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“Look, I understand if you two aren’t close. I mean…I’m trying to, at least. My family and I have never been at odds. They’re annoying at times, but I can’t imagine my life without them in it.” Tucking a few strands of her dark hair behind her ear, I was careful not to touch the huge knot on her forehead. This close, I could see how unevenly her pupils were dilated, with one iris nearly completely obliterated, giving her an almost demonic look. Tears filled my eyes, hating that she’d had to go through such a scary experience. No wonder she was so pissed off. “But I know not every family is like mine. Everyone has their own dynamic. For whatever reason, you and your brother are at odds. He’s trying to rectify that, though. All he wants is to protect you. Show you how much he cares.”
Her brow scrunched up as she considered what I’d said for a moment. But then she lifted her hand that was still handcuffed to the seat. “I’m chained to a chair, Abi. How many brothers do that to their sisters?”
“It was for your own protection. You kept trying to tear the IV out in your sleep.” I defended Vaughn. “You need to stay hydrated because of your concussion.”
She gave me a forced smile. “Well, I’m awake now. Maybe you can uncuff me.”
“When we land,” Vaughn spoke English for the first time since I’d joined them. “We will be there soon.”
“Where exactly are we going?”
“New York, silly,” I told her again. “We’re taking you home to visit your dad since he couldn’t travel to check on you.”
Sammy gripped the bridge of her nose for a moment before rubbing at her forehead with the hand that still had the IV in it. Frustration was thick in her voice, but I didn’t understand what she asked of her brother when she spoke. I really needed to learn Russian.
“No,” Vaughn growled, his face going dark for a moment before blanking again. His sister continued to snap at him. I couldn’t comprehend a single word either of them was saying. Between Sammy’s anger and Vaughn’s expressionless face, a sensation of danger began to press in on me, making me feel suffocated.
“Don’t argue,” I scolded them. “I may not speak the language, but I can tell from your tone that you two are not having a friendly conversation.”
Vaughn tilted his head toward me, his eyes filling with warmth once again. “I don’t mean to upset you, wildfire.”
“I want the two of you to get along. She’s one of my best friends. If this is going to work…”
“I will make it work,” he promised before I could finish what I was saying. “But it may take a little time. My sister doesn’t trust me. Yet.”
“Fuck,” Sammy grumbled to herself, her not-quite-focused eyes shifting from me to her brother and back again.
“We have about thirty minutes before we land,” I informed them. “Why don’t you two try to talk it out?”
“We will need longer than that to sort through all of our issues, wildfire.”
Hearing a note of hopefulness in his voice, I stood and moved to sit beside him on the sofa, offering him encouragement as I took his hand and entwined our fingers. With his free hand, he cupped my cheek. Warmth spread through my body as he rubbed his thumb over my bottom lip. “Thank you for being here, zhizn moya.”
“Where you go, I go.”
Closing his eyes, he released a shuddery breath, my vow feeding him strength to deal with the obstacles standing between him and his sister.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
vaughn
Staying in the shadows was what I was comfortable with. It was how I’d learned to survive. But seeing how my sister looked at Abi, adoration in her unfocused eyes, reminded me that if I wanted to keep my sweet girl happy, I would have to move into the light. Trying to work things out with Samara, who was a part of Abi’s life now whether I wanted her to be or not, was a step forward that I needed to make for her.
Reminding myself that everything I did was for her, I turned my head to look at the lethal predator still making feral noises. Did she even know she was making them? I doubted it. Abi’s hand covered mine as she got comfortable beside me, and I figured the best place to start was with one of the biggest lies I’d been told my entire life.
“Anya didn’t have a miscarriage,” I told Samara in Russian. “She threw me away.”
Enraged flames spiked high in her eyes. If anything set her off, of course it was her loyalty. Even to our mother, who had spent most of Samara’s life turning her into something she never should have been. I didn’t hate Anya for all the reasons Daria had always tried to brainwash me with. It was because of what she’d done to my sister. “Liar!”
I lifted my free hand to quiet her when Abi flinched. “Calm yourself. I know that. Now. But it was the lie I was fed my entire life. From the time I could talk, they told me over and over the story of how my mother abandoned me.”
Confusion pulled her brows together, the knot on her forehead so large, the swelling had moved to her eye. “She was five months pregnant,” Samara muttered defensively. “That baby was the only thing she felt she still had, because Papa married Ryan’s mother. When she lost him, she nearly died too because she lost the will to live.”
That was the lie.
But one that not even Anya had been force-fed along with the drugs they had slipped her. If she’d been thinking clearer instead of suffering from a broken heart after Cristiano’s marriage to Sheena, it never would have happened. She wasn’t emotionally stable at the time, though, so no one could fault her.
“She wasn’t five months along,” I clarified. “She was seven and a half.”
