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‘Why would you risk it then, enlighten me,'' Jae ground out, crouching before me. I could have gone for him then. Wrestled him to the ground, and pinned him. He was right. I didn’t fight by the rules, and I was the rabid dog that would take him down with me if today was my last day. But I’d come here for Hana, and I wouldn’t hurt her brother. If a man like me could have anything like honor, I could find it for her, and her alone.
“I’d risk it for her. Because I won’t give her up. You’ll have to kill me.”
Jae studied me. “You really are crazy,” he muttered.
“And you can’t really kill me. No matter what… I’m Katya’s brother – just like I can’t kill you either. We are stuck with each other.”
A muscle ticked in Jae’s jaw. “Hana deserves better than you.”
“Agreed, but she wants me anyway,” I said. Jae’s scowl deepened. “She loves me, and she’s carrying my child” I reminded him. He must have found out after the doctor’s appointment almost immediately. No wonder he was so furious. The affront was so recent.
Jae cracked his knuckles and stood. “I’ll kill you for touching her,” he added. “But for the pregnancy, I’ll make it hurt first,” he promised.
I let out a sigh and shook my head. “Make it hurt if you want, but if you kill me, you’ll lose both of them – your wife and your sister. It’s just your bad luck, Song, that the two women you love, also love me,” I got out before his first punch landed. A second caught me beneath the nose and snapped my head back. I forced myself not to react. The room was filled with Songs, and even Rocco Luciano had done his friend the honor of attending my public beating.
“Fight back,” Jae grunted above me. I shook my head, spitting more blood onto the floor.
“If I hurt you, I hurt Hana, and I won’t do that for any reason,” I ground out.
“Then you’ll die here, Ivanov,” Jae said steadily.
I pulled myself back to a kneeling position, starting to wonder if my gamble was going to fail after all.
“So be it. Everyone goes one day,” I managed to say, blinking my eyes open and staring up at Hana’s brother, the mighty Jae Han Song, who looked as defeated as I did right now.
CHAPTER12
Hana
Kon’s apartment felt the same as it had that night, and just like then, I felt instantly at home. I sat on the sofa and stared out at the city beyond. The view was nothing like the one from my isolated princess bower in the Song compound. Now, I was in the heart of the city, street-level and the energy of the metropolis vibrated off the sidewalks. It was just like Kon’s energy. Wild and chaotic, and unflinchingly alive.
My hand fell to my belly. Pregnant? I could barely get my head around the swerves my life had thrown me. My simple act of rebellion, after a lifetime of being a good girl, had set off a chain reaction that had slowly, yet surely, blown my world apart.
Did I even want a baby right now? I tried to ask myself.
Yes.
With him?
Yes.
At least I was sure of something, even if the man I wanted to raise the baby with was sure to be a dead man at any moment. Terrible dread seized me, making me feel sick again. What was going to happen to Kon?
“Hana?” Kira’s voice called to me from the kitchen. She’d clearly been tasked with being my babysitter and looked as thrilled about it as I’d expected her to be. “What do you want to eat?”
“Nothing. I feel sick again,” I admitted, wrapping my arms around myself as if that could keep all my worries inside.
“Regardless, you should eat something. You have to be strong to survive what’s coming,” Kira said steadily, approaching with a green apple and a paring knife. She sat opposite me, and slowly and methodically peeled the skin off the apple in one long curl of green. I watched, mesmerized by her skill. She wasn’t a woman I’d risk crossing.
“What’s coming?”
“You know what. Kon’s already gone, you know,” she added.
That terror that had been brewing inside me seized my throat in a chokehold. “Gone?”
“He went to meet his sister, in a clearly laid trap. He won’t wait to settle this. He’ll do it today.”
I shot to my feet. “You have to take me to him.”
