Page 113 of Merciless Desires

Something hits me like a bolt of lightning. If that’s my brother’s baby, it’s technically my baby, too. Identical twins share the same DNA.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

“Approach.” The judge waves her lawyer and the prosecutor over.

The woman looks around, and her profile starts the beginning of my heart attack. First, at her utter and astounding beauty, despite the wrecked and ravaged state she’s in. Next, a deeper rage has me ready to scream.

“No fucking way.” I must have said that out loud because she turns around and our eyes lock.

Anastasia Koslov.

The missing Bratva princess who was kidnapped from Astoria. She’s pregnant with Cormac’s baby. He may not have been the one to snatch her from her bed, as the mafia rumor mill has churned for more than two years. But if she’s telling the truth, Cormac kept her a prisoner here in Vegas and forced her to commit crimes.

If her father, the vicious Astoria pakhan, finds out what my brother did to her, he’ll slaughter my entire family.

Our gazes connect, and something rearranges inside me. I’ve watched her grow up into the utter beauty she is. While I see traces of a princess, right now she’s a hot mess, and it’s my brother’s fault.

I have to fix this.

“I can pay her bail,” I say in a loud, firm voice.

She looks at me with horror in her eyes, and yanks on her lawyer’s sleeve, furiously shaking her head.

“Mate, what are you doing?” Tamryn whispers.

Cormac stands up, gawking at me with a look of confusion. How could he not have seen the massive risk he was taking with her? Was he that far gone? Or did he just not know who she was?

How could he not? We all grew up together. We mingled at fundraisers and other parties. Us, the Russians and the Italians.

“I’m bailing her out.”

“What about your brother?” Tamryn looks at me like I’ve lost my mind.

I give Cormac a cold, dead stare for putting me in a position to choose sides. “He stays right here.”

CHAPTER 5

Ana

Darragh is here. In Las Vegas. In this courtroom. I glance at Cormac, who’s pale as shit, but also livid. Darragh bailed me out and not his own brother. Our eyes connect and the way his stare lingers as I’m hauled away by a court officer, I know he recognizes me.

Damn it!

An hour later, I’m led out of the processing room. I stand there in this ugly, gray jumpsuit staring at polished and beautiful Darragh O’Rourke. He’s Cormac’s identical twin. Although there is nothing identical about them anymore.

“Where are her clothes?” Darragh asks my lawyer, not making eye contact with me.

He’s just as tall with wide shoulders and has the same golden blond hair. Cormac always dressed casually and has a wild streak, like me. Darragh is GQ and sophisticated with a cold and chiseled air about him. Cormac lives on the edge, but Darragh, as far as I know, has always been strait-laced and plays by the rules.

Staring at Darragh, looking so clean-cut and stylish, it’s easy to see how much Cormac has changed. What the drugs and the booze have done to him. It happened slowly, and I didn’t see it until he and his brother were in the same room.

Just like that, everything changes. So much snaps into focus in a short amount of time. What I’ve been through. It all catches up to me, and my anger finally surfaces.

My mind fights for a response to Darragh as far as where my clothes are. “They had blood and vomit on them. The jail took them.”

Darragh looks at his phone and curses under his breath. “Where can we get her new clothes?” he asks my lawyer.

“I’m right here. Talk to me. I have clothes at home,” I snap at Darragh.

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