“Oh, no, he isn’t. It’s—”

“—Mikhail.” I snicker, shaking my head. “Last I heard, you three were like a… thing?”

She scrunches up her little nose. “Yes… and no. I mean, we are, for the most part, but it doesn’t come with Mikhail’s challenges. For one, he likes to upset me. Gets off on it, mostly.”

“So are you all together, or are they yours, not each other’s?”

“They are mine,” she whispers, blinking slowly toward the kitchen. “Val is consistent. Mik is a problem.”

“Well…” My hand comes to hers. “Good luck with all of that.” We both laugh as we make our way to the sitting room, where Gio is dancing to a remix of Mariah Carey’s Christmas tunes and for the kids. My uncle is rolling his eyes at his disappointment and Wicked reaches for me, dragging me onto his lap. During all of the years of us both fighting one another, we didn’t realize we were tying the knots that bind us together. Love, hate, they’re both energies. Even now, as I watch my family laugh, joke, talk among each other with smiles on their faces, a sense of peace flows over me. We’ll rebuild our family. This home. And if anyone tries to come between that…

Well…

Christmas Eve before the clubhouse

“Why the fuck am I here?” I slam my door closed before Juno can do it for me, treading through the snow in my Prada boots. “It’s Christmas Eve and I need to be at the clubhouse.”

“I know.” Mikhail leans against his Aston Martin, arms crossed.

“You come alone?” I raise a perfectly arched brow at him.

“Seeing as I have your sister, I’m going to say you don’t want to piss me off.” I ignore his threat, meeting him at the hood of my own car. I reach into my pocket and take out a cigarette. Mikhail makes me fucking nervous. The deranged bastard.

“Well, hurry up, then… what is it?”

He tilts his head in a way that I know I’m not going to like the next words that leave his mouth. “What I’m about to tell you cannot go back to Wicked. Under any circumstances.”

I blow out a plume of smoke, eyeing him up and down. “Why?” I don’t bother to tell him he can forget it. That man knows everything there is to know about me, and that’s not by choice. He tears every secret away from me by the fangs of his teeth.

“Because you’re going to betray him.” I choke on my smoke, but he continues to glare at me with seriousness.

“What is it?”