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I laugh, ignoring the little flame of guilt buried deep, trying to become an inferno. Every time I laugh or smile or sink into a steamy orgasm, I know I’m betraying Drake. Letting myself be happy and forgetting my duty as a big sister, but I have to focus on thenow.
Picking up the ball, I go to the three-point bit—clearly, I’m not a hooper—and bounce it a couple of times. Ania watches me with a big grin on her face. Her gaze reminds me of Mikhail when all his attention hones in on me, and every part of him is obsessed, interested, and fixated. She has a similar way of watching me.
“Ania, maybe go wait in the city? You know, just in case I miss?”
When Ania laughs, it makes Lia and me smile. I don’t even have to look at Lia to know that, somehow, it’s an infectious laugh that makes me feel big-sister-ish.
I shoot. I miss, and then Ania takes the ball and swishes the net with her shot. She bows, waving her hands as if there’s a crowd watching. “Thank you, thank you all so much.”
Lia and I laugh, and then Ania casually swishes another hoop.
“You’re fantastic,” I say.
Ania shakes her head. “I’m okay at shooting. I can’t dribble, pass, or actuallyplaybasketball, but …” She hesitates.
“What is it?” Lia asks.
Ania looks at me, then says quietly, “This was the only way Mikhail and I bonded when I was younger. I’d see him out here, shooting, and I’d just walk over and stand nearby, not saying anything. He wouldn’t say anything, either. He’d just pass me the ball. Sometimes, we’d be out here for hours without saying a word.”
“Why wouldn’t he speak to you?” I say, my heart squeezing at her words. I can’t imagine Mikhail being cruel to anybody, which should throw up an error message in my mind ifanythingshould. I know who he is and what he’s capable of. He tortured someone for me.
“It’s not necessarily that hewouldn’t,” she says. “He didn’t like to think about Dad cheating on his mom, which is fair enough, but what about me? I didn’t even know my mom. She was a sex worker who wanted nothing to do with me. She gave away her own baby.”
“Who told you that?” I ask.
“Dad,” she says. She must be able to read my expression because she immediately follows it up with, “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”
“It’s nothing.”
Ania walks right up to me. She gets eerily intense. When she’s finally ready to find a partner, I can imagine her running circles around them when she turns those brooding eyes to them. “It’s not nothing, though, is it?”
“Bratva bosses lie,” I say. “Maybe your dad wasn’t?—”
“No.” Ania shakes her head stubbornly. “If Dad lied, it means my mom wanted me in her life. It means he took me from her, or he did something to her to make her leave me behind. It means my whole life has been a lie. It means I was robbed of a chance to have a mother. No, no, I can’t think that. She didn’t want me. Okay? She hated me.”
Ania turns, looking like she’s about to storm away. I quickly walk around her and raise my hands. “Ania, I didn’t mean to upset you. I’m sorry.”
She softens a little. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You’re right. I don’t. I’m sorry.”
I hesitate for a moment, then reach forward for a hug. She throws herself into the hug with sudden reckless abandon, wrapping her arms around me and squeezing tight. Over her shoulder, I look at Lia, and I can tell she’s thinking the same thing.Whatever happens, Ania deserves to be happy.
“I’m sorry for snapping,” Ania says.
“You don’t have to apologize for anything,” I tell her.
We shoot some hoops for a few minutes longer, and then Ania says she wants to nap. I go back to the library with Lia, watching her paint for a while, wondering if this is what making friends feels like.
CHAPTER 16
MIKHAIL
“If we can get Nikolai to back off,” Dimitri says as we drive toward the city, “maybe we can return to normal.”
I almost laugh savagely. There’s no going back for me, no remembering who I was before my Mila came along. For the rest of my life, I will always be her man, her protector. Hell, even if she has to marry Dimitri, I’ll be there, watching, loving, taking care of her.
However, I don’t want Dimitri to guess what’s going on. It’s simply another complication we could do without. “Is there going to be a normal for you after this?” I say, taking off my glasses and glancing at him.
