’m never more than a few seconds away from smacking him upside the head.

  “I know she’ll say no. That’s not the point. I’m not about to exchange a tamed mare for an unbroken filly.”

  “Even if you have real feelings for the latter?” he asks.

  “She’s nothing more than the woman who’s pregnant with my baby.”

  “Right. You know, you never did tell me what led to that night in the first place. You claimed it was coincidental—”

  “Because it was.”

  “…But there was something about this woman that forced you to break your dry spell.” I glare at him and he just smiles unapologetically at me. “Yeah, I was keeping track. You hadn’t gotten laid in ages before Taylor came along. And as for Celine, we both know—”

  “What do you want me to say?” I interrupt. “That harps started to play? That there was a magical connection? A rush of chemistry? Fireworks in the background?”

  “Oh, really? Sounds magical.”

  “Fuck you,” I grumble. “I was horny; she was willing. That’s all there was to it.” I turn away before he can spot some telltale sign on my face. It’s easier to keep the mask on when you’re with people who don’t know you that well. It’s why I try to avoid Mila as much as possible these days.

  “Benedict’s pride is wounded right now,” I remark, changing the topic back to more relevant matters. “He’s going to want to strike back hard. He’s going to want to erase the image of his hands in cuffs with a ball gag in his mouth.”

  Dima squats down to the floor and picks up a stray bullet casing lodged between the boards. He toys with it before tossing it aside and rising again. “There’s one thing I’m trying to figure out.”

  “Just one?”

  “Two, actually. This, and ‘Why are you such an asshole all the time’?” He rolls his eyes. “No, my question is, What is Benedict’s end goal? All these years, things have been simmering. He’s wanted to be the one on top, but both of you have power, property, and influence. It’s an abundance of riches and he owns half of it. Does it matter that you own the other half?”

  I think about the day that Benedict and I met. People assume that if the circumstances had been different, we might have been friends. But I knew from the moment I laid eyes on the snot-nosed Bellasio boy that it would never happen.

  Benedict was a grade-A narcissist with no concept of loyalty. He expected it, he demanded it, but he wasn’t accustomed to giving it. Which was why he came to blows with his father so often.

  Not that I could fault him with that. I came to blows with my father often, too. But then, he was a fucking monster.

  “It matters,” I say. “It’s not enough for him to succeed. He needs to see me fail, too.”

  Dima shakes his head. “Because you beat him in a fight once upon a time when you were kids?”

  “No,” I say. “Because I humiliated him in front of his men and mine. And Benedict Bellasio never forgives a slight.”

  “Time to humiliate the fucker once more, don’t you think?” Dima asks with a sly smile.

  I nod. “Soon enough. For now, a meeting will have to suffice.”

  “A meeting?” Dima asks incredulously. “With Benedict? After everything he tried?”

  “I need a jumping-off point before this goes further. And we need to determine how much of a player the old man will be going forward. For that, I need him alive.”

  Dima whistles low. “I smell a shitstorm brewing.”

  54

  TAYLOR

  I freeze when I catch sight of his broad shoulders.

  He ignores the chair at Celine’s bedside. He’s just standing beside her, looking down at her pale, lifeless face with the frown of a man facing a river he doesn’t know how to cross. I’m not sure if I’m the right person to judge—scratch that; I know I’m not—but I still can’t see any real love there.

  It strikes me again, not for the first time, how it’s cruel to the point of heartbreak for a person like Celine—who has so much love to give—to tie herself to a man who has none to offer in return.

  The nurse notices me standing in the doorway and gestures for me to enter, but I shake my head and try to back out of the room before Ilarion sees me.

  I’ve got one foot in the hallway, so close to a clean escape, when he lifts his gaze and spots me. His frown somehow morphs without actually moving. The storm in his eyes worsens.

  I have two options. I can hold my ground, do the mature thing, and just talk to the man. Say what I need to say and be done with it.

  Or…I can turn tail and run.

  In the face of the emotional upheaval I’ve dealt with in the last few days, I take the coward’s route. I slam my palms against the swing door of the hospital room and nearly run headlong into Dr. Baranov.

  “Taylor!” he says in surprise.

  “Sorry, Doctor,” I mutter, maneuvering around him with my head down. As soon as I have a clear lane, I take off running down the corridor toward the staircase.

  I hear Dr. Baranov cry out a second time when he’s almost hit in the face by the door as Ilarion bursts through and nearly mows him down. I don’t wait; I start moving faster.

  It’s juvenile. I’m in his house; I can’t exactly outrun him forever.

  But do I stop?

  No.

  Hell no.

  Not until I’m in the south gardens. This stretch of the property is riddled with little alcoves, small clusters of shrubs and statues where I can hide. And hiding is exactly what I intend to do.

  Right now, the thought of speaking to Ilarion, of looking him in the eye and pretending…

  It’s more than I can take.

  “Taylor?”

  Fuck. I crouch down and find a spot under one of the lilac bushes. It’s smaller than I anticipated, and I have to cram my body into the space. Thorns prickle at my skin. My legs come up to my chin and I try not to breathe when I feel him draw closer.

  “This isn’t a game, Taylor.”

  I bite my tongue and say nothing. At least not until his legs appear in front of my hiding spot. Then he squats down and I find myself staring at those hypnotic blue eyes.

  “Don’t be a child.”

  I grind my teeth together and extricate myself from under the bushes. “A smarter man would take the damn hint.”

  “I’m plenty smart. I’m just not very patient.”

  “Well, at least you’re aware of your failings.”

  I pat down the soft cotton dress that I’m wearing in search of my composure. It’s nowhere to be found, though. I peek at my little nook under the lilacs, but no luck there, either.

  So with an exhausted sigh, I straighten up and give him a glare. I’m telling myself that avoiding Ilarion is just a matter of simple dislike. “What do you want?”

  “I wanted to see how you were doing.”

  I narrow my eyes and start counting off my fingers. “Well, let’s see. My father is currently a missing person, but we can’t get the police involved. My sister is in a coma that she may never wake up from. And my mother died a few days ago and I’m the only one in my family who knows she’s gone. Oh, and yeah—I’m also pregnant with my future brother-in-law’s baby!”

  I suck in a breath at the end, but it doesn’t make me feel any better. I try again, but that doesn’t work, either. Every breath I take in feels like it’s stealing oxygen from my lungs, not giving me any. My head starts to pound and collapse in on itself and my chest is deflating and fuck, fuck, fuck, I’m gasping and twitching and the world is blackening around the edges and—

  “Breathe.”

  Before I can stop him, Ilarion wraps his arms around me. My back presses against his chest and I feel his lips at my ear. “Breathe,” he rasps again. His palms flatten against my abdomen, huge and hot.

  And all of a sudden, I can breathe.

  The moment that first gust of air rushes into my lungs, the rest comes easier. I feel myself relaxing. The pressure soothing. The pain disappearing.

  Is this what I needed all this time? Did I need to be held?

  Or did I just need to be held by him?

  “L-let me go, Ilarion,” I mumble, but there’s not an ounce of fight in my body.

  He must feel that, because he doesn’t release me. He doesn’t even loosen his grip. He just holds me as though our lives depend on it.

  Hot, confused tears sting at the corners of my eyes. Over the distant treeline, the sun is setting. Something about that catches in my head. The sun is setting… The sun is setting…

  Oh, fuck. The sun is setting.

  On the third day.

  Seventy-two hours have passed.

  55

  TAYLOR

  “Oh, God,” I whisper. I might have fallen to the ground if Ilarion weren’t holding me up. “T-three days… It’s been three days.”

  “Shh,” he murmurs in my ear with an easy confidence that just has me unraveling even faster. “It’s going to be okay.”

  “No, it’s not!” I stammer through my tears. “Nothing’s going to be okay. I’ve lost my mom and my sister in the same damn week. And I’ve probably lost my dad, too.”

  He doesn’t say anything to that. The silence only makes it worse.

  When he finally releases me, he does it gently. I feel the cold tickle of air nipping at my exposed skin. It feels like invisible snakes taking bites at me from every angle. I feel vulnerable on a skin-deep level, a soul-deep level. More vulnerable than I’ve ever felt in my whole cursed life.

  I keep my gaze trained on the gravel footpath beneath me. I still can’t look him in the eye. If I do, I’m scared he’ll see all the betrayal I’ve been carrying around in my head these last few days.

  “You should be up there with her,” I remind him.

  “Why?” he asks in that blunt way that always feels like whiplash even when I’m expecting it. “She doesn’t know I’m there. I don’t believe in empty gestures.”

  I sigh. “What do you believe in, Ilarion?”

  “Before you? Very little. But lately…more than I once did.”

  I asked the question, but now, I’m scared to push this conversation further. He’s not touching me anymore, and I hate that my body misses that. Even the distance between us now feels offensive to me.

  He’s not yours…

  And yet he doesn’t feel like Celine’s anymore, either.

  “She deserved so much better than this,” I whisper. “She could have been so much more.”

  “There’s still a chance—”

  “Ilarion,” I plead, my voice cracking darkly against the shimmering afternoon glow, “please just say the things you really mean, instead of what you think will make me feel better. I’d rather have cold reality than false hope right now.”

  “People always say that. They rarely mean it.”

  I square my shoulders and look him in the eye. “Well, I mean it. Do you really believe she’s going to wake up from this?”

  His eyes flicker over my face, quick and cold. “No,” he says shortly. “I don’t.”

  I know I asked for it, and I don’t regret doing that. I’m just not expecting my reaction. Those invisible snakes are slithering over me now. Cold and scaly and devastating. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so alone before.

  All the people who made up my childhood are gone. I won’t get to speak to Celine or Mom ever again. I’m quickly losing hope that I’ll ever see my father in this life. It’s all so cruel, so inhumanely cruel, a nightmare I’m screaming and screaming through but I can’t find a way to wake up from.

  That’s the only explanation I can come up with for how deeply terrible everything is—this isn’t real.

  I must be having a nightmare.

  “None of them even knew about my pregnancy.” A single tear glides down my cheek. I feel Ilarion’s warmth as he inches closer to me. I hate that it makes me feel better. “I know Mom would have been thrilled. Dad would have come around the moment he saw the baby. And Celine…” I glance up at him, wondering if I should give voice to certain thoughts, or just leave them floating around in my head.

  “Tell me,” he says.

  His lips are shaped like a bow. The one feature on his face that gives some levity and warmth to what is otherwise as cold and alien as a mountain ridge.

  “If I’d told her the truth from the start, she would have hated me at first…but I think she would have come around. She was always quick to forgive.” I shake my head as my voice wobbles and breaks. “God, I’m horrible.”

  “Why do you do that?” It’s almost a growl. Twilight crashes over us, blurring the world into mottled shades of black and indigo.

  “Do what?”

  He meets my gaze and holds it. “Punish yourself for being human.”

  I frown, wondering just how much of my thoughts are written across my face, and just how much of them he can read. He’s not supposed to be able to read anything at all. He doesn’t actually know me, one vulnerable night in his car notwithstanding. At least, that’s what I’ve been telling myself since I arrived at his home. Thus far, it’s been a comfortable belief to cling to.

  Until he says things that make me feel like he’s ripping my chest open and running his fingertips over the scarred grooves of my soul.

  “It’s okay to admit you want things that you shouldn’t want,” he continues. His hand lifts to my cheek, and he uses the backs of his knuckles to brush away my tears.

  He’s dangerously close. So close that his scent is crowding out every reasonable thought in my head. So close that my sense of self-preservation has taken flight.

  “Ilarion…”

  His lips hover mere inches from mine. I’ve been fighting to maintain that distance, but God help me, I’m getting so weak now. How many hits can a person take and stay standing? I’m weak enough to need something to hold me up. To keep me on my feet. To keep me moving forward.

  My lips part as if they have a mind of their own. “No…no… I have to…”

  I don’t finish my barely intelligible sentence—I just turn and trip my way away from him.

  “Taylor!” he calls after me, but I run away from the sound of his voice. I had the right idea earlier. Nothing good can come of us being near each other.

  Celine is still lying up there in that hospital bed. She may not be fully alive, but she’s not dead, either. And yet here I am, staring at her fiancé’s lips, imagining a different future than the one that exists.

  It isn’t right. It isn’t—

  I cry out as my foot catches a loose stone and my ankle twists. It’s not enough to be truly painful, but it’s enough to take me down. I hit the earth hard, and when I do, I stay down. I lie sprawled on the grass, my fingers combing through the blades, as I try to find a way out of the fogginess in my head.

  Ilarion’s shadow emerges from around the bend. I watch it stretch along the footpath as he approaches. As it consumes everything in its wake: the gravel, the grass, and, eventually, me. It feels appropriate to be swallowed up by it. By him. For his darkness to devour all of me.

  “Are you okay?” he rumbles.

  “No.” When I shake my head, the grass tickles my swollen lip. “No, I’m not even close to okay.”

  I hear him sigh. His scent intensifies as he bends down and scoops me up in his arms. I’d protest, but what’s the use? He wouldn’t listen. It wouldn’t matter.

  He walks me to the huge oak that stands sentinel in the corner of the garden. He sets me down on the far side, where we can’t see the house anymore. Where it’s just water and grass and the darkening night sky. Over here, it almost feels like we’re in a different place altogether. Like we left reality in the gardens at our back.

  He settles me against the trunk, then squats down to examine my ankle. “It’s a mild sprain. You’ll be fine.”