Page 49 of Vicious Betrayal

I push off the counter, walk into the hallway, and look at myself in the mirror by the door. The scars and lines in my face look obvious to me, but Oksana has never seemed to mind them. She looks at me and touches me like I'm the handsomest man she's ever seen, like she can't breathe until my hands and mouth are on her too. And for the first time in longer than I can remember, I feel like I can draw a full breath when I think of her. I feel alive. I feel like the sun is coming up over a long-unseen horizon, and that I can see something there I'd stopped looking for.

I head upstairs to where she's waiting for me. I'm not going to make any decisions out loud tonight. I need to talk to Declan tomorrow, before anything else. I'm going to have to admit to him what all this really was, and tell him the full truth. But he'll know what to do next. Just like I think I already do.

—

Declan's house is mostly silent when I get there, early in the morning. I left a note for Oksana, telling her I had some things I needed to handle, and asking her to stay at the house until I get back sometime late this afternoon or early this evening.

I park my Triumph in the garage and take the elevator up. Declan's security waves me past, and then lets me into the penthouse. I smell jasmine from snuffed candles as I step in, and coffee. I catch sight of Declan in the gleaming kitchen, making himself a cup.

His eyebrows go up the moment he sees me. "I wasn't expecting you. Everything alright, Cormac? You look like you’re either about to tell me someone’s dead, or you’re about to put someone in the ground yourself."

"I need to talk to you."

"Alright," he says mildly. "Do you want coffee? I like to get in here and make it sometimes myself, before any of the staff Elena insists on can start trying to serve me things."

"Sure." I sink into one of the chairs across the island from him. "I don't even know where to start."

"Wherever you want." He pours me a cup and passes it to me, black, and then leans against his side of the counter.

"I’ve been seeing someone," I say after a moment. "Maksim Svenkov’s youngest daughter. Oksana."

Declan pauses. "Oksana… the girl at the party. I thought you said she was just a fling."

I let out a breath. "She was supposed to be."

"Svenkov." He frowns. "He's a small-time pakhan, right?" His frown deepens. "I thought she seemed a little young, but I figured you were just scratching an itch. Did you know she was his daughter?"

I shake my head. "Not at first. It’s not an itch, Declan."

"And you didn't break it off when you found out?" He sets his coffee cup down. "How old is she, anyway?"

"Twenty." I have to force the word out. I've never felt dirtier, facing the truth of it. "And I was going to. But fuck, Declan, I couldn't. We figured if we kept it quiet…"

"She's half your age." He pinches the bridge of his nose. "And her father is a stubborn, suspicious bastard who barely has a grip on his own operation, and you’re playing house with his youngest girl while we’re trying to keep the peace. If Maksim thinks you’re using her for leverage, or worse, that you’re disrespecting his house by treating her like a cheap side piece, it creates bad blood we don’t need right now."

"I’m not using her," I say. My voice rises slightly, thick with an intensity that surprises even me. "And I’m not treating her like a side piece."

"Then what are you doing?"

"We were enjoying each other's company. But last night, she came over and told me…" I draw in a slow breath. "She’s pregnant."

The room goes dead silent. The only sound is the grandfather clock ticking in the corner of the living room and the distant hum of traffic along Lake Shore Drive. Declan stares at me, his eyes wide with genuine shock. "What?"

"She’s carrying my child," I repeat, holding his gaze without blinking. "I didn't plan it. I spent weeks trying to walk away from her, telling myself I had no business being near someone so young, someone whose family could cause problems for us. But I couldn't do it. She’s... she makes me feel like a human being, Declan. I look at her, and I don't see the twenty years of grime I’ve piled on my soul. I love her. And I’m going to marry her."

Declan doesn't speak for a long time. He takes a sip of coffee and looks at me. I know he's looking for doubt, for some hesitation in me, in what I'm saying. He doesn't find any.

"You love her," Declan repeats quietly.

"With everything I have left." The declaration doesn't sound as dramatic as it did in my head. It just sounds like I'm sure. And I am. I had no idea I was capable of feeling this. I had no idea I could allow myself to admit it if I did. But it's the absolute truth.

A slow breath leaves Declan’s chest, the tension bleeding out of his broad shoulders, replaced by a strange respect in his expression. "Alright. Then what do we do next?"

I feel some of the tension leaving me too, at the trust he's placed in me. I've been his right hand for a while now, and his best friend for even longer. He believes that I'll do the right thing, and he's going to stand by me. I can't begin to express how much that means to me.

"I need you to back me with Maksim."

"Maksim is going to lose his mind," Declan says, though a faint, wry smirk begins to tug at the corner of his mouth. "A forty-year-old Irish enforcer knocking up his pretty little daughter before a ring is even on her finger? He’s going to think you did it to spit in his face."