Page 55 of Then We Shatter

With an elbow on my knee, I rest my weary brow on my hand. If I’m going to convince my dad to let me stay in Chicago, first I’m going to have to come clean to Katarina or else my suspicious little Bratva princess will go digging for her own answers. It’s better if it comes from me, if only marginally.

There’s a wee chance she might appreciate my honesty. Here’s hoping.

“I think you’d better sit down, lovely.”

Katarina’s quiet for a moment. “He knows about us.” She’s too sharp for her own good. I might just love her for it, but that doesn’t get me out of the shit.

I throw a heartfelt apology into one single word. “Yeah.”

There’s more silence I should fill, but I don’t dare.

“Malachy snitched on you after our first mission,” Katarina concludes. “And instead of punishing you, your father saw it as an opportunity to spy on me.”

“I only let him think that’s what I was going to do because I wanted to see you again. I was desperate to see you again, Kitty,” I emphasize. “You know I’m crazy about you.”

“And what does John get out of this little arrangement other than letting his snake of a son corrupt his enemy’s niece?”

“Worship, not corrupt,” I correct her.

“It’s corruption in my uncle’s eyes. If your dad…” She pauses long enough to put more pieces of the puzzle together. “Is he going to tell my uncle what we’ve been doing? Have you been collecting evidence? Am I going to find videos online of me sitting on your cock, Killian?”

“Jesus, Katarina!” I jump out of my seat and jab a finger into thin air. “Do you not know me by now? I’m not like your brother, or any of the creeps Vasili likes to do business with! There are no hidden cameras.”

“But you still used me as a pawn.”

“Dad wanted me to break you and Duke up before you could get married and I’ve been playing along so I have the excuse to be here. That’s all.”

“Does John know what I’m planning to do?”

“No. And I’ve never kept something this significant from him before, but it’s one risk I wasn’t prepared to take. He thinks I’m here seducing you away from Duke.” My voice rises to get my point across when I add, “And before you even suggest it, there was no playacting when it came to us. Everything I gave you came from the heart. It was real.”

The silence is deafening and then…

“Was real,” she repeats and it might just be the saddest words I’ve ever heard. I used the past tense.

“I didn’t mean…”

Katarina inhales deeply before she delivers the sucker punch. “We’re done, Killian. It’s too risky. There are too many people who know too much, and the closer we are to the wedding, the more likely it is that we’ll be found out. What happens then?” she asks. “When all hell breaks loose, who’ll be fighting for me? I’ll tell you who. No one. Not even you.” Her laugh is bitter. “I might be capable of starting a war or two, but I’m not the princess men die for.”

I gravitate back to the window and the city scape. The problem with light pollution is you don’t see the darkness that’s already closing in around you. “I’d die for you.”

“You’re forgetting I’m a Barkov. If your dad heard you saying that, you’d be dead in his eyes anyway. Could you live with that? I know how much you love him. And your brothers. They need you. Lorcan especially, and even that dickwad Malachy. You’re so lucky to have your family and I won’t take that from you.”

Words get stuck in my throat. I don’t know how to answer her.

“I don’t want to see you again,” she says, hammering the point home like a stake through my heart. There’s a storm raging in my soul as she delivers her final blow. “I’m going to start afresh somewhere new. I’ll find someone else. And so will you.”

“No, Katarina, we won’t,” I say with a clarity so sharp it cuts through the noise in my head. An eerie calm descends. “I belong to you and you belong to me. You’re mine. Every inch of your body. Every thought in your head. Every beat of your heart that’s thumping in your chest because you know it’s true.”

“Don’t–”

“That pussy belongs to me too,” I interrupt. I open the app on my phone. “I’ll know when you’re wearing the vibrator. And when you are, you’ll know when I’m thinking of you.”

Chapter 20

Killian

Dawn is creeping over the city when I muster the courage to call Dad. It’s still the middle of the night in Vegas and I’m hoping he’ll be asleep and I won’t…