A Forbidden Love (Eligible Billionaires Book 9) (17 page)

“Maybe.” Regina clasped her hands together in front of her. “Could be you’re scared to face this whole damn mess. I don’t blame you. First you’ve got to decide what you want, and seems like you’ve done that. You want Devon, yes? I mean if this mess hadn’t happened, you two would be together and thinking about the future, right?”

Again Ilana nodded. “First time ever that I could picture myself married and with my own kids.”

“Okay, so you want him, and now you’ll have to clean up a mess that you didn’t make to get what you want.” Regina reached her hand across the table and grasped Ilana’s. “If he’s the man for you, it’ll be worth it. You need to have a conversation. Have to. See what he says when you tell him that you want him in your life, no matter what everyone around you thinks. If he’s the man you think he is, then he’ll definitely be willing to clean up this mess alongside you. But sweetheart, you have to have to talk to him to find out.”

Ilana’s heart pounded and her fingertips tingled. Was fear that Devon would say no to her the real reason she hadn’t reached out to him? He hadn’t reached out to her either. Did he even want to try and solve this problem, or had he too, like her, thought that finding a solution was an impossibility?

Ilana swallowed. Her blue eyes found Regina’s brown ones. “What if he says no?”

Regina squeezed Ilana’s hand. “Then you always have us to see you through.”

“I think…I think I need to go see my father.”

Regina’s gaze hardened. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“He’s going to die. Uncle Dimitry says another week, maybe two. They’ve put him in the hospital.”

“That man.” Regina closed her eyes and shook her head. Then she opened them, her jaw set and her lips pressed in a determined line. “The stories your Mama told me about him…he was—” She paused and searched for words. Her gaze went past Ilana and toward the window, as though she witnessed memories floating by. She returned her gaze to Ilana. “He wasn’t a kind man.”

“I remember.” Ilana nodded. “I remember some of it.”

“Of course you do, but there was more. That much I know. There was more you didn’t see before and there was more you didn’t know about after. Sweetheart, are you sure? I…I mean, I don’t know if it’s
safe
.”

“I won’t go alone. My cousin will go or Uncle Dimitry. It’s just…I didn’t believe that I needed to go, but the more I think about him dying and never seeing him and the closer the end gets”—heat pricked Ilana’s eyes—“I need to do this for me. It’s not for him, but for me.” Tears rolled from her eyes and she rubbed her hand across her cheeks. “I don’t want the decision to not go to haunt my life. I want to go and face him. See if he has anything to say. Know that I gave him that chance.”

“What about you?” Regina asked. “What do you need to say to him?”

“I don’t know yet, but I’m going to find out and I’m going to say it. If I go, then I’m free of this feeling. I’ll have faced this person that hovered in the background for my entire life. He was always there. Every decision Mama or I made, he was in the background. The fear of him and what he might do to us.” Ilana sniffled. “I’m going so I can put my fears to rest.”

“We’ll be here for you.” Regina took Ilana’s hand again and squeezed it tight. “Amelia and I will be here for you, always.”

Pain thrashed her heart, but Ilana smiled through her tears. They might not be blood, but Regina and Amelia were family. A family formed over time through commitment to each other. In some ways, that meant more than simply sharing DNA.

“I got coffee!” The door slammed open and Amelia walked in, weighted down with bags and carrying three tall cardboard cups in a to-go holder. “Knew Mama couldn’t wait much longer, so I brought some already made plus two tins. I got butter and honey for that fresh bread you’re making, too.”

“Bless you, baby girl,” Regina stood, liberated the coffee holder from Amelia, and handed a cup to Ilana.

Ilana smiled. She stood to help unpack the groceries. Regina was right, baking bread made the house feel like home.

*

Venice wasn’t the same place without Ilana. Devon walked toward The Rose Cafe. He’d scheduled a lunch with the owner of Venice Bakes. They were talking about buying a bakery to expand VB’s program of hiring recent veterans for their first civilian jobs after active duty. The streets of Venice
looked
the same with the sunshine and the perfect weather, but the town felt empty.

“Yo, Dev, my man, when did you get back?” A familiar voice snapped Devon from his thoughts.

Devon smiled. “Hey, Wedge. Got in late last night. Little far from home, aren’t you?”

“Just a couple blocks. I come over this way to visit Rocky and Lulu sometimes. They got a nice crib just past The Rose. Easy enough to relocate when you can haul all the stuff you own.” Wedge nodded toward his bike and the cart attached to the back, which contained all of his possessions.

“Right on.”

“Kept an eye on your place for you while you were away.”

“Thanks, I appreciate that.”

“Also kept an eye on the lady, but heard that wasn’t a thing anymore. You two broke up?”

Devon’s smile slipped. “Yeah, I mean…I don’t think it’ll work out. We—”

“’Cause of her dad? Because you sent him to the joint?”

“Who told you that?”

“Man, we all talk, plus you hear scraps. Venice is a small town in a big city. That romance you two had going was a hot piece of gossip. Billionaire falls for local philanthropist entrepreneur? Who doesn’t love that story?”

Devon’s heart ached, but he forced a smile to his lips. “Right, who doesn’t love that one.” He glanced in the direction of the ocean and then back to Wedge. “So…have you seen her?”

“Who? Your lady?”

Devon nodded.

“Naw, man. She’s been gone for a couple days.”

“Gone?”

“I don’t know, some trip with some dude. Seen him at the Enrichment Center a couple times.”

Devon’s heart pounded in his chest.
What dude
? Could Ilana have found someone this quickly?

“I think her cousin. Heard they was takin’ the family plane out of Santa Monica airport. I’m sketchy on the details, but I hear she’s coming back in a couple days. Want me to fill you in if I hear more?”

Devon shook his head. “No, no. But thanks.”

“Maybe you should call her. Right? I mean, you two seemed solid. Hard to find solid
and
love.”

Devon nodded. Wedge was right, solid was hard to find, plus love? The two together could mean a lifetime of happiness.

“Well, chin up buddy, okay? Lots of women in the world.” Wedge hopped on his bike and started to ride. He glanced back over his shoulder. “Unless she’s your one and only. Then you’re totally screwed, man.”

Devon took a deep breath. Yeah, unfortunately, the more he thought about it, the more he realized Wedge was right. Devon was, indeed, totally screwed.

The hospital smell clung to Ilana’s skin and coated her throat. She remembered this odd mixture of smells from Mama’s death. The smell choked her, and she stifled her gag reflex by swallowing over and over. Alexi walked beside her down the long corridor. A cold chill slid over her skin. Deep breath. She’d learned more about her father on the trip to New York, forced herself to face the facts of what he had done. The most recent details had included the trafficking of Russian women in and out of the U.S. It was worse than she had imagined.

“You okay?” Alexi asked. Thank goodness she wasn’t alone. Could she have made this visit alone? Yes, theoretically, but she wouldn’t have done it. No, the strength of her family was helping her to face him. No matter how small, how physically weak, how unable to harm her he was, this man, her father, still had some incontrovertible hold over Ilana.

“I can’t believe I’m here.”

Her heart beat a fast pace, like she’d been running. Running toward this moment, when she would finally confront the man who’d loomed large as a Russian bear during her childhood. The man who from thousands of miles away still molded Ilana’s thoughts and words and fears. The idea of him had dictated what she shared with friends, for fear that he might find her and take her from her mother. Her mother—my God, her mother, who was the strongest person Ilana knew—had been scared of this man.

Now she’d finally see him again, after more than two decades. Please let her put the fear to rest. Let it slide from her body. A guard stood outside Sergey’s hospital room door. She pulled in her breath. Of course, he was still an inmate, a prisoner.

Ready?” Alexi asked.

She nodded and entered the room. Just inside the door was another uniformed guard. Her eyes went to the bed.

Her father lay there with one arm handcuffed to the bedrail. Tubes ran from his arm to plastic bags that dripped clear fluids into his body. He was asleep. Smaller than she remembered…much smaller. She remembered a giant of a man who, when enraged, towered over her and her mother. Now, laying beneath a blanket with an oxygen mask over his mouth and nose, he appeared not much bigger than she was. A machine beeped with each beat of his heart. He’d be dead within two weeks. That’s what the doctor had told her uncle.

Bristly whiskers in different shades of gray decorated his face. His hair hung limp against his head. His skin was an unnatural color, not simply gray, but more like dishwater. His shallow breathing barely fogged the mask. Although he was Uncle Dimitry’s identical twin, such different lives had ultimately created very different faces. Today, Ilana’s father might pass for her Uncle Dimitry’s father, so old, so small, so ill was he.

A nurse entered behind them. “You’re his daughter?”

Ilana nodded.

“Saw at the desk that you’d come to visit.” The nurse moved around Sergey and wrote on a chart. “He sleeps a lot now. When he wakes up, he’s still lucid. We have him on palliative care.”

Ilana bit her bottom lip, her feelings a muddled ball of emotion. This was her father. The man who, once upon a time, had loved her…hadn’t he? Even in his own sort of twisted way. But now…after decades…who was he? The monster that everyone believed he way? The dangerous Russian mobster who’d killed countless people and trafficked drugs and women? Would he even recognize her?

Sergey’s eyes fluttered open. He squinted, as though he was making certain of what he saw. “Ilana?” His voice muffled and soft from behind the mask he wore over his face. “Ilana?”

She nodded. Her heart twisted and tore.

He pulled the mask away from his face. His gaze drifted past her to Alexi, who stood beside her. “You look like my brother, which means you look like me. Are you his boy?”

Alexi nodded.

Sergey’s now sharp-eyed gaze cut back to Ilana. “Come to see the dead before I die.” His tone held no warmth. His cold gray eyes bored into her even as he lay with his breaths unwinding toward the final one. Unforgiving. Hard. Relentless. But no longer all-powerful and controlling.

“It’s been a long time.”

“Twenty-two years since you saw me, but I’ve seen you.”

Ilana’s heart twisted and pain thrust through her. She wasn’t surprised. After learning of the secrets Mama had kept, little would surprise Ilana about her parents.

“You’re my daughter, no matter how desperately your mother wished to hide that fact. You’re mine. My blood. My only living heir. My child.” There was a force to his words, a gravitational pull that clasped her heart. He could no longer steal her from her life, but yet, the pull was present.

“You’re mine, so I’ve watched. I’ve seen you and known all that you did. Even now, I know.” A snarl curled over his lip. Anger colored his gaze and…was that hatred in his eyes? “You disgust me.” His voice rasped and his breath came in short pants, unable to keep up with the velocity of his emotion. “You with that Travati scum.”

Ilana didn’t move. She didn’t step back. This man…to break his hold over her she needed to take in all of his words, to see him, all of him, for what he was. A man filled with rage. A man who had been willing to do anything for his own success. To sell human flesh.

“What you were doing was wrong,” she said quietly.

“Wrong?” His eyebrow lifted and the corner of his mouth raised. “You want to talk about wrong? I made money. I was a businessman who helped other businessmen.” He looked away from her. A long dark silence and slowly his gaze returned to her. “Ask him. Ask your lover how could he know so much about my business, about what I did, about who I was, enough to put me in jail for the rest of my life, unless he’d known exactly what was going on?” A vindictive smile curled over Sergey’s lips. “I don’t need to tell you. And I don’t need to seek revenge.” Sergey shook his head. “No, he’s already ruined himself. Why else flee from his family, his friends, the life he knows? He was involved, Ilana, he tested my goods. How else could his testimony put me in jail?”

Ilana stilled the gasp on her lips.

“Oh yes, my daughter, you’ve fallen in love with a man who is exactly like me.”

*

“You don’t need my permission to date Ilana.”

Devon sat across from Dimitry Rashnikov in the family’s library. Tonight, Devon’s eyes caught the differences between Dimitry and his twin brother Sergey. Dimitry appeared less identical to his brother than the first time Devon had seen him. That night, Devon had been blindsided, his entire body flooded with adrenaline, thinking that by some foul trick he’d been lured into a trap by Sergey.

No, Dimitry was markedly different than his twin. There was a refinement in his features as well as his demeanor that Sergey lacked. Of course, Dimitry was also harsh and doggedly determined. He was, after all, a first-generation immigrant who’d climbed the ranks of shipping and import-export to become a billionaire. One didn’t make that ascent without nerves of steel and the ability to exploit opportunities, no matter who you metaphorically killed.

“No, I don’t.” Devon glanced toward his whiskey neat, still untouched on the table in front of him. “But Ilana just found her family. Family means everything to me, and I have a sense that you and your boys and your wife will very quickly mean everything to her. I won’t…I can’t ask her to turn her back on you. I would never do that. She…you’re her family, and if we can’t be okay…if we can’t find a way to, at the very least, coexist…What I’m trying to say is that if my presence in Ilana’s life means that you won’t be in it, then I need to walk away.”