Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
Ivan
When a man’s backed into a corner, he either fights or folds.
I’d done both. Too many times.
That’s how I felt as my brother introduced me to the light that was Poppy Fairchild. She looked like the shell of the woman I met at the lodge in the mountains months ago. It didn’t feel so much like a lie when I said I hadn’t met her because I had no idea she was a Fairchild.
Would that have changed things for me when I took the job to put a hit on her dad? No. But I probably wouldn’t have been so vindictive about it, especially considering she was the one who found him.
Or maybe I would have waited to know that his wife was coming home to find him.
She was grating on my last nerve. Her obnoxious laugh carried over all other conversations.
No one would have known they were a grieving family if not for Poppy.
Jade, her older sister, whom I was introduced to a short while later, had red-rimmed eyes but that was the only giveaway that she was sad.
It wasn’t a secret that James liked affairs, and apparently, it wasn’t a secret that his wife did too.
In fact, according to Alexei, there were questions on whether or not the youngest daughter was even James’s, but she was absent from today’s festivities, as well as the brothers.
There were enough rumors rolling around and whispers happening surrounding the Fairchilds.
I was sure my mother was having a mental breakdown behind her polished smile.
The last thing she wanted was the attention taken from her son and soon-to-be daughter-in-law.
When Audrey finally untangled herself from all of the guests, she wrapped her arms around me in a tight hug. “You didn’t have to stay.”
Carina, Ace’s wife, took her place with smiles and laughter as she rubbed her round, pregnant belly. I blinked. I hadn’t even known she was pregnant. I guessed that was what I deserved for not answering calls or texts for two years. I hoped I hadn’t missed another birth.
I pulled my gaze away from my sister-in-law. “I thought there would be more fanfare and dramatics with me showing up again.”
Her laugh was soft and sad. “We don’t want to scare you off.”
My chest tightened, and I rolled my lips.
“I mean, I’m sure Alexei wouldn’t mind scaring you a little bit; he’s such a psycho and wanted to fly out to your secluded home many times, but I held him back. I knew when the time was right, you would come back.” She reached forward and rubbed her hand on my shoulder.
“I’ve been busy with work,” It was the only excuse I had, and it wasn’t a very good one at that.
Though it was true. I was traveling, hunting down people on the list I had, or I was hunting animals to keep my freezer stocked.
Now that I’d taken care of the granny’s problem, I didn’t have another hit for…
well, a while. This was the first time I’d had a real break in a long time.
“You should go on a date,” She beamed up at me. Her big eyes shone as she batted her lashes at me.
The only kind of date I was interested in going on was with Poppy, and I’d just murdered her shitty ass dad. Odds weren’t exactly in my favor there. Oh, and then I’d pretended I didn’t know her. Inwardly, I winced. I was fucked.
“I’m not interested in settling down,” It was also partly true. I wanted nothing more than to find someone, someday, but I knew it would be unlikely. What kind of good woman would want such a monster, such as myself?
“Enough hogging the beautiful future, Mrs,” My mother wrapped an arm around my shoulder, and I sunk into her embrace.
The familiar floral scent of her perfume wrapped around me, and it was like I was five again, watching her get ready for a gala, rolling around on the rug in her room.
I blinked out of the haze and gave her a small peck on the cheek.
I hadn’t realized just how much I missed her until I was in her arms.
Audrey squeezed my mother’s hand before she walked back into the fray of insanity that was elite society. Carina beamed at her, and they both picked up as if she hadn’t disappeared for a moment.
“It’s been a while,” my mother said as she slid her hand into mine as we watched the guests mingle around us. “I thought you would never come back.”
I mulled over my words carefully. “I didn’t think I would come back either.”
She looked up at me with worry in her eyes, and for the first time, I noticed the purple tinge under them and new wrinkles. The woman who did her makeup was a magician, but she could only hide so much. “What made you come back?”
She held her hand up to stop my lies. “And I want the truth.”
I hummed in the back of my throat, and I chewed my bottom lip raw. “I don’t know what to tell you then.”
Her voice lowered, “Just don’t tell me you’re hunting your father.”
I shook my head. “I’m not interested in him.”
Her lips thinned out as her eyes looked me over. She would see right through me, just as she always had. It was a mother’s superpower, I was sure. There wasn’t a Cristof boy immune to it. “Then what are you interested in?”
Goosebumps erupted over my arms at her question because I didn’t have an answer for it.
I thought that’s what I’d been searching for all this time.
I knew that was what I was searching for—my calling, my true purpose.
I’d always been the good, bored one. The one obsessed with fire and destruction.
I didn’t want to be that one. I wanted to be more like my brothers, and maybe that was why I’d taken up hunting, or maybe that wasn’t why at all.
I wasn’t so sure anymore. All the lines were crossed and blurred.
“I’m not so sure I know anymore. For a little bit, I wanted peace and quiet, none of this.” I waved my hand around as my lips curled in distaste. “I wanted freedom and maybe an escape.”
“But now you’re back,” my mother probed. “And you don’t know if you’re ready to go back to the quiet life you’ve created for yourself.”
I also wasn’t so sure the grannies were ready to let me off of my leash either.
I knew they said they would send reapers to do their dirty work, but I had a feeling they were going to keep me here for some reason or another.
They didn’t like me being so far away. They wanted all of their key players right where they could move them whenever necessary.
I let out a snort. “If the grannies let me be free.”
My mother’s lips curled in mischief, and I wondered how much she truly knew about me and what she was pretending she didn’t know. She let out a sigh as her eyes closed, slowly, as if she couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
As if she didn’t know the grannies would meddle. It was what they did best.
“Please don’t leave the city until we’ve gotten the chance to catch up without prying ears and eyes,” She stood up on her tippy toes to press a kiss to my cheek. “I like the facial hair, by the way, you look so grown up.”
She patted the spot she kissed before she turned back to the rest of the guests with a megawatt smile plastered on her face. No one knew how to rule the elites like my mother.
My eyes skipped over all of the guests with zero interest until they landed back on Poppy.
She was standing beside her mother and the friend who was practically glued to her side.
I couldn’t see her eyes from behind her glasses, but for some reason, I knew they were fixed on me.
I tilted my chin up and tried my best to look bored, but I knew I was failing miserably when her friend giggled and winked at me.
With that, I turned on my heel, ready to go.
“You were always known for leaving messes behind.” Dimitri’s voice stopped me cold.
I shoved my hands in my pockets as I turned to my older brother. “Hmmm?”
“If you’re going to kill someone in my city,” he said softly, “you might want to make sure the cameras don’t catch you.”
I knew a camera or two would catch me; I wasn’t stupid. There were too many, but I also knew that you couldn’t tell who I was based on my hard hat and construction gear.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve been back in the city less than 48 hours, and I’ve been in my hotel.”
“That excuse will work for the police but not for me.” Dimitri’s jaw ticked as he looked me over in my much more thorough manner than Mother had.
“You have no proof.” It was as easy as that. Was he going to turn me in? No, I knew he wouldn’t. We protected our own, but that still didn’t explain this weird ass start to a conversation.
“Are you going to tell mother?” Dimitri swirled his glass of whiskey as he watched his own woman across the room.
Copper coated my tongue as I worried my lip some more. “Like I said, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I know this wasn’t a job Benson sent you on, okay? If it was, he would have had all the cameras in the area on a loop for a minute. What I want to know is why and who hired you? He worked with our father. Is that it?”
I wasn’t going to be able to get out of this one with half ass excuses and explanations. “What do you want from me?”
“Is it because of what happened with Scarlett? That night? You disappeared. You sold everything.”
I winced. He was spot on, and there was no denying it. Plus, Dimitri would only make my life a living hell if I didn’t divulge something.
My gaze found Poppy again, and this time she was knocking back a glass of champagne like it was a shot. My eyebrows jumped on my forehead.
“Feeling guilty now that you’re seeing his family up close and personal?
” Dimitri smirked, and I wanted to throttle him.
He had no idea. Poppy was light and laughter and brains.
She was too good for ninety percent of the people in attendance here.
And… and I was the reason her light was dimmed.
It was all my fault, and the worst part was that I didn’t even feel a lick of remorse for it.
Her father was shitty, that was that. I’d done the world a favor, as I did with everyone else I wiped clean from this planet.
Was that my purpose then? Making the world a better place? I could certainly tell myself that, even if it didn’t feel like it in that moment.
My teeth would be dust by the end of this party if I didn’t get out of there. I unhinged my jaw and looked over at my brother with the most bored expression I could muster. “I did them a favor.”