quatervois
(n.) a crossroads
MILA
I was burning in the flames of hell. It was the only thing that explained the heat consuming me from the inside out. Though hell wasn’t supposed to be so inviting . . . or smell like a Russian forest . . . or fit as well as Armani.
It did contain the faint scent of blood, however.
I blinked against the sun streaming in through the window. The bright morning light was only shadowed by Ronan’s body—which was, of course, the embodiment of hellfire itself.
My face was pressed against his chest, and I was pretty sure some dried priest’s blood had rubbed off on my cheek. That should be the last straw to this messed up tête-à-tête, but somehow, I knew the deceased had been a really shitty priest.
One of my legs was intertwined with Ronan’s as I slowly suffocated beneath his heavy thigh, the deadweight of his arm around me, and all the heat. It was bliss.
I’d always disliked my height, though that was before I realized if I was any shorter, I’d never be able to feel so many inches of this man at once. The closeness hummed in my blood, sating a deep-seated hole inside my heart.
“You feel pretty clingy right now, kotyonok.” The words were rough and tired and so very sexy.
“You’re the one holding me tighter than your favorite stuffed animal,” I returned.
“I don’t have favorites.” A lazy hint of humor touched the words. “They all matter to me.”
My laugh turned into an oomph when a small human jumped on top of me, pushing the air from my lungs.
“Dyadya! Dyadya!” Uncle! Uncle! The little girl bounced on me as if I was a trampoline until Ronan hauled her onto his chest. His blood-smeared chest. The man may be wearing pants while I wore his T-shirt, but this scene was far from PG. She either didn’t notice his wounded arm and all the blood, or she simply didn’t find it important. From what I’d learned of her during our first meeting, I knew it was the latter.
“Moya neposlushnaya plemyannitsa,” Ronan chuckled, tickling the girl’s sides. She giggled, her dark braids bouncing. She wore another band T-shirt as a dress—this one Death—and long socks covered with kittens.
I leaned against the headboard and watched them with a sense of awe. This was another side of Ronan I hadn’t seen, and I had to say, this gray part of him was . . . one I undeniably loved. I realized it last night. With his hands in my hair, the carnal taste of him in my mouth, and his eyes on mine. I’d almost said it then . . . I’d almost let those three words escape, but something had blocked them from coming up my throat.
I loved him.
I couldn’t love him.
So I forced the feeling to stay inside where it belonged and not out in the open where it didn’t.
“Stop!” the girl squealed through tortured laughter while Ronan tickled her feet. He sniffed them and pretended they smelled bad, wrinkling his nose. She could barely breathe from giggling.
I’d never thought much about having children, but seeing uncle and niece interact filled my chest with a warm yearning. Though the feeling faded when I recalled this happy moment would just be a memory someday, and any kids I had would never be Ronan’s.
When the tickle torture stopped, the girl caught her breath and turned to look at me. Again, her dark eyes filled with judgement. And maybe a little jealousy.
“Dyadya, if she’s not Satan, who is she?”
Ronan cast a glance to me, a hint of amusement in his eyes. “She’s my maid.”
I shook my head with a smile.
The girl frowned. “Why she in bed?”
“She’s trying to make the bed, but I refuse to get out, and she’s too weak to move me.”
She giggled at her uncle. “You’re lazy.”
“Lazily handsome.” He winked at her.
The girl turned to me and announced, “Papa can move him.” On second thought, she pursed her lips. “Nevers mind.”
“Why never mind?” Ronan asked with humor. “Does it have something to do with his phone in your hand?”
She glanced at the cell and made a face like she didn’t like the question. “Papa says I can play a princess game if I eat breakfast.”
I smiled. “And I’m assuming you didn’t eat?”
She wrinkled her nose. “I don’t like eggs. Or toast. Or porridge. Or—”
“Okay,” Ronan chuckled. “You don’t like food.”
Happy he understood, she nodded, then said quietly, “I might like food after I play new princess game.”
Wow. This little girl was going to rule the world. Not to mention, she appeared to be about three with the vocabulary of a child much older. She would grow up to be a gorgeous female Einstein. Or a criminal mastermind.
She was giving Ronan those big dark eyes that would be impossible for even Hitler to resist.
Ronan chuckled and shook his head. “Okay, kitty Kat, what do you need from me?”
She smiled real big and handed him the phone. “Find game, please. I could do it,” she said haughtily, “but Papa won’t tell me the password.”
“What a tyrant,” Ronan drawled. “What’s the game called?”
“I dunno. It was on commercial after one of Mamma’s kissy shows.”
It took Ronan three tries to figure out his brother’s passcode. I was beginning to think this entire family was full of geniuses. He opened the app store and searched for princess games with bloody inked fingers.
His niece peeked over his shoulder while he scrolled through the games, and I felt more than content just watching them.
“Okay, we got Princess Hair Salon,” Ronan said.
“Ew.”
He moved on. “Princess Room Cleanup?”
Her nose wrinkled. Mine too.
“Princess Horse Club?”
“No, Dyadya,” she complained. “The game’s not pink.” She threw her hands up in frustration. “Everything’s pink.”
“Princess Makeover?”
“Nyet,” she sighed.
“That one wasn’t pink,” he returned.
She rolled her eyes. “Fuchsia is almost pink.”
This little girl was making me feel like my IQ could use a boost.
Ronan continued to scroll through the list of games before stopping on one that had no resemblance to the color pink.
“The Princess’s Reign of Terror?”
Her eyes lit up. “That one!”
I couldn’t hold in a laugh.
She grabbed the cell from Ronan’s hand and dived into The Princess’s Reign of Terror. Seconds later, noises blared from the phone: slices of blades, groans of pain, and a, “Cut off his head!”
“Well, this looks cozy.”
I turned my head to see Christian in the doorway dressed in a three-piece suit without a single wrinkle. I shifted, a little self-conscious at being caught in his brother’s bed willingly—the one who had me tied up naked the last time Christian was here. Though he didn’t seem surprised or even interested in me, which eased any awkwardness.
Christian was the kind of man who made a woman’s mouth dry just by looking at him, but as flawless as he was, I preferred his brother’s imperfections. That scar on his bottom lip. All the ink. His jaded soul I’d seen warm just for me.
Christian looked like Gabriel the archangel. Ronan was every part D’yavol. I knew if they stood on separate sides of an alley and I was running from danger . . . I’d jump into D’yavol’s arms.
“Your daughter was complaining of the emotional trauma you just put her through,” Ronan said. “What kind of uncle would I be if I turned her away?”
“A bad one,” the girl said without looking up from her game.
I bit my lip to hold in a smile.
“Kat,” Christian said with a warning.
She looked up at him and deadpanned, “Papa.”
“Breakfast table right now.”
“Is there pancakes?” she challenged.
Christian narrowed his eyes. His daughter held the eye contact. An intense, silent father-daughter battle was happening before me, and it was mesmerizing.
“Toast and porridge make my tummy hurt, Papa,” Kat said softly. She looked up at him from beneath her lashes, and that seemed to be when her papa waved the white flag.
“Fine. Pancakes. But you’ll finish your game after you eat.”
She smiled real big, jumped off the bed, and skipped into her father’s arms. He lifted her, and she gave him a kiss on the cheek.
“I love you, Papa.”
His eyes softened. “I love you too, malen’kaya volchitsa.”
As he turned to leave, Kat wrapped her arms around his shoulders and said, “I really want chocolate chips in my pancake. And Fruit Woops. It would make me so happy, Papa!”
It was clear by Christian’s enamored expression, there’d be chocolate and rainbow-colored cereal in his daughter’s pancakes come hell or high water.
Ronan dropped his head against the headboard and chuckled at—I could only assume—how whipped his brother was. Christian gave him a dark look, glanced at me, then looked back to his brother. Ronan’s eyes narrowed. A subtle smile touched Christian’s lips, and then he carried Kat out of the room.
Their absence left this gnawing hole in my chest. I thought of my papa and how his love had never been as deep as what I’d just seen in Christian’s eyes. How I could count on one hand how many times he’d told me he loved me; how I yearned for his affection and rarely received even a hug. Guilt expanded in my chest for thinking this way. My papa was sacrificing himself for me. Wasn’t that the strongest expression of love?
Still, longing tore through me for that expressive kind of love I’d never had and that, soon, it’d be lost to me forever.
“Ronan,” I said uneasily. “I want to talk to my papa.”
Phone in his hand, he cast a look at me. The glint in his eyes was an unwavering “no.”
I swallowed. “Please . . . I might not see him ever again shortly, and I really need this.” My voice clogged with emotion. “I really need to talk to him.”
He watched me for a moment, then reached into the nightstand, pulled out my phone, and handed it to me. “Put it on speakerphone.”
I exhaled in relief. “Okay.”
Turning the phone on with shaky hands, I was assaulted by multiple messages coming in. Most from Carter. A lot from Carter. The man barely gave me the time of day unless we were on a mandatory date. I wondered if he was in trouble from his father for letting his almost-fiancée fall off the face of the earth.
Finding my papa’s contact, my thumb hesitated before I pressed “call” and turned on the speakerphone. I set the phone on my thigh, my stomach roiling with each shrill ring. Then they stopped.
“Alexei.”
My throat felt tight. “Papa.”
He released a breath of relief. “Mila . . .”
A tear ran down my cheek. I saw Ronan get to his feet out of the corner of my eye and walk over to look out the window.
“Hi, Papa.” I didn’t know what else to say or why this felt so awkward.
“How are you?”
“I’m fine.” Just in your enemy’s bed willingly. Guilt inflamed my gut.
“Are you really? Or are you only saying that because that bastard is listening in?”
My skin crawled at the insult, the demand to defend Ronan rising in my throat, but I didn’t know what part to play here. Too much animosity cloaked the room, as if one wrong word would cause it to blow.
“He’s here listening. But I promise, I’m fine.”
I could practically hear the cogs in my father’s head turning, wondering why Ronan was letting me speak to him. This phone call wouldn’t benefit Ronan in any way. Papa must have believed me because he said, “Khorosho.” Good. “Mila, there are things we need to discuss. Things concerning you after I’m gone.”
Another tear ran down my cheek. “Okay.”
“You need to marry Carter, angel.”
Ronan’s shoulder’s tensed, and he turned to face me, but I couldn’t find the courage to fully look at him.
“I know he wasn’t your first choice—”
“He was never my choice,” I returned, cutting off my papa for the first time in my life.
I heard him grind his teeth. “What you want doesn’t matter right now. What matters is keeping you safe.”
“How could Carter do that? He’s a professional playboy.”
Ronan paced the length of the footboard, each step setting me further on edge.
“Carter’s father holds a very powerful position in Miami. This is why I encouraged the engagement from the beginning. It would have already been set in stone if you hadn’t run to Moscow and straight to D’yavol.” His voice went quieter, which meant he was internally seething.
His anger was a whisper compared to the other man’s in the room. And both of them were beginning to make me burn in frustration, forcing the next words from my mouth.
“So why don’t I just marry Carter’s father then?”
A long pause. “He is married.”
“Bummer. I’ve learned I have a thing for older guys.” I let my eyes meet Ronan’s, which glowed with a dark, violent light. Unable to hold his intensity, I looked away.
“Papa . . . I don’t want to marry Carter.”
“You do not understand, Mila. If you don’t want to live on the streets, you will marry him. There will be no money left when I’m gone. I raised you right, but I’m afraid I screwed up when it comes to your brothers.”
Brothers.
I’d reached a place where I didn’t even blink at the knowledge I had brothers. Plural. It felt like my entire life had been a lie, and this was where the real me began.
“They will clean everything out, Mila. The house in Miami. Everything. I need to know you’re taken care of.”
I rubbed the cold goose bumps on my thigh. “I thought you told me Ivan would take care of me.”
He was silent. So silent, my heart dropped.
“Ivan has other demands to take care of now.”
What he meant was Ivan didn’t want anything to do with me anymore. It felt like someone had stabbed me in the chest. I may not have loved Ivan romantically, but I did as a friend. I was losing my papa and my best friend. Alone. I wasn’t even alone yet, but the absence hollowed out my bones.
“I wish it was different. But this is the way it has to be.”
“My brothers . . . they won’t help me?”
A pause. “I’m sorry, angel.”
My heart left my body to float in the distance while tears poured down my cheeks. Rejection dug its claws into my cold skin.
“You will do this for me, Mila. Don’t let me die not knowing what will happen to you.”
I wasn’t going to marry Carter. Not if I was so poor I had to live on the streets. I would never subject myself to the life I’d felt so lost in. But I also didn’t have the heart to deny my papa’s last wish. Even if it was a lie.
“Okay,” I said softly. “I will.”
Ronan gripped the headboard, and I heard a crack.
Papa exhaled. “I am glad, angel. I have to go now.”
“Wait,” I blurted. The question needed no permission. It escaped from the depths of me like a volcano. “Was the woman you murdered that night my mother?”
I didn’t need to clarify I spoke of the blonde lying in a puddle of blood on our library floor. He knew who I meant by the sticky silence on the other end of the line, but he never got a chance to reply.
Ronan grabbed the phone and ended the call.
Numb, I sat there, ice spreading through my veins. Because I knew the truth. I knew my papa killed my mother. I knew it was her blood that stained my stuffed animal and childhood memories.
And Ronan knew too.
