Chapter Twenty-Five

Ilya

I barely slept despite the physical exhaustion I felt from losing myself, over and over, in the hot sweetness that was Brooke's body. My muscles ached in the best possible way, but my mind raced with too many thoughts to allow sleep to claim me. So while she slept, curled into my body with one hand low on my belly, her breathing slow and even, my mind swirled with possibilities.

There wasn't just one traitor within my organization, there were more, and one of them was possibly my own flesh and blood. It was something I didn't want to believe, but I could not ignore the facts that stared me in the face.

"Oh my god," Brooke groaned as she woke up and stretched her limbs. She pressed a kiss over my chest and flashed an impish smile up at me. "You're thinking so loudly you woke me up."

I laughed despite myself. "That is impossible."

"Maybe." She shrugged and her smile slowly faded. "Are you still thinking about the theft?"

"Among other things." It wasn't just the betrayal I was worried about, but also what happened when Brooke and I left the penthouse. It would happen sooner or later, and where would we be?

"What else is on your mind, Ilya?"

My brows rose. "Do you really want to know?"

She tilted her head to one side. "I'm not sure, do I?"

"It is about us. I don't want this to just be something that happened because we're stuck here together. I hope that this would have happened no matter what, eventually."

"How can that happen when your uncle wants to kill me? He still might, even if you won't." She looked away and I caught a strange expression on her face, on anyone else I would have called it guilt.

"I will handle Oleg. I promise. What other objections do you have?" It was clear she was still hanging on to our past, but surely, she understood now why I didn't return?

"I'm just not sure that I can trust you." She shook her head and held up a hand to stop my automatic explanation. Brooke put some distance between us and crossed her arms. "I know that your father was killed, and I understand what happened, I really do."

"But?"

"But that doesn't change the years of feeling rejected and abandoned. It doesn't change the fact that I haven't trusted another man with my heart since that night. It's a lot to overcome overnight."

"You haven't been with another man?" I was still having trouble understanding how a teenage fling had affected her so deeply. I would love to think that it was because I was such a catch, as the Americans say. But there had to be more to it.

She rolled her eyes. "That's what you heard?"

"That's what I'm clarifying first," I shot back with a playful grin.

"How could I when I've had that issue weighing heavily on me? And well, other things." She looked away.

This time I was certain I saw guilt, but I didn't get to ask her about it because my phone rang. "We'll pick this up in a moment."

She rolled off the bed, sauntering her beautiful, naked body into the bathroom.

"Dmitri, have you found out anything?"

"I managed to track down Ryan Watts. He is a lieutenant in the Winter Valley PD. The family had been away, and they returned not long ago, so I paid them a visit."

I laughed, picturing the scene. "Did he know who you were?"

"I said we were canvasing the neighborhood, we were considering opening a gym in the old strip mall and wanted to know if the locals thought it would be a good thing."

Brooke had told me she'd spoken to her brother and told him that she was away on business. I allowed her privacy to make the phone call, so I wasn't sure what she'd actually said to him. "Did he seem to be acting out of character?"

Dmitri was silent for a long minute, and I wondered if something had happened. "He didn't seem worried about anything. Incidentally, opening a gym might be a good idea, he was definitely enthusiastic about it."

"Good. That is very good." I said, feeling some degree of relief. Brooke had not betrayed me, and she had told me the truth about what she'd spoken to her brother about. I couldn't help but sense that Dmitri was holding something back. "Anything else?"

"Yes."

I waited and waited, but Dmitri said nothing. "What is it, Dmitri?"

He sighed heavily. "There is something else, but now is not the time to distract you, not until we figure out who is stealing from you."

"If you have information you think I should know, tell me." I sat up on the bed and then stood and walked to the living room. My arms and legs felt tingly, and I paced around the floor.

"When I was speaking with Lieutenant Watts, two little girls rushed past us into the yard."

"Two little girls? So he has daughters?"

There was a long silence before he spoke again, "He has a son and a daughter, that's what my sources told me. Not two girls, and…" he paused, sounding like he'd prefer to face a firing squad then tell me whatever the hell he was going to say.

"Spit it out Dmitri," I said, frustrated that my oldest friend was being evasive.

"One of little girls had blond hair and blue eyes, Ilya. She looks like you."

His words slammed into my chest, the implication almost suffocating. "What?"

"She could be your double, she looks to be seven or eight years old."

"It can't be." But could it be true? Brooke and I had been together once eight years ago, and we hadn't used birth control. I was young and impetuous, and it had happened so suddenly neither of us had been thinking straight. "Shit." I spun around just as Brooke emerged from the bedroom with wet hair and pink skin.

Her gaze collided with mine and instantly filled with worry and fear, and in that moment I knew.

"Ilya, are you still there?"

"I am. But I need to go. Are you still with them?"

"I'm in my car watching the property."

"Okay. Stay there and I will reach out soon." I ended the call and tossed my phone on the sofa, my eyes never leaving Brooke. "Is it true?"

Her eyes widened in a far too innocent look that only intensified my anger. "Is what true, Ilya?" Her attempt at being calm didn't fool me at all because she was a terrible liar and looked away like someone with something to hide.

I sighed, closing my hands into fists to push back the irritation and anger that boiled inside me. It couldn't be true , was the thought that pulsed through me even though everything from Dmitri's words to her actions right now told me it was in fact true. "Is. It. True?"

Her gaze met mine and she lifted her chin, an air of defiance surrounding her. "You found out about Karina." The words came out, not as a question but as a resigned fact.

I let out a bitter laugh as I shook my head, disbelief wrapping around me as the truth became clear. We'd been in this little bubble here in the penthouse and I thought we were moving past the past, that we were becoming something more than enemies. "It was a secret?"

Brooke's laughter came out harsh and brittle. She pinched the bridge of her nose and shook her head as if she needed a moment to herself. As if she had the right to be angry. As if she was the wronged party. But then her arms fell to her sides and her gaze met mine head-on, and it was ice cold, steely, and held no trace of her earlier warmth. "A secret? You might have known about her if you hadn't left the country and never looked back. Sure, your father died and that's why you couldn't come back, I get that. But you didn't think of me at all. You didn't think to call or email or text, not even once in all these years. I had to give up my dreams of college, my parents' marriage broke down. My brother didn't speak to me for almost two years. I've raised my daughter alone. I had to do it, because what choice did I have? Her father walked away and forgot all about the girl he fucked at a Christmas party."

She was right. I could say I was a kid, and she was expecting too much, but that was a weak argument. "Brooke—"

"No, Ilya!" She pointed at me, her chest heaving and her eyes burning with a fire I hadn't seen until now. "Unlike you, I tried to find you. You know how many Kuznetsovs there are in Moscow, or even in Russia? Millions. So, no, it wasn't a secret, you just didn't give a damn about the consequences of that night. Until just this moment, apparently." She turned away dismissively.

My anger was a living, breathing thing in the room with us. It was white-hot and it bubbled to the surface. "That's a bullshit answer."

"Of course, you would say that now," she replied without looking at me. "You feel better as the victim in this scenario. The wronged man, as it were. I've been tearing myself apart wondering if I should tell you about her. When I realized what you were involved with, I started to think maybe I should just keep quiet. Then what happens when my conscience gets the better of me and I decide I have to let you know? You kidnap me, hold me in your fucking penthouse for days, and tell me that your uncle has put a fucking hit out on me." Brooke's arms wrapped around her waist as she glared out at the city.

"Victim is the last word anyone would ever use to describe me."

"Then accept that you were wrong, or at least understand why I kept her from you." She turned slowly to face me. "I was a virgin, Ilya, and yes, I wanted you that night, but I thought I was in love. I was heartbroken when you didn't come back. Maybe if I hadn't fallen pregnant, I'd have gotten over it and come out the other side—bitter, but more experienced. But I didn't. I had to grow up then and there and take responsibility for my actions. While you waltzed off living your best life, without a thought of what you might have left behind." The last words rushed out on an exhausted breath as if she was simply too tired to keep arguing. I know she was trying to hurt me, I wasn't living my best life, I was grieving for my father and being pushed into the family business years before I was ready. But I let her words go. Instead, I asked, "And when I came back?"

She shrugged. "You didn't come back for me, you're here to make money and maybe even to gain power. It was a stupid fucking coincidence that you chose my boss as your mob accountant."

Another truth I couldn't deny. But it still didn't explain why she didn't tell me, she only learned about my connections recently, "Did it not occur to you that I had a right to know my own daughter?"

She had the decency to look upset, if only for a moment or two before her expression hardened. "I did consider it, but I was scared."

"Scared of what?" I asked.

"Of you taking her. She's all I have. I'm a single mom, I'm doing okay, but I'm still living from paycheck to paycheck. I'm not a college graduate and if I lose my job then I have nothing to fall back on. Compared to a rich businessman who can give her everything she wants, I'm nothing. If you wanted to fight for custody, then I'm sure the judge would award it to you rather than a college dropout teen mom. She's my daughter."

"She's my child too!" That was the long and the fucking short of it. I had a child in this world, and I didn't know about her, didn't know her. Not one fucking thing, and it was Brooke's fault.

"And what does that mean, Ilya? She shares some of your DNA, but you still haven't asked one damn question about her because you're so busy proving that you're somehow the wounded party here." She took a step forward, paused, and closed her eyes as if she was trying to find patience. "Guess what? She also shares DNA with the man who wants me dead, so what does that mean?"

My nostrils flared with my own growing anger. "And if I wanted you dead, you would be."

"And that's exactly why you don't know about her. Your life is dangerous, and I can't count on you to keep her safe when your life intrudes into ours. We were doing fine before you turned up." She leveled me with an accusatory glare.

I inhaled a deep breath and let it out slowly, knowing that anger wasn't the path forward. "Okay, fine, I was a stupid kid, and an asshole, I own that. But none of that changes the fact that she is my daughter too." I staggered back a step as the words echoed in the air and sank deep into my bones, into my fucking soul. She was my daughter. I had a kid. I was someone's father. "She needs her father, dammit."

"That's where you're wrong. Again. My daughter needs a good man in her life, a kind man who is generous with his time and his patience. She needs a good father, a present father."

"And that's not me?" I held my breath as I waited for her to tell me what a huge piece of shit I was, how I was unfit to breathe the same air as my own damn daughter.

"Right now? No, it isn't. That doesn't mean that will be true forever, but right now, she isn't your priority, and the last thing she needs is more people leaving her."

I suspected Brooke was speaking for herself as much as for our daughter. "I'm not going anywhere."

She chuckled lightly, but there was no trace of humor in the sound, instead it was dark and angry. "Only time will tell. Be angry with me all you want, just remember that it was your lack of giving a fuck that's to blame for your ignorance."

I wanted to beat myself up. I wanted to scream at the universe, rage at the unfairness of it all. I'd missed so many years, so many milestones. Those were years I couldn't get back, not ever. "What does she know about me?"

Brooke said nothing, which was probably an answer in itself.

"I want to meet her." My heart thundered as I stated my desire to meet my own damn child. I had to be introduced to my child. Father would be so disappointed.

"No," she answered quickly, shaking her head.

"You can't do this!" I exclaimed. Realizing that losing my temper was not going to help, I moderated my tone. "Surely you can let me see her?"

"Your uncle wants me dead. Does he know about her? Is that how you found out?"

A cold chill went through my body. I hoped to god that Oleg didn't know about Karina. But she could be in danger too, I had to be honest. "No, that call was Dmitri. I sent him to check on your brother, to make sure everything was okay." I decided telling her I sent my second-in-command because I was worried she might have told her cop brother she'd been kidnapped, was not the best idea in the circumstances. Honesty only goes so far.

"Is everything okay?" she asked hesitantly.

I nodded. "Dmitri is waiting outside keeping an eye on the property. Again, I didn't tell her that the initial reason was more because I hadn't decided what I wanted to do about my daughter. But now having the property surveilled made sense, in case Oleg had decided to send one of his men to kidnap Brooke's daughter as leverage. Our daughter, as leverage.

"Ilya, if you want to meet her, I won't keep you away. When the time is right." She didn't waver when my gaze slammed into hers. "But right now there is the small matter of someone wanting me dead. Possibly you too." Her voice shook with every syllable, but she was trying to be strong.

"That's why you were so desperate to make a call."

She nodded, "Ryan and his wife took Karina to spend the weekend at the Hamptons. I'd already called him on Friday afternoon asking if he could collect her from school because I was working late. But I knew if I didn't call over the weekend then he'd get worried," she paused and gave a weak smile, "Not Karina, she's a tough independent child. I was counting on her having so much fun with her cousins not to miss my nightly phone call."

I suddenly felt bad then, that I might have inadvertently made my daughter scared. "I'm sorry, you have to understand—"

She cut me off, "I should be sorry. It's all a mess. Karina is fine, I spoke to her when I called Ryan to tell him I had to go on a business trip and ask whether he'd be able to keep her for a few more days."

"I'm a business trip?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Well, it's not entirely a lie," Brooke stated.

I had so many questions I wanted to ask about our daughter, but my main concern was my uncle. "Oleg. He may not know she's my child, but we have to assume he knows she exists, and he'll use whatever leverage he has to get his way."

All the color drained from her face instantly. "That thug who threatened me a few weeks ago, the man I thought you'd sent… He mentioned my daughter. We have to get to Karina. Now. I won't let anything happen to my baby, Ilya." A new fire burned bright, and I knew there was no arguing with her, but I had to try.

"It could be a trap."

She shrugged. "If he kills me, then you kill him. Ilya, promise me. If anything happens to me, you take care of our daughter. Promise."

I couldn't promise that, because I wouldn't allow it to happen. "I won't let him kill you, Brooke."

"If it comes down to me or Karina, choose her. Always choose her." She was beautiful in her ferocity, and I never wanted her more. "Promise me."

There was no fucking way I would let her sacrifice herself, but we didn't have time to argue. "Yes. Sure. Fine, I promise."

"I don't believe you," she said after a long pause, her shoulders low. "But right now we don't have time to argue. We need to get to Karina. Now!"

She was right. We needed to get to our daughter.