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My stomach churns at the thought of her. She doesn’t care about Ilarion’s happiness, or Dad’s, or least of all mine. She lied to me and forced me to carry the blame for something that happened years ago.
I don’t want to think it, but I know that if she finds out—whenshe finds out—she’ll cling to Ilarion that much harder, because she simply doesn’t care about anyone’s happiness but her own.
Tears sting my eyes. I wanted so badly to be loved fiercely by the very same people who have done nothing but leech my loyalty dry.
And the one person who actually does love me, fiercely and protectively…
Is the one person I already turned my back on forever.
I look at my father, where he’s gone to sit in the driver’s seat of the car. I barely recognize him now, but it’s easier to think of him not as my dad, but as someone from Ilarion’s world who knows what to do.
Because I have to face it—that’s exactly who my father’s been my whole life.
I open the passenger door and give him a nod.
“Alright. Let’s go.”
80
ILARION
I once had a dream about standing atop the ashes of the Bellasio empire.
That is the closest I’ll ever come to a real-life premonition.
I stand on the elevated road that overlooks the Bellasio mansion and watch as it burns. Plumes of smoke and ash claw at the sky above like a corpse’s gray fingers.
And all I can think is,Nothing has ever looked so beautiful.
Mila and Dima join me. “Well, it’s done,” Mila says, surveying the ruins of the estate with an apathetic frown. “Every property he owns has been hit. Along with the men who guard them.”
“Noteveryproperty,” I mutter.
Mila glances at me. “We hit every property on your list.”
“Yes, but Benedict and Gregor were not in any of them,” Dima fills in for me. “Which means—”
“There are more,” I finish for him.
Mila throws her hands up. “Does it even matter?” she protests. “So yeah, there’ll be smaller locations. Safehouses. Little fucking shacks out in the boondocks. And there will be a few Bellasio rats here and there hiding in them. But who gives a shit? We’ve hit his power base.”
“That does not make him powerless.” Then I exhale. “But it sidelines him. For now.”
Mila raises both her brows. “Does that mean you’re going to let him go?”
“Hell no. Not until his corpse is cooling at my feet.”
She shakes her head. “Then I don’t know what the point of tonight was. All we’ve done is give birth to a desperate man with nothing to lose.”
“Which is exactly why I intend to keep looking for him.”
“He’s going to find a burrow to crawl into,” warns Dima. “He won’t be easy to catch.”
“Ah, but I have a secret weapon,” I remind the two of them. “I have Archie. The man was a double agent for long enough. He’ll be able to tell me of any other locations that we might be overlooking.”
Mila spits on the ground at our feet. “Surely even Benedict isn’t stupid enough to use any safehouse that Archie knew about.”
“He won’t have a choice. He’s out of options, and even if he has somewhere farther afield to run to…no one can run that fast.” I turn my back on the smoldering ruins and face the line of trucks waiting for us.
