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Lukas shakes his head. “I’ve only met Svetlana once, but Jesus fucking Christ. I can’t imagine what it was like growing up with her around, never mindlivingwith her for all those years.”
No, you can’t.
Nobody can.
No one can, orshould, imagine the horror show I went through for almost four years. Before I found out who I really was and suddenly was on my way to Oxford Hills Academy on Konstantin’s dime for my last year of high school—a year I spent purging the nightmare of my teen years by throwing myself into normalcy. Or, at least, trying to.
I went to student parties. Met girls. Made friends. I played on the school’srugbyteam, for fuck’s sake.
But there’s not enough “normal” in the world to cover the scars and traumas of some pasts.
Konstantin rips me from my spiraling thoughts as he raises his glass.
“Well, fuck Svetlana. To Vadim. To a father I would gladly have killed for.”
“Me too,” Lukas growls quietly with a levity I understand. While he’s now the adoptive son of the incredibly loving Viktor Komarov, head of the Kashenko Bratva that Lukas himself will one day lead, Lukas was an orphan on the streets of Montenegro before that.
Actually, if there’s anyone who can understand the hell I went thought with Svetlana, there’s a very good chance it’s Lukas. The maze of scars on his arms—arms he usually keeps covered—are a testament to that.
The three of us clink our glasses together as I nod. “To you, Dad,” I say quietly as we all drink. Then I shake off the melancholy and grin at the other two. “And to other fathers. To you, Lukas,” I grin, nodding at him. “And to my brother, who’s about to become a father twice over andburiedin diapers.”
Lukas snickers as he claps Konstantin on the back. “I can’t even imagine.Oneis a fucking gauntlet. Two? Holyshit.”
“Yeah, fuck genetics,” Konstantin mutters. “Youknock up a twin and you get one baby. I do it, and I get a two-for-one deal.”
I laugh as I pat him on the shoulder. “Yeah, but you know what?”
He lifts a brow at me.
“You’re going to be amazing at it. You know that, right?”
He grins wryly at me. “Not really. But if you say so, I’ll believe you against my better judgement.”
We all take another drink before Konstantin sighs. “Well, getting back to the business side of things, thanks for taking care of that Svetlana shit. Glad to hear we can all breathe a little easier concerning Koikov.”
The smile stays on my face. Behind it, blackness swirls as I try to keep my gut from churning.
Even now, I’m not thinking about the evil bitch trying to destroy everything I have, after already destroying so much of me. Ishouldbe. I should be figuring out ways to circumvent the massive security Svetlana’s got protecting her in that huge, tacky mansion she has across the river in New Jersey so I can kill her with my bare hands and be done with this fucking nightmare.
But I’m not. I’m not thinking of Svet at all.
I’m thinking of a certain blonde haired, green-eyed Irish princess.
The goody-two-shoes little ray of sunshine with an inky black secret.
A woman I should hate—for what her family did to mine. For Vadim. For the vengeance that she stole out from under me, and the shitstorm that’s about to rain down on my head because she broke that fucking egg.
Well, fuck. Maybe I do hate her. But maybe it’s possible to hate someone even when you desire them with every fucking fiber of your being.
Maybe it’s possible to spend a year stalking someone, and learning their every secret, and destroying every possible possibility of a relationship they might have—telling yourself it’s her punishment but knowing it’s really because you cannot andwillnot stand to see another man touch her.
Therein lies my problem concerning Eilish Kildare.
I hate her.
And I want her.
And now that Ihaveher, I’m honestly not sure which of those desires will win.
