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“Working with his family because mine betrayed him?”
I nod. “For exactly that reason. Julio is a power-hungry, desperate man. One who will do anything to make a claim to power. He wants to be seen as a powerful man right now, but he isn’t. He’s just trying to look a certain way, and while most people know it’s all bullshit, some don’t know enough about it. Prime example… Duarte’s family.”
“Wow.”
“Your family is practically royalty here, and there are people who are always going to want to harm you because of that. It’s why I want to make sure you know how to protect yourself.”
“I understand.” Xava nods once and looks at the ground for a moment. I’m wondering what’s going on in her mind right now. She doesn’t say anything, so I ask.
“What are you thinking about?”
She sighs heavily and releases a pent-up breath. “I’m wondering why my family kept all this from me for so long. I mean, I can think of a few reasons. Maybe they didn’t want to scare me off, or maybe they didn’t fully trust me like they do with one another. I… I just wish I could have known about all this a long time ago. I would have been more prepared if I had. I knew Mona had a rough life before she met Nazyr, but I didn’t have any clue about Duarte or her being raped. None of it. I’m sure she doesn’t like to discuss it. That’s not what I’m bothered by. It’s just starting to feel like I don’t know anything about the people I’ve grown to love and care about over the last year.” There’s a hint of emotion in Xava’s voice. She might be acting like she’s okay right now, but I can tell she’s really bothered by what’s going on.
“I know it’s difficult, but if I were you, I wouldn’t take it personally. I’m sure that they kept things from you for a reason.” In the back of my mind, I’m sure they thought if they revealed everything about their lives, they’d scare her off. But now, she’s been thrown into the thick of it. I don’t know if I would have made the same choices, but I can’t condemn them for how they handle their family situations. All I can do is be here and support Xava.
I continue holding her close against me. It’s all I can do, just be here. Hell, I’m going to be stuck here for at least a couple more days while her family handles the imminent threat at hand. If we’d been together longer, I would offer my assistance, but I have no doubt her brothers want to handle this on their own. I might not be lending a helping hand at the moment, but I am going to be asking about what happened. If they lost a lead, or somehow the bastard slipped through their fingers, I will be doing whatever I need to, without letting them know, of course.
“Yeah, it’s just hard to do that. It probably doesn’t make sense. My whole life, I was lied to about who I am, then met my actual family, and now look at me. Still discovering things that I wasn’t told about.” I glance down, and Xava’s frowning lightly.
“I’ll play devil’s advocate here. I don’t think they meant any harm. They thought what they were doing was right, even if it wasn’t.”
Xava will have to sort out her own feelings about what’s transpired, but I have no doubt that it will be okay in the end.
Chapter Twelve
Xava
Ambros left Grozny three days ago. It’s a little hard for me to believe he came to the city I’m living in just to see me. That’s the sort of thing guys do in romance movies when they really, really like you. I’ve never had a man make any sort of move like that in the past for me, and in a way, it proves to me that there are really amazing guys out there. I’m lucky enough to experience this first hand.
Over the past few days, I’ve been helping Mona get everything ready for Ira’s third birthday. Her party is in a couple of hours, and I’ve already helped her a lot. The massive living room in the townhouse is decorated perfectly. Pink, purple, and turquoise balloons transform the space into a child’s wonderland. Ira asked for it to be donut-themed, so Mona and I did some research into these donut towers we saw online. We managed to put them together ourselves and not hire an outside company to do it, which is pretty cool.
Mona wanted to add a little bit more than just the donut theme, so she has unicorn-themed things around the space, too. Along the back wall, there’s a sign that says, ‘Yippee, I’m Three!’ and next to it is a giant unicorn balloon. The same pinks, purples, and turquoise colors around the living area are in all the unicorn items as well. There’s even a snack bar that has food dyed to match the colors of the party. It’s come together so nicely, and I can’t wait for Ira to see it later.
She’s out with her sister and Emily, who’s been working to distract the girls all day. Emily took her oldest daughter Sierra, who’s eleven and I’m sure is being a great help wrangling the toddlers as they’re off doing something I know is likely magical.
“Bloody hell, I have so much to do still.” Mona’s running around the house like Emily and the girls will walk through the door in mere minutes.
“What can I do to help?” I ask, only wanting to help her.
“Are you kidding me? Absolutely nothing. You’ve done enough. More than enough, actually.” I know the family has the resources to do what Mona wants. She could have hired a company to come in and decorate the house, turning it into what Ira wished for, but Mona really wanted to do it all herself. She’s even cooked and baked so many different things. She even made all the donuts over the course of the last twelve hours while I helped her decorate them. In all honesty, I had a lot of fun doing that.
“Mona, I’m serious. If you need more help, then let me know.”
She shakes her head over and over again. “No. I’m not taking another moment of your time. Go out and do something fun. You’re free to do so now that Ruslan handled that situation, so go take a walk. Grab a coffee. Do something fun.” Mona widens her eyes, another tell-tale sign that she wants me to get out of the house and enjoy myself.
“Fine, I’ll head out for a little bit.” I sigh dramatically, totally playing around.
Mona smiles brightly. “Good! Maybe bring me back an iced caramel macchiato?”
“Sure thing,” I tell her as I walk toward the front of the house. I grab my purse off the hook on the wall and see Rolando sitting near the door. He glances up and looks at me.
“We heading out?”
“Yeah, for a little bit. I’ve been cooped up in the house for the last few days.”
Rolando gets up from his seat and fishes the keys out of his pocket. We both exit through the front door and walk out onto the sidewalk, heading to the car he chauffeurs me around in. Just as we walk up to the car, he gets a call. Rolando pulls the phone out of his pocket and answers.
“Hello.”
