Sutton rolled her eyes at me, something very few people would dare to do. “I didn’t ask what you said. I asked you how they reacted. Do I need to arrange an alibi for Cara so she doesn’t catch a charge when she kills you for keeping this from them, or are they pleased that you knew you had a cousin and didn’t tell them?”
“Hmm,” Ivan snarked from his position by the window overlooking Reno, “interesting that you’d mention the strategic reveal of information, Sutton.”
Sutton’s eyes narrowed, and the sardonic look on her face hardened to her courtroom persona. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Ivan’s smile turned wolfish. “You didn’t tell us he was a Crow.” The atmosphere in my office turned downright glacial as Sutton and Ivanglared at each other. My temples throbbed in time with my pulse, my headache causing me to be shorter-tempered with my best friends than I otherwise would be.
“Ivan, you obviously have something you want to say. Say it.”
“Idon’t have anything to say. Sutton is the one who needs to share with the class. I heard you at Crow’s Landing, and I saw the look between you and the pretty one. Was it him?”
“The pretty one?” I questioned with an annoyed sigh.
“Cricket,” Ivan sniped. “He looked like he’d seen a ghost. Isn’t that right, Sutton? But you, you were full-on ice queen. But I could tell. You know him.”
“The girl who knew him isdead,” Sutton snapped, her voice cutting like a whip through the tension in the room.
“So it is him?” Ivan poked. Ivan had been a shit stirrer since the first moment he drew breath. He lived and breathed poking the bear to see what happened. You’d think he wouldn’t do that shit to his friends, but you’d be wrong. The more Ivan liked you, the more he picked and poked and tried to get a reaction. This felt different, though. An undertone of anger tickled my stress-dulled senses.
“What does it even matter now? It was a long time ago. An entirely different lifetime, really. I’m over it.” Sutton fidgeted with the cuffs of her sleeves, one of her tells.
“Sutton?” My voice cut through the tension in the office like a knife. “It was him? Cricket?” A single, almost imperceptible nod from my heart’s sister affirmed what Ivan already knew to be true.
Fuck.
When we’d met Sutton in college, she’d seemed so calm, so in control, so unflappable during class debates or study groups. Ivan and I could tell from our experiences growing up under Mikhail’s tutelage that she was wearing a carefully constructed mask. Sutton was closed off and resistant at first, but little by little, Ivan and I worked our way through her shields and learned about her life in Sagebrush. And how things had ended for her there. Her parents were neglectful pieces of shit, and some asswipe in high school had broken her heart their senior year. But hehadn’t just broken her heart—that’d be like saying the sun was bright. He’d obliterated her, leaving her feeling so betrayed and alone that she’d…
“Why didn’t you say anything?” I asked gruffly.
Sutton shrugged. “Because he has his life and I have mine. What good does it do to rehash it? I refuse to be that girl again, and I don’t care to learn if he’s still that boy.” Her eyes were hard as she looked at me, demanding I drop the subject. I rose from my desk and hugged my friend, who remained stiff in my arms. Ivan made grabby hands toward her, so I shuffled her over to him so he could have his turn comforting her.
His mouth pressed into the hair twisted into an elegant knot on top of her head, Ivan murmured, “Want him to get dead? I can make that happen for you,solnishka. Just say the word.”
Sutton huffed a quiet laugh. “No, I don’t want him dead.” Before our very eyes, we watched Sutton resurrect her walls and pull herself together. It was like watching a time-lapse video of a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis but in reverse. Eerie. “Wren can live his life, and I can live mine. Once we get this Indigo situation straightened out, I’m sure our paths will never cross again.”
Ivan huffed out an annoyed sigh. “I guess Grasshopper can live to see another day if you insist.
“Gee, thanks,” she said dryly. “Drama aside, we have more pressing issues at hand. Like finding a suitable container for Riordan’s balls after Cara rips them off for neglecting to mention her niece during one of your video calls?” It spoke to our love for Sutton and our collective fear for the woman who had given birth to me that Ivan and I allowed her to steer the conversation away from her. Sutton was an adult, and if she wanted to pretend Cricket didn’t exist and focus on her work here, I would support her. But the moment she changed her mind, Ivan and I were going to pay Cricket a little visit. If I had known eighteen-year-old Sutton, I’d have punched him in the face on her behalf back then, so he's years overdue a lesson in humility.
“You’ve known forweeks?” My mother’s voice took on a belligerent edge as she paced behind my father’s chair. “Weeks? Youknewhow important this was to your father, to the legacy of the Petrov bratva, and you didn’t think to tell him what you’d discovered?” My mother was a caged lioness, stalking back and forth behind one of the most powerful and dangerous men in the country. I was glad to have an entire desk between us. “Ma…”
“And you two knew?” My mother turned to Ivan and Sutton with a glare.
“I just got here,” Sutton said with her arms pushing out in front of her for defense. “I know little more than you do, so if you don’t mind, I’d like to settle into my room.” She didn’t even look remotely sorry for dodging the bus currently barreling my way.
“Have you made an appointment to meet with the representative from Aquila Holdings?” my father rumbled, his first words since we entered his office for an ass chewing ten minutes ago.
Sutton arched a delicately curved brow. “Of course, Mikhail. Who do you take me for, Ivan?” Ivan tsked and ruffled Sutton’s hair, causing her to smack his hand away with a muttered, “Mudak,”in his direction.
Mikhail smiled briefly at their antics. “Never,solnishka.Have a good night. We’ll speak tomorrow.” Sutton sent a small smile my way and flipped Ivan the finger while she gave my mother a parting hug before leaving the office in our penthouse suite.
Mikhail reached out a steady arm, curling his fingers around my mother’s bicep and gently guided her to sit on his lap. Once she was settled, I watched as my mother’s anxious energy dissipated into the sturdy embrace of my father. In turn, he seemed more centered himself,like my mother gave his mind direction. “Moy syn,” my father began in a stern voice, tight with an emotion I couldn’t guess to name. Mikhail Petrov was only transparent in one respect: the love he felt for his family. In every other way, my father was exceptionally difficult to read, a trait he claimed helped him remain among the living longer than most other men in his line of work. “Is she alright?”
A muscle in my jaw began to tick with how hard I was clenching it. I made a conscious effort to release the tension and channel my hate for the man who’d tried his best to destroy my cousin. “She will be.” My parents were silent as Ivan and I laid out what we learned, what Indigo was like, and her current situation. My mother grew paler with each detail shared, though I knew in my gut that we’d barely scratched the surface when it came to my cousin. My father, in contrast, gradually began to smirk. A vengeful gleam flashed in the eye of my father, mypakhan.
“Well done,moy syn.” He pressed a kiss to my mother’s temple. “We will show her what it means to be a Petrov.”
Indigo didn’t know it yet, but she held the might of legions in the palm of her hand. Roark Callahan didn’t stand a chance.Fuck that guy.
