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Sienna catches my gaze after zooming a spoonful into Emilia’s mouth.
“Cara,” she smiles softly but there’s a sad curve at the corners of her mouth. “Please, don’t compare yourself to me. You need to work out what you’re good at, where your strengths lie, andusethat to work with Killian. Seriously, as a team, the two of you will be unstoppable and wedefinitelyneed strength in the family right now. You just have to find the balance.”
The desire to deny that I was comparing rises but her words stem the flow of hopelessness flooding my veins.
Find what I’m good at.
Breathing feels a little easier and I help Sienna feed the rest of the food to Emilia until something she said catches my thoughts.
“You said we need strength right now, is something weakening us?” I ask.
Please don’t tell me my father left something even more disastrous behind.
Sienna gathers up the dishes, offering Emilia a small pot of yogurt to dig through before she heads to the sink. I follow, juice cup in hand.
“Dante and I, we suspect Killian was the true target of the bomb at the club. That’s why we’re interrogating as many Russians as we can get our hands on, to confirm it.” She turns on the tap, running the water hot and I set the juice cup into the sink.
“Because he killed Grigoriy?” I ask and my heart begins to pick up its pace, thinking back to what Killian had told me before the funeral.
“Not just that,” Sienna continues, her voice low. “Killian should have been in that car with you and while it may have been a revenge attack, killing him would start to destabilize us. Killian is my underboss, he’s not someone we can just replace at the drop of a hat. His death would… unravel so much that I can’t evenfathomhow we’d fight a war and scramble to replace him, keep you safe, defend the clubs and all he works for. It’s a vulnerability wecannotafford.” Sienna sighs deeply as she scrubs the dishes clean and for the first time, the cracks of mafia life seep through.
I grab the dish towel and absently begin drying the dishes as Sienna’s words weave through my mind. My heart still races and my skin flushes hot as a shiver shoots through my mind. Killian dying? Such a thought makes me sick.
I can’t lose him, not to war and certainly not to Blair.
I understand thefamily side of things but my own selfishness rises up hotter and sharper than anything else.
Sienna is right, I have to find my strength and workwithKillian. It’ll be a nice distraction from the grief at least.
I can’t fight a war, not as he can and he needs to remain focused. I can protect him in other ways.
I can fight Blair. Child or no child, I will get to the bottom of her schemes.
8
CARA
Sienna’s advice has given me a lot to think about and a new surge of life keeps the grief at bay. The next day, I send Killian to work with strict instructions to be back in time for dinner.
I’m no whizz in the kitchen but if we’re to tackle life as a team, this seems like a good place to start. Especially since we’ve been living on take-out and snacks ever since we moved here. Killian had kissed me hard, made no promises, and left but Ihadmanaged to wrangle a promise out of Archer, to return Killian to me at a decent time.
That had been the easy part. The rest of my day consisted of searching for recipes on the internet and sending Timothy out on a grocery run. Two failed attempts later and I sit in the lounge as night falls, a glass of wine in hand and a carbonara bubbling away on the stove.
I’m officially domesticated.
But dinner isn’t my only goal tonight. I want to talk to Killian about Blair and it’s something we need to tackle together. I need him to know I have his back regardless of how it might go but I also need to make sure he understands I’m prepared to welcome a child into our lives if it comes to that.
If Blair thinks she will be able to win him back by using his kid, she’s got another thing coming.
The door clacking open draws me from my thoughts and I dart up from my seat, smoothing down my emerald dress as my heart skips up into my throat. I gulp the last of my wine, lick my lips and Killian fills the doorway a moment later.
“Cara?” he asks and those stormy gray eyes land on me in an instant. My heart skips again and warmth spreads through my chest, settling comfortingly in my gut as he strides forward and draws me into his thick arms. He’s late but I refrain from pointing that out.
“Welcome home,” I grin and Killian draws me against his torso, his large hands sliding down to cup my ass through my dress andsqueezesas he presses his lips to mine in a deep kiss that leaves me breathless.
Oh, how easy it would be to just give in right here.
“I missed you,” he purrs against me and there’s shared relief that we’re back together, both alive and unharmed. There’s a bubble of fear that nestles in my heart each time he leaves and I look forward to it bursting each time he returns to me.
