He raises his eyebrows just a little. “Shoot.”
I frown.
He laughs softly. “Sorry, wrong choice of word,” he corrects. “Let’s stick with, ‘Go ahead.’”
“What was Marisha like?” I ask as delicately as I can.
Cillian’s expression doesn’t change, but I can tell he’s surprised that I’m asking him at all.
“You’re better off asking Artem,” he says evasively.
“I’m asking you.”
“Marisha was… She was lovely,” he admits. “I liked her a lot.”
“Was she cut out for this life?” I ask, feeling my throat constrict just a little.
“No one’s really cut out for this life,” he says. “It chooses most of us. After that, there’s no going back.”
“How did the life choose her?” I’m stroking my belly again and again. I don’t dare to meet his eyes.
“Well, she fell in love with Artem,” Cillian replies. “She had no choice after that. If she wanted him, she had to accept the baggage he came with. She knew she couldn’t have one without the other.”
“Like I’m trying to, you mean.”
Cillian’s eyes soften. “That’s not what I mean, Esme.”
“I know,” I sigh. “Did he tell you?”
“That you want him to walk away from the Bratva?” Cillian asks. “Yeah. He told me.”
I can’t tell what he’s thinking. I can’t decipher if he resents me for trying to pull Artem away from a life that they’ve shared together for so long.
So I just ask him.
“Do you hate me for that?” I ask directly.
Cillian does a double-take. He stares at me in surprise. “Of course not,” he says with all apparent sincerity. “Why would you even think that?”
“If Artem walks away from the Bratva, that would change a lot between the two of you,” I reason.
Cillian shakes his head. “We wouldn’t be brothers-in-arms any longer,” he concedes. “But we would still be friends. That wouldn’t change.”
“So you don’t think I’m crazy for wanting a life that’s separate from all this?”
“No, I don’t,” he answers. “It makes sense, really. Happy endings don’t exactly go hand in hand with life in the Bratva. You want more for yourself and your child. I can hardly blame you for that.”
“Thank you.”
There’s a moment of silence. Then, without looking at me, Cillian murmurs, “If Saoirse showed up at my doorstep and asked me to walk away from everything, I would.”
It’s my turn to do a double-take. “Really?”
“Really.”
“Even after all this time?”
Cillian looks up at me. “Is that pathetic?”
I feel emotion well up inside me as I look at his face. All I want to do is hug him. For someone who always looks so happy-go-lucky, right now, his expression is haunted.
I settle for moving a little closer to him on the sofa, and I place my hand over his.
“No,” I say as strongly as I can muster. “It isn’t.”
“That’s nice of you,” he says. He tries to smile. “But I know it is. She’s long since moved on. She has a bunch of kids, too. She doesn’t spend her days thinking about me.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do.”
“You just need to find the right girl,” I argue.
I don’t even know if I’m right. I just want to be able to tell him something remotely hopeful.
“Maybe that’s it,” Cillian laughs. “Maybe I need to find my Esme.”
I blush a little and sit back, trying not to peer out into the night searching for Artem. It’s probably been about fifteen minutes since he left, but it feels like an hour has passed on this sofa.
“He’ll be all right, Esme,” Cillian says, sensing my worry. “Have you ever seen him fight?”
“A few times actually,” I admit. “It’s terrifying.”
He nods knowingly. “Artem is an instinctive fighter. He was always a force to be reckoned with in combat. I wouldn’t want to go up against him.”
“He could be outnumbered.”
“Sure, by bears,” Cillian fires back, though I don’t quite believe that he believes that. “We don’t know that a human being triggered the perimeter traps.”
“Do I need to remind you about the man I saw down the ravine?”
“Artem can handle it,” Cillian says again.
But this time, it sounds like he’s trying to convince himself.
2
Esme
I get to my feet and groan with frustration. With nothing else to do, I start pacing.
Cillian just sits on the sofa and watches me. But his body is tense and his eyes are alert.
“Esme.”
“We haven’t heard anything, Cillian.”
“That’s a good thing.”
I run my fingers through my hair, feeling as though I’m going insane. “Maybe we should go out there and see if Artem needs some help.”
Cillian frowns. “We are not going anywhere. You’re staying right here.”
“Cillian!”
I’m about to argue harder when a gunshot blasts through the night.
I gasp. My heart is thundering so loudly that I almost miss the second gunshot.
“Cillian!” I scream again. I rush over to him just as he gets to his feet.
I need him to say something. Anything. Lie to me if he has to.
It was just rocks falling.
A car backfiring.
A bird calling.
But please, for the love of God, tell me something.
Cillian says nothing.
“We have to help him!” I beg desperately.
I keep looking out through the window, hoping for a sign.
Only darkness stares back.
But that doesn’t scare me. Not anymore.
At long last, Cillian turns his gaze to me. With a grim set to his mouth, he says, “No.”
“No?” I repeat, staring at him in shock. “We just heard two gunshots!”
“Artem told me to stay here with you, no matter what. Two gunshots falls in the ‘no matter what’ category.”
“I don’t think he assumed he was going to be facing a fucking firing squad!” I snap in near-tears—just as another gunshot tears through the silence.
“My don gave me an order,” Cillian says tonelessly.
“Your don!?” I repeat furiously. “Your fucking don gave you an order? Cillian, he’s not your don, he’s your friend!”
“Esme, you don’t understand—”
“I do understand!” I yell.
“No, you don’t,” Cillian interrupts. “Because if you did, you would understand that Artem can survive a firing squad if he has to. But he won’t be able to survive losing you.”
“I’ll be fine—”
“He barely survived losing Marisha, Esme,” he says, raising
