Page 81 of Deal with the Devil

He terrifies me just as he piques my curiosity.

Heaven help the poor woman Ilya finally fixates on, she’s going to need iron grit, a stomach of nails, and skin thicker than leather to survive him.

I surprise myselfandIlya when my laugh slips free.

“Something is funny?”

“Sorry.” Since he’s terrifying and I’ve just laughed at him, I feel the blood drain from my face.

“Tell me.”

“It’s nothing.” He doesn’t reply, simply waits in that throbbing silence he possesses. I crack, the words vomiting from the deep of me. “I was pitying the woman you end up making yours.” My hands clap overmy mouth and my eyes pop wide.Oh shit, I said that out loud.I squeak, “Don’t kill me.”

Ilya moves with that lethal grace that nearly stops my heart. “I would never hurt a woman or a child, Nevaeh. For such crimes I’ve peeled flesh from the bones of men while they sung screams to me.” He gives his head a single, slow shake. “Forkillinga woman, I’ve done much worse.” He sits back again, taking a slow, calculated sip. “I am not interested in a life partner. No need to pity anyone, sweet sister, I am content to live as I am.” A slow, measured smirk plays at the edges of his lips. “Mother is going to love you.”

I swallow hard and loudly.

This time, it’s Ilya who laughs.

The sound is shockingly lovely. I suspect it’s also terribly, sadly rare.

thirty-two

Kane

“You’re a dick.”

My brother pins me with those disconcerting eyes, not bothering to scowl. “You’ve lived as an American for too long.”

“You scared the shit out of my wife.”

“She is stronger than you think.”

I toss back the shot, letting it hit the hotel bar hard. I left Nevaeh in our room with four of Ilya’s men standing post outside. She’d protested their presence, but it only took Ilya sliding those cool eyes to her before she conceded, lifting onto her tiptoes to press a kiss to my jaw before whispering about a bath she’d take and to enjoy my visit with my brother.

Now I’m sitting in a quiet hotel bar with my brother I haven’t seen in nearly four years. We talk, not often, but we keep in touch enough to know what’s happening in each other’s lives. At least, Ilya knows what’s happening in mine. He doesn’t share his life with anyone, not even our father. I know of the business, but his personal life? No.

I’m not even sure he has a life outside of the business.

“Mother is pissed you married an American without bringing her home first.”

I make a noise in the back of my thoat. “Her approval wouldn’t have mattered.”

“She would have approved.”

Hearing him say that means a lot, even if it wouldn’t have mattered either way. “She just wants little Volkov babies running around.”

Ilya cringes, but it’s so faint, if I didn’t know him like I do—even with four years having passed between us seeing each other—I would have missed it. An unpracticed eye wouldn’t have seen it. Wouldn’t have suspected the idea of siring children made his blood turn colder than it already ran.

I laugh. Ilya doesn’t crack a grin. “We’ll leave that to you and your simple rockstar life.”

“It is pretty simple,” I admit, because as hectic as it can be it’s nothing compared to the life I was trainedto live. “But I was never needed for anything else.” I wink as I say, “Spare, remember.”

Ilya sets those eyes on me. They’re so like mine and yet sonot. I have my father’s eyes. Bright, shocking blue. Kirill, my oldest brother, has my mother’s eyes of coal black. Ilya is an abomination in between. There’s an explanation for his eyes—a rare genetic thing—central hetero-something-or-other. But still, even though there’s an explanation, and even though it’s rare, they’re creepy. I don’t imagine everyone with the trait can make a man want to shed his skin just by standing under the piercing weight of his gaze.

That’s just an Ilya trait because Ilya is, well, Ilya.

Still, I’ve had a lifetime to perfect my mask of indifference. Besides, I know it pisses him off, mine and Kirill’s indifference to that gaze.

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