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“Whatever,” Flora says with an eye roll. She waits until he returns to his spot and raises her glass and waits while I raise mine. “So stay mad at them. Make them grovel. Put them through the grinder. You marry Kato, have a shit load of kids, kill your dad, and live happily ever after.”

Those last two bits earn a genuine smile as I shake my head and clink my shot glass against hers.

The gut rot whiskey burns on its way down and I can’t help but pull a face. “Seriously? Why do you like this shit? We’re Russian. Shouldn’t we be doing shots of vodka?”

Not that we ever preferred that shit unless it was mixed in a cocktail.

She shrugs and sets her empty glass on the table. “Don’t know. Someone gave me one and I ended up liking it. Not really into the super sweet shit these days.”

Pretty sure there isn’t anything sweet about my best friend. Part of her charm.

“Well? What are you going to do?” she asks, looking in Madd’s direction.

When I turn my attention toward him, he’s staring right at me. Even from this distance, I can see the worry and pain in his pretty green eyes.

“Why does he always remind me so much of Henry Cavill,” Flora mutters. “I mean, if Henry Cavill looked like he was on steroids and wanted to kill everyone.”

I chuckle and shake my head. “To answer your first question…I have no idea.”

Not that I have a whole lot of options. Can’t run. Nowhere to run to unless I want to stay with Flora. Her father wouldn’t let any of the Antoniou crew anywhere near me if I asked.

But that would do nothing short of start a war. No way will Kato, Brix, or Maddox let me go again. Especially if there’s a possibility I’m carrying their child.

Again.

Chapter 35

Brixton

The blinking dot on my phone hasn’t moved in over an hour. Madd has updated us a couple times, but nothing is making the surge of rage, fear, and pain lessen.

Fuck. I knew we should have told her earlier, there’s just been so much shit going on at once, it kind of took a back seat.

Or maybe you kind of like the idea of her carrying your baby.

Fuck. I can lie to her, to the others all I want, but not a chance I can lie to myself. I want to see her rounded with my kid. I want to see her tits and ass all plump as she grows a life in her belly.

I want the child that was stolen from us all those years ago. I want the family and future that was stolen from us.

Oh, and I really fucking want Dima Sidorov’s head mounted on a pike in the front yard. We’ll just pretend it’s a scarecrow or some shit if anyone gets too curious.

Well, shit. Now I’m starting to sound as fucked in the head as Maddox. But in reality, that cocksucker Dima deserves nothingshort of pain, agony, a long and painful death after what he put us all through, after what he did to his own fucking daughter.

I’ll admit, I’m still feeling that sense of gratification over the look on Dima’s face when Everest climbed the stage and stood in the spotlight where every single person in attendance could see her clearly.

I’m also feeling a bit murderous over the way her fucking mother had spoken to her, the way she’d treated her, the fact she hadn’t given two shits her only daughter was supposed to have been dead. And that she’d known Everest was alive and struggling to survive.

Both of them are pieces of shit, and they’ll both end up dead. Preferably at my hands.

“We should have told her earlier,” I say as I drop my head against the back of the couch.

Both Kato and I have been sitting in the living room, TV muted, while periodically checking for updates and watching to see if the little blip from Everest’s tracker moves.

“Yeah, well. Nothing we can do about it now.”

“I can’t lose her again,” I admit without looking at him.

He raises a glass filled with what I assume is bourbon to his lips in my periphery. “She’s not going anywhere.”