I don’t know what happens next.
I don’t know if Dimitri will ever forgive me.
I don’t even know if he’ll let me live.
All I know is that the secret I’ve been carrying for eight weeks is finally out.
And everything is broken.
10
DIMITRI
Dawn breaks through my office window, painting everything in shades of blood and gold.
I’ve been sitting here for hours. Six? Seven? I don’t know and I don’t particularly care. Time stopped having meaning the moment I heard that heartbeat on the ultrasound. That fast, steadythump-thump-thumpthat changed everything.
The whiskey bottle sits on my desk, half empty now. Or half full, depending on how you look at it. I’m looking at it as half empty because that’s how everything feels right now. Empty. Like someone reached inside my chest and ripped out everything that mattered.
I pour another glass, my fourth. Or fifth. I’ve lost count of that too.
The amber liquid burns going down, but it’s not enough. Nothing is enough to erase what I learned yesterday. What I know now. What I can never unknow.
Eight weeks pregnant.
I do the math again, even though I’ve done it fifty times already and the numbers are seared into my brain. Eight weeks pregnant means conception happened ten weeks ago. Two and a half months. Early June.
When Alexei was still alive.
When he was sneaking off to “meetings” and “negotiations” and coming home smiling like everything was fine. When he was standing in my office, asking for more responsibility, begging to be included in the family business, looking me straight in the eye and lying.
Because he was with her. WithVera. With anAshford.
I’ve never felt such betrayal before.
My baby brother. The last person in my immediate family. The one I protected, sheltered, kept safe from the worst parts of this life. He looked me in the eye every single day for eight months and fuckinglied.
I drain the glass and pour another.
Eight months. That’s how long they were together. Eight months of secret meetings, secreteverything. Eight months of him sneaking around behind everyone’s backs, playing Romeo and Juliet with a girl whose family was openly hostile to ours.
And he never said a word.
He never pulled me aside and said “Dimitri, I need to talk to you about something.” He never gave me the chance to—well, what? What would I have done if he’d told me?
I would have lost my fucking mind. I would have forbidden it. I would have maybe locked him in this house to keep him away from her.
So he lied instead and kept it secret. He chose her over?—
No. That’s not fair. He didn’t choose. He just... he wanted both. Wanted me, wanted his family, wanted his life here. And wanted her too.
And now he’s dead, and I’ll never get to ask him why or hear his side of the story. I’ll never get to understand how my brother—my carefree baby brother—fell for an Ashford and kept it hidden for eight months.
The intelligence file sits on my desk. I’ve been staring at it for the past hour, seeing it with new eyes. Reading between the lines I missed before.
Subject: Vera Ashford
Age: 24
