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“Good boy.” He hangs up, and I stare at my phone.
Silence walks over to me. “What’s up? Are you not feeling well?” She touches my cheek, the cool metal of her new wedding ring resting on my skin. It’s three bands twisted together, diamonds of equal sizes set into the platinum, and while it’s not a legal marriage, it might as well be. “You’re all pale.”
A Volkov. Our wife is Russian mobster royalty. She’s also smack bang in the middle of a potential war, if any of this gets out.
But fuck lying to her again.
This is a fresh start, a promise between all of us to never hide.
Silence deserves more than to be kept in the dark, and it’s my job to be honest.
After all, she’s mine.
No.
She’s ours.
“Yale,” I call out, and he appears from the living room. “We need to get Xavier in here. Right now.”
He frowns. “Sure. Why?”
I take a deep, shuddering breath. “Because there’s something we need to discuss.”
Epilogue II
YALE - SIXTEEN YEARS AGO
“He’s gotta be around here somewhere,” Zayden says as we scan the crowds of dressed-up kids. We’re surrounded by goblins, ghosts, witches, skeletons, mainly kids with their parents, some teenagers just looking to cause trouble. My skull mask is dangling from my fingers, because wearing it made it difficult to find Xavier.
“Who knew morphine would make him all weird?”
Z grins. “Can’t wait to remind him of this tomorrow. There he is!”
Zayden sprints off, weaving between creatures of the night, just in time to reach Xavier before he smashes a pumpkin. Our brother tackles him to the ground, both landing on someone’s front yard, both laughing hysterically. I cackle, about to join them and drag X’s ass home, when someone passes in front of me.
“Sorry,” I say, backing up.
The blonde girl, about my age, nods and glances at me quickly. “It’s fine.”
She hurries by, bookbag over her shoulder, long hair hiding most of her face—but I spot the bruise below her eye.
I stare after her, knowing she’ll soon get swallowed up by the crowd, and something in my chest tells me not to let that happen. Someone else bumps into her, and she keeps her head down—and then, sure enough, she’s gone.
“Let’s go home,” Zayden says from beside me. Xavier is over his shoulder, giggling, eating candy out of a bag he likely stole from some poor kid.
“I’m gonna stick around,” I say.
Zayden pulls a face. “Why? What are you looking at?”
“Nothing, just … I’ll be home later, okay? Cover for me.”
My brother shrugs. “Ready, X?”
“I want to chase pumpkins!” he grumbles back, and I laugh as Zayden breaks into a sprint, our brother bouncing on his shoulder, laughing loudly.
Once I’m alone, I head in the direction of the girl. She was walking relatively quickly, but she was also tiny, so she can’t have gotten too far. I glance across the street, pausing as a pack of giggling gargoyles run by me.
I spot a glimpse of blonde hair as she rounds a corner.
