“I needed you to believe I was dead.”

“Why?” I beg, my voice cracking. “For God’s sake, why?”

“It was for your sake, June. I thought that if you believed I was dead, you’d mourn me for a time and then you’d move on. You’d be safe.”

My mouth drops open, even as my anger rises. “Y-you’re trying to tell me that this insane, elaborate farce you created was your stand-in for a break-up?”

Adrian shakes his head fiercely. “I love you, June,” he insists. “I was trying to protect you, and protecting you meant, yes, I had to die. It was the only way to save you from him.”

“From who?!”

“From my brother.”

I stare at him in shock. “You’re insane.”

“No, I’m not. I should have known better; I should have planned better. But the thing is, when I did what I did… I didn’t know you were pregnant.”

I suck in my breath and lean as far away from him as I can.

His eyes are two bright coins in their sockets as he leans forward. “I know the baby is mine, June. If I’d known back then, I would never have gone through with it.”

I recoil as far as I can until I’m pressed up against the car door. The setting sun is washing out his face in a way that strikes me as unsettling, alien. Like he really did die and come back. He’s not human anymore, and neither are the things he’s saying.

“I know you’ve been with Kolya. I’m sure he’s filled your head with all manner of lies, but I’m here to tell you: you can’t trust him, June.”

“Says the dead man.”

He takes a deep breath. “My brother is a master manipulator. When we were younger, he was my own personal tormentor. That didn’t change as we got older. Maybe that’s why I realized early on that I didn’t want that life, June. I wanted to be free of it. So I broke away from the Uvarovs, and I left the Bratva behind. That should have been that. Except… Kolya saw it as a betrayal.”

I shiver again. Stories swim around in my head. Everyone wants to be the hero; no one wants to be the villain. But who do I believe?

Ravil? Kolya? Adrian? Myself?

Everybody?

Nobody?

“He expected me to play second fiddle after the schism. And the more Ravil gained power, the more determined Kolya became to try to drag me back to the life I gave up.”

I frown. “Why would Kolya want you back so badly?”

“He’d already lost more than half his men when he killed our father. Having me walk away from the Bratva painted a very public picture of a family in freefall. It didn’t present the strong, united front he was hoping for. And then there was The Accident…”

I wince and scrunch my eyes closed. But that doesn’t stop the images from flashing through my head.

Twisted metal. Screaming. Blood.