Page 179 of Mile High Ex's Dad
I stare at her.
“She’s a stranger, Viktor.”
“No,” I say, and the word comes out harder than I intend. “She is not.”
The room goes still.
I don’t take it back.
“She is not a stranger,” I say again. “Not to me.”
Anna’s lips quiver. “She’s bad for you. I knew it the first time I saw you with her. She eclipses everything and everyone else around you.”
I frown, not understanding what she’s getting at before I come to another realization. “That’s why you were on the plane.”
She says nothing.
“You were in Spain to see him.”
Her silence is answer enough.
She looks away.
I laugh once, without humor. “Jesus Christ.”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“It was exactly like that. How long have you been lying to me, sister?”
Her eyes flash. “And you weren’t?”
“This is not about me.”
“It’s always about you,” she says, voice rising. “Your business. Your enemies. Your rules. Your anger. I was supposed to tell you I loved the one man you had decided was unforgivable? What would you have done, Viktor? Congratulated me?”
I don’t answer. Because we both know what I would have done.
I would have ended it. Or tried to.
That doesn’t make the lie easier to swallow.
I ask, “Why did you speak to Sienna on the plane?”
Anna’s face closes again.
“Tell me.”
She exhales, slow and uneven. “Mikhail and I had fought.”
“About what?”
“You.” Her mouth twists. “The deal. The way he kept trying to prove he could stand across from you without flinching. I told him he was becoming obsessed with beating you. He said I was still afraid of my brother.”
The anger in her voice is old, but the hurt is fresher.
“I was upset,” she says. “Then I saw her.”
“Sienna.”
