Page 90 of Beautiful Secrets

I’d spent some time thinking about Sarah. Kill told me she’d married Derek a few years ago. It was probably the only news in his letters that didn’t have to do with any of his kids.

I’m happy for her. Derek’s a nice guy, after all. If anyone can keep her safe, it’s him.

But I do regret the way things turned out. And I am sour about losing her, even though I know we weren’t perfect together.

She’d been the first girl to last more than two weeks. The first girl I’d ever thought about past straight-up fucking. I mean, shit, I was going to ask her to move in with me before my brother decided to marry Meisie in a calculated move to overthrow our nemesis, Helen Ford.

But if I had to be honest with myself, it wasn’t Sarah I regret losing. It was the knowledge that maybe—if I just found the right person—even a reprobate like me could eventually settle down.

Find a wife.

Start a family.

Only…that shit’s not for me. Not as in Fate intervened and shit.

Even if I wanted, a family isn’t in the cards for me. Probably never was.

“What is it?” I grate out, ready to be done with these morbid thoughts floating around in my head. Another reason to be rid of Mika—I haven’t done this much soul searching in two, three years.

There’s a fucking reason people like me suppress things. No one wants to go into the basement of their mind when the pilot goes out, root around in the dark, and discover that the scritch-scratch they always imagine they’re hearing isn’t a cute little rat, but some fucked up thing with claws and teeth and a very, very personal grudge.

Fuck that shit.

“I don’t know what’s going on,” Sarah says, flicking a limp hand before hugging herself. “But I don’t think Mika wants to go back home.”

I laugh. Squeeze my eyes shut with thumb and forefinger and rub the lids a bit. Christ I’m so done with this day already.

“Aye, and you’d be right,” I say. When I open my eyes, Sarah starts frowning. “But that’s not my fucking problem, is it? I’m not a fucking therapist. She’s got to deal with her own shit, doesn’t she?”

Sarah’s jaw tightens. “I think something happened to her,” she says.

“Yeah? Like someone kidnapping her?”

Sarah rolls her eyes. “No, Cole, like…” She hesitates, and her eyes dart to the closed door before fixing on me again. “Something bad.”

“She’s Dimitri Vasiliev’s daughter, Sarah. I’m sure bad shit happens all the time.”

She purses her lips at me, hesitates again, and then goes to her closet. “God, you can be a right asshole.”

I take what she gives me and study it for a second. “I didn’t ask for proof,” I tell her.

Sarah snatches back the pregnancy test, glaring at me. “It’s not mine!”

I frown. Hard. Stare down at the test.

Something unpleasant crawls up my back. Probably that thing from the fucking basement. “It’s not mine either,” I tell her dryly.

Sarah’s mouth falls open. “I never said…” She shakes her head. “Fuck it, Cole, she’s pregnant!”

“Aye, I figured as much, what with the little pink happy face on the thing,” I say, pointing at the test in Sarah’s hand. “But what the fuck’s that got to do with me?”

Another shake, outright exasperation on Sarah’s face as she palms the test. “She isn’t married. Probably isn’t seeing anyone. But she’s pregnant?”

I shrug. “And she’s Russian. I won’t even pretend to know what shit they get up to when the lights go off.”

“You can’t take her back. Not until we know what’s going on. I mean, you could be sending her back to, to, I dunno, some uncle that molests her or something.”

I cock up my eyebrow. Glance at the test. “You’re overreacting. And I’m leaving.”