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His voice snaps like the wind. I turn to him with the laughter bubbling wildly in my throat. “Oh, this really is the night for big reveals, huh, Dad?”
A beam of moonlight through the branches catches his face and turns him pale as a ghost. He splutters, “Y-you’re pregnant?”
“Four months along.”
Another puzzle piece snaps into place. The biggest, heaviest one yet. The fucking centerpiece.
“The night that he and I met…” I close my eyes and let out a breathy laugh. I need to, before I drown in a flood of tears. “Of course. Ilarion was in the neighborhood—to meet with you. That was why you were so jumpy and paranoid.You knew he was coming.”
“Taylor, we really have to—”
“You thought he would kill you,” I muse. “He turned out to be too smart for you, huh, Dad? He realized that the best way to hurt you would be to take your daughters. I don’t think even he realized how brilliantly things would work out.”
“Did he force himself on you?”
I laugh again, every bit as unhinged as the first. “No, Dad, Ilarion Zakharov did notforce himselfon me. In fact, he was the person I ran to after you hit me. Remember that?” I tilt my head to one side. “Remember how you slapped your own daughter for trying to be an independent, grown adult? It’s almost poetic that she’d run straight into the arms of the guy you screwed over.” Another realization hits me, and I laugh even harder. “Oh my god. Your first grandchild is the heir to the Zakharov Bratva.” I giggle. “Congrats!”
If I’m being cruel, I’m far past caring. I’ve carried so much heavy guilt over that night, and it turns out it’s all my father’s fault. My father,vorto theZakharov Bratva.
For seventeen. Goddamned. Years.
Which means he’s not only known Ilarion this whole time; he’s known IlarionandMila since they were children.
They’ve always been a part of my life; I was just never allowed to know about any of it.
“You’re a totally different person to me now.”
He shakes his head sadly. “I’ll just have to live with that. But I can live with anything if it means you girls are safe.”
“Touching,” I whisper. “But somehow, it still doesn’t make up for all the lies.”
“We can sort through all that later, Tay. The only thing I need to know now is, do you trust me enough to come with me?”
I glance back at the house. “You keep saying ‘girls,’ but Celine’s still in there.”
His face sours into a grimace. “We have to leave without her.”
I turn back to him. “What?”
He nods again. “She won’t leave him.”
“Did you tell her everything you just told me?”
“Everything.” He jangles the car keys in his hand. “Including the fact that the only reason Ilarion chose her was to get back at me, to control me, keep my loyalty. She still chose to stay.”
My hand flutters over my belly. “She really is in love with him…”
I meet his eye for a split second. In some ways, I’d made the decision a long time ago. But hearing Celine’s choice makes it easier.
I glance back at the mansion one more time. It’s only right now, right when my world has been shaken harder than that stupid snow globe I stole from the cabin…that I finally realize Ilarion was right.
I don’t know my sister as well as I thought. Hell, I don’t even know my own father, apparently.
Or maybe I clung to some imaginedideaof them. Of people who do things out of love and not out of selfish desperation at the cost of others’ happiness.
But Dad wanted more than his wife and children could give him. He tainted our lives with fear and paranoia, lying to us every single day, because he chose to pursue something being avorgave him.
And Cee…
