“Are you having a sleepover? Can I come, too?” Excitement danced in his dark eyes. “I’ve never been to a sleepover before.”
“Theo, I think Elissa would be lost if she doesn’t get to tuck you in tonight,” Anya called out, having heard every word her nephew had just said, but she didn’t move from the stairwell door or Klara. “Tell Victoria goodnight. Perhaps you can visit with her again another time.”
Disappointment twisted his lips, but he quickly gave me another smile that twisted the pain in my heart that much deeper. “Goodnight, Victoria. I hope we can play sometime.”
“Goodnight, sweetheart,” I whispered then watched as he skipped back to his mother who I only then realized was watching me like a hawk.
I quickly dropped my eyes to my lap, ashamed of myself for having fallen in love with this woman’s husband.
For still loving him.
It wasn’t something I could turn off. I had learned that over the last three days. Love didn’t have an off switch once it was turned on.
I heard Anya say goodnight to Theo, and then she lowered her voice so I couldn’t hear what she said to Klara. A moment later, the heavy stairwell door shut loudly, and then I heard the distinct click of the lock being set before Anya returned to the couch.
The day I had found out about Adrian’s wife and confronted him about it was the day I had realized there really was a pain strong enough to shatter everything inside a person. Still, I had tried to build a wall to protect myself, had tried to turn my heart to ice and stone so I never had to feel that way again.
I hadn’t succeeded.
Right then, after having seen Theo Volkov and how much he looked like the man I loved, all that pain came crashing down on me times a million.
All my life, all I had ever wanted was to be a mother. It was something I had dreamed about nightly, but that was all it would ever be for me—a dream.
If I ever got pregnant, it would be dangerous for both me and the baby. My doctors had warned me from the moment I’d had my first period that babies just weren’t a possibility for me. My kidneys were already feeling the strain of my diabetes, and I knew I was going to eventually need a transplant. Sooner rather than later, actually from what my last physically had shown. Scarlett was already set to give me one of hers if the need ever occurred, and as much as I didn’t want to put my sister through the pain of surgery to give me something so precious, I was eternally grateful she would even want to.
Despite still being a virgin, I had gone on the pill when I was seventeen. I wasn’t going to ever risk the life of a defenseless little baby. I might want a baby with all my heart, but I wasn’t that selfish, dammit. Besides, there was adoption, and I had been researching the different options.
A cup of steaming coffee was pushed into my hands, and I slowly lifted my head to find Anya standing over me.
“I’m sorry,” she said after a few moments of standing there, watching me. “I wasn’t expecting Theo to come down, and I sure as hell wasn’t expecting Klara. His nanny, maybe; but not Klara.”
Unsure of how to answer that, I took a sip of coffee instead and didn’t speak. I wasn’t even sure if my voice would actually work if I had even attempted to do so.
Anya returned to her seat at the other end of the couch and picked up her mug of coffee again. “Sometimes, not everything is as it seems, myshka.”
I wasn’t in the mood for riddles so I just sat there, staring down into the blackness of my coffee, and tried my hardest not to cry.
Chapter 16
Victoria
With each ticking of the clock from some antique that I couldn’t readily pick out in the apartment, I felt what hold I had on my sanity slip a little more.
This was the worst night of my entire life. My sister was missing and only God knew what kind of shape they would find her in. I knew she was still alive, though, because if she was dead, I suspected I would feel a part of myself fade from existence with her. She was my other half, and I would be only half alive if something took her away from me forever.
On top of that, guilt swirled inside me after seeing both Adrian’s wife and son. Fuck, it had taken everything in me not to hug Theo when he had been so sweet to me earlier. I had wanted to bundle him up and keep him as my own, fuck the consequences.
That little boy was the son of the man I loved. If things had been different, if my body wasn’t constantly at war with itself, I could have given him a child, too.
No, I quickly scolded myself as that last thought flitted through my mind. No, I couldn’t have given Adrian a child, even if my body could have handled that kind of stress. He wasn’t free to be with me. We couldn’t be a family because he already fucking had one.
The sound of the elevator doors opening had me jumping at the suddenness of it. My heart stopped in my chest as I waited for whomever was inside to step into the apartment.
Don’t be Adrian. Don’t be Adrian. Don’t. Be. Adrian.
This time, my heart wasn’t even trying to argue with my head. Not after the whipping it had taken from the sight of Klara and Theo.
My palms grew sweaty, and I felt a little light-headed as Cristiano finally stepped forward. At the sight of my brother, I felt the control I had so desperately tried to hold on to all evening begin to crumble. I hadn’t heard a word from him or anyone else about Scarlett, and now he was there … but Scarlett wasn’t.
“Where is she?” I whispered, feeling what little strength I had in my legs begin to leave me.
Cristiano’s eyes went around the room, going straight to Anya who was still on her end of the couch with her phone laying on her thigh. Even through the tears that were starting to blind me, I could see something flash between them like wild fire. Then his eyes found me and his strides ate up the distance between us.
He caught my upper arms as I felt myself beginning to fall. “She’s okay,” he murmured against my temple as he pressed a kiss there. “A few bruises and a bad headache, but she should be home from the hospital by tomorrow. Ciro is with her.”
Relief made me feel even more weak, and I fell against him, knowing he wouldn’t let me fall.
The tears flooded down my cheeks like rivers as I buried my face in his chest. The sobs took over then, bruising my insides from the force of them. I couldn’t stop it. Couldn’t fucking breathe.
I sobbed in relief and with the continued pain that was suffocating me.
Scarlett was okay. She was safe. Ciro was with her. I knew, as long as she was with him, he would slaughter anyone who even looked like they would touch a hair on my twin’s head. She had him, and she didn’t need me.
Instead of that realization stinging like I had thought it would, all I felt was relief. Scarlett had Ciro, and she didn’t need me.
If she didn’t need me, then I didn’t have to be there. I didn’t have to be so close to Adrian and constantly at war with myself with how much I both hated and loved him.
“I can’t stay here,” I whispered as I forced myself to calm, even if just enough that my body was no longer destroying itself with the sobs that had already left me physically aching. “I can’t do this anymore.”
He pulled back just enough to look down at me, concern darkening his brown eyes. “Okay, I’ll take you home, then.”
“No.” I shook my head and wiped the back of my hand over my running nose. “No, I don’t want to go home. I don’t want to be here. In New York. I can’t be this close to Adrian. To his family.”
He went completely still at the mention of the Russian’s name, and I could feel a coldness filling him. “What the fuck does Volkov have to do with this?”
“Everything,” I whispered, meeting his gaze without flinching. “I’m in love with him.”
There was no use lying about it, and I needed him to understand why I wanted to leave. Why I had to leave, to put as much distance between me and my Russian wolf as possible.
Cristiano blew out a fierce curse
then carried me over to the couch where he placed me on the cushions then stood over both me and Anya, glaring down at both of us.
“Did you know about this?” he demanded, pointed an accusing finger at the other woman.
“Oh, don’t get all righteous with me. I warned her off him. She didn’t listen. I’m not her babysitter or her mother. She’s a grown-ass woman. She can do whatever the hell she wants. That she was messing around with the wrong damn man seems to be a habit she and I have in common.”
That last shot had his jaw clenching and something hot flashed out of his eyes at her. She just met his gaze with a glare of her own, seeming completely unafraid of his temper, appeared more bored than anything. I knew then and there that she was going to be my new best friend.
“We are going to talk about this later,” he half-growled at her. She only rolled her eyes.
“We aren’t doing anything later if you’re going to keep using that tone with me. I don’t mind pulling out good ol’ Bob later. He kept me company before you came along, and I’m sure he will do the same long after you’re gone.” She stood then, picking up both our empty coffee mugs. “Talk to your sister, Cristiano, then get lost. Victoria stays here with me.”
He scrubbed his hands over his face in frustration. “You expect me not to even bat an eye that my baby sister has been fucking around with your goddamn brother? He’s married, for fuck’s sake. And you knew about it and didn’t even try to tell me.”
“It wasn’t my secret to share with you,” she told him, moving toward the kitchen. “As I said, talk then go. I’m done tonight.”
“Fuuuck,” he groaned under his breath, but I still heard him.
Before I could really make sense of what was going on between those two, he crouched down in front of me. “Victoria—”
“I didn’t sleep with him,” I muttered, wanting my brother to at least know I hadn’t turned into the slut I suspected he thought I had become.
That had his jaw clenching again.
“But you love him?”
I nodded.
“You didn’t know about his wife? His kid?”
“I only found out about the wife a few days ago,” I confessed. “And his son, I met tonight.”
“Fucking hell.” He cupped my face with one hand. “Are you okay?”
My trembling chin was probably answer enough for him, but I still told him the truth. “Not even a little.”
“What can I do to help you?” He asked the one question I knew he would, the one I had needed him to ask.
“I-I can’t be here anymore. Not just here in this building, but here in New York.” I sucked in a deep breath then swallowed hard. “I want to l-leave, Cristiano. I want to go to Chicago and stay with Dante. Just for a little while so I can figure out what I want to do next. I don’t know. Maybe I will go back to Sicily to be with Nona. All I do know is that I will die if I have to spend another day this close to A-Adrian.”
He didn’t immediately give in and tell me he would make it happen. I could see the wheels working in his head, but for once, I couldn’t even begin to guess at what he was thinking.
“Please, Cristiano. Please.” The last word came out a broken whisper, and I couldn’t stop the tears from flowing once again.
He gave me a single, curt nod then straightened to his full height.
“Anya,” he called out. “I’m going to have the jet readied for Victoria by morning.” He turned his head when she came back into the living room. “I would very much appreciate it if you would go with her.”
“To babysit?” she asked with a raised brow.
“So that I know you are safe,” my brother told her with a new tone of voice as he stroked his fingers over her long, dark hair.
Right before my eyes, Anya seemed to melt into him.
“I can take care of myself,” she complained, but there was no real argument in her tone.
His lashes lowered, seeming to block out everything but the woman in front of him. I had to look away. There were so many emotions pouring off them both it made me feel like a voyeur to watch.
“I know that, tesoro. But I would feel so much better about Jr. being loose in my city if you were in Chicago.”
Chapter 17
Adrian
Sweat was rolling down my back as I sliced the blade just under the skin of Fontana’s feet, peeling back the sensitive flesh. The room filled with his screams as I continued, until both his feet were raw and blood dripped onto the warehouse floor.
I had turned off the part of myself that loved and cared about the most important people in my life, and turned on the monster who lurked just beneath. The one who could torture a man, as I was doing right then, and make him think I was enjoying every minute of it.
I wasn’t, though. This kind of thing had once turned my stomach, but sometimes it was a necessary evil to get what I wanted.
Right then, I wanted to know where Jr. was so I could beat him worse than he had beat Scarlett the night before. So I could make him scream as Fontana was doing. So I could make him pray for mercy, and then slit his fucking throat.
After we had found Scarlett, there had only been one of Jr.’s men left. He’d had a bullet in the gut and hadn’t lasted more than an hour before he was dead on this very table. Nevertheless, he had pointed me and Ciro’s men in the right direction while the capo had taken his woman to the hospital to have her many bruises looked after.
We hadn’t found Jr. where the now dead man had suggested, but we had found someone just as good.
Fontana was Jr.’s second, but really, he was the actual brains of Jr.’s operations. He was Santino senior’s security net, who handled the real business while letting Jr. think he was in charge.
If anyone knew where Jr. was right then, it would be Fontana.
“He’s not here!” Fontana finally screamed as I started to flay the skin on his inner thighs, his entire body shaking so hard with pain and coldness from the continued blood loss his teeth chattered. “Jr. went to Chicago last night after he took the girl.”
I smiled down at the pale sonofabitch. He would die soon from the blood loss, but it wasn’t going to be an easy death. I would make sure of that …
“Fuck,” I heard Cristiano mutter under his breath.
“What?” Ciro grunted.
“I sent Victoria to the house in Chicago with Anya. She said she needed to get away for a little while. That she needed to think. I thought she would be safer there … that they both would.”
The knife I had just held to Fontana’s skin dropped to the floor with a loud clank.
No fucking way. He hadn’t just said that. I would kill him. Fucking kill him.
“You sent Victoria away from me?” I snarled in his face.
The other man didn’t even blink as I stepped farther into his space, his own anger flashing in his brown eyes. Eyes so much like Victoria’s.
“She begged me to help her,” he spat the words at me. “Anya thought it was a good idea, too. You’re fucking with my sister’s head, and she can’t deal with your shit right now.”
Hearing my sister’s name was almost a slap, and I stumbled backward several steps at the realization of her betrayal. She had helped Victoria run. She had stabbed me in the back.
“Anya helped you?”
It didn’t seem possible. She wouldn’t do that. Wouldn’t help …
But she liked Victoria. They might have even become friends.
Fuck.
I turned away from them all, even the man who was practically pissing himself in pain and fear.
Victoria had left me. She was so far away, and if something happened to her, I wouldn’t be able to reach her in time. Her fucking brother had sent her away, straight to the same city where Jr. was now attempting to hide out.
I snapped at my men, telling them to move their asses in Russian as I nearly sprinted from the room and the warehouse in my desperation to reach my kotyo
nok as soon as possible.
***
“You sure about this, pakhan?”
I didn’t move my eyes from the house we were parked in front of to look at Oleg. The minute Cristiano had told me that Victoria had gone to Chicago, I had jumped on the first plane to get to her. I didn’t know why she had run, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to let her go off without me. Especially not after what had happened to her sister at the hands of Jr. And now he was in the same city with her.
It was hard to stomach that Anya had gone with Victoria, that she was now inside that house with my woman, helping to keep her away from me. My sister wouldn’t answer my calls or texts, and neither would Victoria. The only way I could see her was to walk through the front door of De Stefano’s house.
I knew Dante, respected and actually liked the man. Before he had moved to Chicago, we had even worked together on certain … projects.
He had grown up with the Vitucci children, was friends with Cristiano and Ciro. He, like Ciro, had moved up the ranks within the Cosa Nostra quickly. When the underboss who ran Chicago for Vito had caught a bullet, everyone had expected it to be Donati to take over the territory. Brows had lifted, however, when the capo had turned down the offer with no explanation.
And thus, the job had gone to Dante De Stefano.
He was expecting me, but I didn’t have faith that he would let me see Victoria. Not if Cristiano was already there. I didn’t know for sure if he was or not. As soon as he had said his sister was in Chicago, I had left. I had to try, though, damn it. I was going mad without her, and if I didn’t see her soon, I was going to lose the battle I had over my sanity.
Seeing her twin, her exact image, bloody and bruised by the hands of Jr., it had been as if I was seeing her. It had taken everything inside me not to snatch Scarlett from Ciro’s arms the night before, to hold her so I could reassure myself that she wasn’t Victoria, that my kotyonok was safe.