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So I waited until all the Bratva troops, including Dima and Mila, were otherwise engaged. Then I snuck into the house.
Up until I stepped into that room, everything felt like it was happening at high speed. Gunshots, screams, angry yells and shouted orders and the groans of dying men. I smelled smoke and blood and the taint of death in the air. I passed more bodies than I could count.
But the speed helped. It was like I was fast-forwarding through the experience just to save myself some trauma later. Because who are we kidding—I really can’t afford therapy.
And then I caught sight of my sister. I looked at the man who held her at gunpoint.
No one noticed me.
I raised my gun, remembering everything Mila taught me, and fired. I didn’t even really aim to kill. I just knew I had to shoot before he did.
I sucked in a sharp breath when the bullet hit his arm. But even though it wasn’t a fatal shot, it succeeded in forcing him to drop his gun. That’s when I looked at Ilarion.
Andthat’swhen the high speed slowed to absolute stillness.
Our eyes lock and I see the shock on his face. It’s nice to see something I’d never seen before. Then the shock disappears slowly, and it’s replaced by Ilarion’s default emotion.
Anger.
The three long seconds that follow hold an entire conversation in the pregnant—no pun intended—silence. And then the noise filters back into my ears. Life smashes thePlaybutton.
“Taylor!” Celine cries.
I blink and lunge towards my sister, but Ilarion steps around her and blocks my path. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing here?”
He snatches the gun from my hand, tucks me behind him, and points it at Benedict where he’s lying on the ground.
“No!” Benedict says in a strangled cry. “No, you can’t kill me.”
“And why the fuck not?”
“My b-brother.” Spit flies from his mouth as he clutches his arm as though it’s about to fall off, though I think I barely even grazed him. “My brother… We have an army…He’ll come for you…”
“I’m not scared of your fucking army.”
“No!” Celine and I scream at the same time.
“Our father. He still has Dad!” I say.
Benedict lets out a bubble of bloody laughter. “Exactly… I…I have their father. And if I die…he joins me.”
Ilarion glances between the two of us, his eyes murky with conflict. Footsteps thunder on the stairs as we wait for him to make his decision.
“Ilarion,” I gasp, grabbing his arm and forcing him to look at me. “Please—he’s our father.”
A heartbeat later, with Ilarion’s gun still hanging in the balance, Dima appears at the threshold of the door, several men clustered close at his back. He scans the room and catches sight of Benedict. “Ah—see you caught vermin. Glad I got here in time to witness the bug get squashed.”
Ilarion’s jaw twitches wildly, but I know when the hardness settles into those misty blue eyes that he’s made his choice.
“Not today,” he tells Dima. “Gag and bind him. We’re taking him with us.”
45
TAYLOR
“W-what?” Dima stammers, gawking at Ilarion in bewilderment. His gaze swings to me and he does a double-take. “Taylor?!”
I give him a wink. The adrenaline crash is making me giddy, like I’m high or dreaming. “Hi, Dima. You don’t happen to have aniriskiin your pocket, do you?”
