AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Taylor’s?
Or Celine’s?
49
ILARION
I stand there marooned in no-man’s-land for far too long, knowing that despite the tinted windows, both women can see me from where they sit. I glance up. My sister is staring at me from where she’s leaning against one of the other trucks.
“Bit off more than you can chew, huh?” she says with a knowing smirk.
“This doesn’t mean anything,” I say firmly. “Taylor just happens to be the mother of my child.”
Mila nods. “And she also happens to be just ballsy enough to have caught your interest and kept it. Let’s see, how many women have done that in the past?” She pretends to take a moment to think about it. “Oh, right—none.”
“The die has been cast, Mila.” But, with a clench of my jaw, I make my way to Celine’s car.
When I open the door, she’s sitting with her hands together, staring out the windshield, nervous tension splayed across her face. “Ilarion!” she gasps the moment she sets eyes on me. “What’s going on?”
My plan had been to tell her the truth, prepare her for an imminent attack. But the moment I see the naked panic on her face, I know I can’t do it. It will break her, and she’s already so fragile.
“Nothing I can’t handle,” I tell her confidently. “Just sit tight, okay?”
“We’re not heading out yet?”
“Not just yet. There’s an obstruction blocking the road, so we may have to turn back.”
It’s obvious that she suspects something is going on, but she doesn’t ask. Instead, she bites her tongue and leans back against her seat. “Okay. I’ll wait here.”
I believe her, too. She really will sit where she’s told and keep her head down. She won’t charge where she shouldn’t be. She won’t steal a gun and shoot a hole in my sister’s foot and risk everything for the ones she loves. She will never, ever bite back.
Maybe that’s the problem.
I close the door and step over to Taylor’s vehicle. I’ve just thrown open the car door when a foot flies out and nearly hits me in the chest. “Shit!” I grunt as Taylor lets out a startled scream. She’s grabbing the seat for dear life, having very nearly fallen right out of it. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Behind me, Mila tries to stifle her laughter.
Taylor looks flushed, but she quickly straightens up. “I, um…I was trying to kick down the door.” I narrow my eyes at her and she throws her hands up in frustration. “Well, Mila locked me in!”
“With good reason,” Mila shoots back. “You would’ve done something stupid if I hadn’t. You did something stupid anyway, actually.”
Taylor huffs. “I deserve to know what’s going on.”
I sigh and pinch the bridge of my nose. There is no question about one thing: this sister is the far bigger headache. “What’s going on is that Gregor Bellasio set off an explosion that took down a huge tree. Our way home is blocked.”
“Can we just turn back?” she asks.
“Thanks, genius. I hadn’t thought of that.”
She rolls her eyes. “I suppose you’re anticipating an attack?” she says, her voice rippling with a thread of anxiety. But again, unlike her sister, it seems to prepare rather than cripple her.
“Yes. We need to make sure we’re not caught off-guard before we turn these vehicles around.”
I stop short when I hear something. A distant rumble. Thunder? Earthquake? An…engine?
An engine.
“TAKE COVER!” someone screams from a few feet away.
