Page 232 of Lethal Obsession

“Not for most occasions.” My face heats up. “But I’ve always thought it might be nice to get married in one.”

His own face pales. “Married?”

I wince. “I’m sorry.” I turn for the door. “I shouldn’t have said anything. I was trying to distract you, I guess. It was a dumb idea—”

“Ofelia Borovsky.” Benny doesn’t move. “Stop right there.”

I do, turning slowly around.

“Are you pregnant?”

“No!”

“I thought you and Pirate Boy weren’t even talking,” he says curiously.

“He called. A few days ago.”

He frowns. “And you didn’t say anything?”

“It was the day they took Lars off sedation.” I lift my shoulder, wincing at the shadows that immediately creep into Benny’s eyes at the mention of Lars. “I’m sorry,” I say again.

“Stop saying that.” He shakes his head impatiently. “None of this is your fault, no matter how much Lourdes might like to blame you for it. Don’t bother apologizing for her,” he says, before I can speak. “We’re in a church, so I won’t swear, but I will say that I think the way she dumped your brother was awful. Not to mention dumping both of us.” He squeezes my hand. “Mickey deserved better than that,” he says quietly. “And so did we.”

“Don’t judge her too harshly.” I squeeze his hand back. “We all lied to her.”

“Did we, though?” Benny sits down heavily on a wooden pew. “I’ve thought about that. Before all this happened, when Lourdes and Mickey first started dating, they met up with Lars and me a lot. London, Paris, even Helsinki once. We went to places like your friend Zinaida’s nightclub, the Quartier.”

He glances at me. “Places that normal people don’t go,” he says quietly. “Not even normal rich people, really, and I should know. And Mickey always had his boys with him. Sure, he was more discreet when it was the four of us, but bratva boys are hard to miss. You might never have been completely open about what your family is, Ofelia, but you never tried to hide it either. I find it hard to believe that anyone with access to the internet could have possibly not known the rumors about your family.”

“What are you saying, Benny?” I sit down beside him.

“That maybe it’s more that Lourdes was lying to herself, than being lied to.” He leans forward, clasping his hands on his knees. “I think she always knew what Mickey is, and about your family. I think she just didn’t want to know. I made a joke one night about him sleeping with a gun under his pillow, and she got really angry. Told me that ‘Mickey isn’t like that.’ The way she said it made me think she knew what that is.”

He twists his head to look at me. “I think the bomb made it all real. The bullet in Mickey’s shoulder, the burns on his side—and the way he was after it all happened. That deathly cold fury all your men do so well.”

He gives me a weak imitation of his normal dry smile. “But she’d seen that side of Mickey before. He wasn’t happy when Alexei asked him to install that secure room in your house in Granada.”

“She told Mickey to be careful,” I say slowly. “Back on the yacht, when we argued. She said cuidado as she passed him.”

Benny nods. “That’s exactly what I mean. That night in the hospital wasn’t the first time she’d seen him like that.”

“To be fair, Mickey did tell her he was going overseas for a tech project when he left.”

He gives me a twisted smile. “She said the same thing to me the night she and I went to a bar with Jack and got drunk. I told her to stop being a delusional idiot.” He shakes his head. “I know I shouldn’t have said anything. But I was a mess,” he says quietly. “I didn’t have room for bullshit, not with Lars lying in the ICU. I gave her a few cold, hard facts, and she played innocent, saying she’d had no idea. I called her out on it. She didn’t like that.”

I stare at the patterns on the floor. “I always felt like the odd one out with you two,” I say quietly. “Like I lived in this world nobody else could understand and had dragged both of you into it with me. When I saw you together at the hospital, I felt so guilty, knowing it was my family, my world, that had caused you both so much pain. I still feel that way, every time I see Lars lying there. I know Alexei does, too.”

“But that’s my point exactly.” Benny frowns at the floor. “We all chose this, Ofelia. Lars most of all. He never spoke openly about the world he was part of—but he didn’t try to hide it. And for what it’s worth, I don’t think Mickey hid it from Lourdes.

“We were at the same parties on Lars’s yacht, with the same armed guards and tattooed men. We even joked about them, more than once. Lourdes knew, Ofelia. The difference is that she thought she could live half in it and half out.”

He shrugs. “Lars being on that table has made a lot of things clear for me, I guess. I love Lourdes. But your sister got it right: the world we all live in is what it is. And the simple truth is that Lourdes didn’t love Mickey enough to choose that world.”

“But you do,” I say quietly.

Benny nods. “For me, it was never a choice.”

I take his hand. “The world we all live in,” I repeat quietly. “I like the sound of that, Benny. Thank you.” I shoot him a sideways glance. “But just so you’re under no illusions, you’d better get used to the drama. Believe me, it never ends.”