Page 47 of Beautiful Trauma

With an apathetic shrug, he replied, “It’s just the way things are.”

“What would happen to me if I didn’t show up?”

“You will.”

“But what if I didn’t?”

“Don’t make me have to imagine the repercussions,” he replied in a strained voice.

And with those words, I knew I had no choice. And knowing Father, he wouldn’t give Dima a choice about punishing me.

“You don’t think he knows about Kellan and me, do you?”

“No. He doesn’t. Not unless the driver told him because I sure as hell didn’t. And neither would Aleks.”

Somehow that made me feel slightly better. I could endure being a part of the meeting if it was merely a means to goad my father’s ego and not about punishing me.

“Fine. I’ll do it.”

“I know,” Dima replied with a smile.

With a roll of my eyes, I said, “You just love being right, don’t you?”

“I do about this,” he replied with a knowing look.

“Of course you do when I don’t have a choice.”

He laughed. “Come on. I’m starved, and you owe me some Pelani.”

Although I’d somewhat lost my appetite with Father’s phone call, I knew once I sat with Dima it would come back. That was the beauty of my mother’s memory.

It always united us.

CHAPTER TWELVE: KELLAN

My pulse pounded like a marching band in my head as Andrew maneuvered like a Formula One driver through the city traffic. After stealing a glance at my watch, I grimaced. With everything that had transpired in the last few days, the last thing I needed was to be late for our meeting with Korolovas.

It hadn’t taken long for our IT department to trace the hit to a shell corporation with ties to Dare’s future father-in-law, Danill Korolova. It didn’t take a genius to put two and two together about why they wanted intel. Once he had confirmation, Callum had called Danill to set up a meeting to see the best way to move forward.

The last forty-eight hours had been a fucking nightmare. I’d like to say it was because of my guilt about letting Mya dupe me and the repercussions to my family. But the truth was I’d spent most of the time relieving my time with Mya in my office. When I closed my eyes, I could still taste her on my tongue or feel her tight walls pulsing around me.

It wasn’t just the physical parts that haunted me–it was the emotional connection. Despite betraying me, I couldn’t bring myself to despise her. No, my feelings were far from that. I was still fascinated by her. I still wanted to see her again–to truly get to know her.

Nothing had been unearthed about her identity. Unlike me, my brothers had no desire to know who Mya really was. Their only interest was smoothing things over with Danill. In the vast Koralova empire, I’m sure she was just one of many women hired to seduce men for their secrets.

In the end, she was just a ghost who remained haunting me.

After screeching up to the curb, I barely let Andrew put the SUV in park before I flung open the door and started sprinting to the building. I’d just stormed into the lobby when I literally ran into Isla with Rian strapped to her chest in one of those contraptions.

“Oomph,” she muttered while Rian squealed.

When I extracted myself from them, I gave her an apologetic look. “Christ, I’m sorry, Isla.”

“It’s okay.”

Peering down at Rian, I reached out to rub his cheek in greeting, but Isla’s hand blocked me. When my gaze shot to hers, a look of horror was etched on her face.

“What’s wrong?”