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“You turned a narrowly avoided traffic fatality into a one-night-stand? Even for you, Ilarion, that’s scraping the bottom of the barrel.” She tries to hide the derisive laugh behind her hand.
I want to throttle her laugh away. Not because it’s irritating—but because it’s irritatingly well-deserved.
I nearly committed vehicular manslaughter, and my first inclination was to fuck a baby into the unsuspecting pedestrian.
Yet another thing I absolutely cannot afford to openly admit in front of the Bratva. These are the people who depend on me to make wise decisions and always act with a carefully thought-out strategic plan. The people who trust me to lead with my brain and not my dick. The people who would riot if they knew what I’ve done.
“Mila—”
“Wow,” she breathes before I can deliver my mea culpa. “That must have been one hot night. Gives a whole new meaning to the word ‘plowed.’”
I glare at her. “It wasn’t meant to happen at all. It was…a lapse in judgment on my part.”
She guffaws. “Ya think? It’s kind of amazing, actually. You kept yourself off the shelf for so long, and when you do finally jump into the dating pool—you catch your fiancée’s sister? When they say there’s more than one fish in the sea, I don’t think they mean that there’s only two of them.”
“I’m glad you’re finding all this so amusing. I don’t. It was—”
“Yeah, a lapse in judgment—you said that already. I know what it was. You know what else it was?Stupid.It was so fucking stupid, Ilarion. And your plan, which apparently you’re still sticking to, is insane.”
“Which is exactly why it’s going to work. The Bellasios aren’t going to see this coming.”
“Maybe not. But neither will your woman. Excuse me—women,” Mila points out. “At some point, Celine is going to figure it out. She’s no dummy.”
“She’s in love with me,” I say, unable to keep the regret from my tone. “I can convince her of anything.”
Mila flashes me a sarcastic smile. “Charming. Love that plan. And what abouther?” She glances at the bedroom door. “Something tells me this one’s not going to be nearly so easy to emotionally manipulate.”
“Like I said—I’ll figure it out.”
Just as soon as my sister is done psychoanalyzing my every move.
Mila crosses her arms and smolders. I find myself wondering how I missed her transition from giggling little girl who used to follow me around like a puppy to this spitfire woman constantly questioning me. Constantly challenging me to be a better leader.
I love her for it—but my God, it’s a pain in my fucking ass.
“There’s going to be a baby in a few months, Ilarion.”
“I understand how pregnancies work.”
She rolls her eyes and sighs. “I suppose none of this really matters until we get Celine back.Ifwe do.”
“There’s noif.We will get Celine back,” I snap. “That part is imperative.”
She shrugs. “But still. If we don’t…at least we have a spare.” She jerks her chin in the direction of Taylor’s room. Her eyes are hooded with darkness, her features foiled together with detached professionalism.
Is that new, or was that always there?
She had been such a lively little girl. Her laugh came easy and her smile was constant. Somewhere around her fourteenth birthday, she lost that smile, and it never quite came back.
Even after I’d delivered her the head of her monster.
It just goes to show—killing your demons doesn’t really end the torment. Real monsters leave behind damage. You can slay the beast a million times over—but the scars they inflict last forever.
29
ILARION
“Come,” I say, leading Mila to my office.
