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Even if it’s been five long years since that felt true.
3
ILARION
I speed up as we near the gates of Zakharov House. It looks the way it once did, as if nothing ever happened. The architects ensured that every single bullet hole was patched back to perfection.
Celine and I moved here immediately after Taylor and Archie disappeared, at my insistence. I wasn’t about to continue to live in the Diamond, marooned in a house that haunted me with memories of a woman I’ll never see again.
The guards hear me coming and open the gates. I drive through without so much as touching the brakes. We grind to a halt in the gravel driveway, kicking up a cloud of dust upon our arrival.
Inside, I find Semyon, my housekeeper, waiting for me with his hands clasped anxiously behind his back.
“What is it, Semyon?”
“There’s a gentleman that’s here to see you, sir,” he says, looking distinctly uncomfortable. “He, um, declined to give his name. But Ms. Zakharov allowed him entry.”
I grit my teeth.Of course she did.“Where is Ms. Zakharov now?”
“She said she had a meeting at the country club, sir. Something about a charity ball she’s planning.”
As always, mentions of Celine’s philanthropy makes me roll my eyes. I spend more time gladhanding politicians on her behalf than I do bribing and killing them these days. All for the benefit of society pages that nobody reads in magazines and newspapers that nobody buys.
Why do I do it? That’s a loaded question. Partly to keep her satisfied. After everything else was ripped from her, after she spent days loitering on death’s door…it felt like the least I could do.
But a deeper part of me does it for Taylor’s sake, too. It’s what she’d want—to see Celine happy.
Then there’s the deepest part of me at all, a part that lives in darkness and never raises its head above ground. That part does it with the hope that she’ll be one of the few who picks up that magazine and sees me there.
And that she’ll remember what we had, if only for the briefest of moments.
“Where is this ‘gentleman’?”
“In the family room, sir.”
In the corner of my eye, I see Dima and Mila exchange a look of concern. “Should we be armed?” he asks, reaching for his gun.
“No need. If Celine granted him access, then he’s safe.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Celine knows enough to know who to let in and who to turn away,” I remind them. There’s another glance I sense being exchanged, but I stopped caring about their opinions in this department a long time ago. Celine and I have a unique relationship. Fuck knows it’s not perfect, but it works.
“Wait a sec. Doyouknow who’s in the living room right now?”
“I have a guess.”
“How is it that Celine knows, and you know, and we don’t?” Mila demands.
I ignore the question. If they can’t handle it now, they won’t handle it if I spell it all out for them.
“Fucking hell. She’s your—”
I whirl around, forcing both Dima and Mila to come to a stop just outside the family room. “I’ve got a lot of moving parts at play,” I tell them. “I can’t be expected to share every bit with everyone. This is a Bratva, not a goddamn kindergarten classroom.”
“We’re yourrighthands,” Mila hisses. “If you don’t fill us in, what good are we?”
“Precisely—you’re my right hands. And as a result, you’re both busy. I decided not to burden you with this particular piece of information.” I sigh and relent. “But since you’re here now, you can meet him.”
