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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.


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