Page 88 of Twilight Sins
Then she stole from me.
This is why I don’t let people in. This is why I keep my circle small. People die or they betray you. There is no in-between.
“Yakov?” Nik asks. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to handle it.”
34
YAKOV
“Where is it?” I snarl.
She’s on the couch with the TV on low, her Kindle on her lap. She jumps at the sound of my voice.
Gregory has made it a daily habit to wind around my ankles when I walk through the door, but not today. He darts off of Luna’s lap and dives under the chair in the corner.
Luna’s mouth tips into a frown. “What are you looking for?”
“The phone you stole from my office.”
Her blue eyes go wide and she doesn’t say a word. That’s all the confirmation I need.
She lied to me.
I spin around and slam the pocket doors closed. They rattle on their tracks and crash together. There’s a small lock in the center I could twist, but I don’t bother with it. No one on my staff will hear what’s going on in here and come intervene. They all know better.
When I spin around, Luna is standing up. She’s in a red sundress that makes her hair look even more golden and turns her eyes an even richer blue. In another timeline, I would have seen her in this dress and fucking devoured her. She’s gorgeous.
Not now.
“You clearly forgot who the fuck you are dealing with,” I tell her. “Did you really think you could do anything in this house without me finding out, Luna?”
“I wasn’t trying to—It’s not what you think, Yakov.”
“Don’t tell me what I think!” I roar. Blood is pounding through me. I can hear the rush of it in my ears. “You lied to me and stole from me.” And I fucking fell for it. “I should have seen this coming.”
She’s standing on the other side of the room, using the coffee table like a barrier between us. I kick it sideways and Luna yelps, clapping her hands over her mouth.
Her wide eyes look from me to the door like she’s trying to plot her escape. She’s terrified. “Stop trying to scare me! It’s not a crime to want to talk to my friend.”
“Your friend,” I say, putting the pieces together.
“Yes. My friend. If you’d listened for half a second, I could have told you that the only person I called with that phone was Kayla. We talked for ten minutes this morning. That’s it.”
Luna stole a phone from me and called her best friend.
It’s a hell of a lot better than her using it to call Akim Gustev or any number of other people who would love a glimpse of what goes on inside of my mansion.
But it doesn’t matter.
“You still lied to me.” I hold my hand out. “Give me the phone.”
“Are you going to make sure I’m telling you the truth? You don’t believe me?”
I laugh, but there is no humor in it. “Of course I don’t believe you. Why would I?”
“Because you know me, Yakov. I’m telling you the truth. The only person I talked to was Kayla.”