Page 57 of Reverie

But instead, I stare at him, showing my scars. Many of them, but not nearly all of them.

“She never hated you or Ella, Hunter,” Misha says.

“Right,” I reply. “You haven’t answered my question.”

Misha sighs and puts his mug on the counter. “She left me with my father when I was eight. I was uncertain of many things at that time. My father was Mafiya, as I’m sure you know.”

I nod, my hand firmly on the handle of my coffee cup.

“I was told that my mother went away. I was a little older when my father confessed that he’d traded her for access to a pipeline in the Balkans.” Misha shrugs, and even though the movement is casual, his discomfort is plain on his face.

“She went to your father. When I got older, I followed my father all over—to America, all over Europe, China—and Benjamin Brigham was always somewhere around.”

At the mention, a flash of a memory crops up of a dark, hazy club with round tables scattered throughout. A gambling hall. Father was there, laughing and surrounded by women. He didn’teven try to shield himself from me as a woman went down on him.

Twelve. Twelve. That was the first time he gave me a woman. There, in a dark corner, I lost my virginity.

I shake my head to get out of the memory.

“When I turned eighteen, I celebrated at the top of the Parus Centre in Kyiv, and after I was toasted to, I murdered my father. That same day, I became the Pakhan of the Ukrainian Mafiya.”

Misha killing his father doesn’t surprise me. He seems like the type of person who would do such a thing, but then, am I one to talk? There’s so much blood on my hands that it’s a wonder anyone can see my flesh.

“When I was made into the pakhan, she contacted me. It was by chance. We were both in London, staying at the same hotel. She saw me at one of the events Benjamin brought her to. She said when she saw me, she knew it was me. She had been told I was dead too.”

“I’m glad you had a pleasant family reunion,” I snap. Why am I getting so angry? Misha isn’t doing anything wrong—at least, not right now.

I take another sip of my coffee, and as the caffeine buzzes through my body, I admit that I am jealous of Misha Hroshko, at least in this regard.

I’m angry and jealous that he got time with our mother when I did not. I’m angry that she sought him out but left me in the dark for decades.

I don’t notice that I’ve clapped my mug back onto the island until the warm liquid spills over the back of my hand.

“She wanted my help to get out. To get all of you out. Ella was barely a toddler, and she’d discovered some shit that scared her to death.”

“What did she find?” I ask. I’m not sure I really want to know.

Misha pauses as if weighing his words. “They were stealing people and using them as test subjects. So many of the people they stole died. Luna, as you know, was one of them, except she survived.”

Misha taps his finger on the handle of his coffee cup.

I try to pick up the mug, but my hands shake too badly.

“This is fucked,” I say.

“That’s the least fucked part about it,” Misha says. “The Architect, for whatever reason, really values your bloodline.” The way he says this, he almost sounds amused, but then there’s an edge of something else.

“What the actual fuck,” I say, sitting back in the chair, stunned.

“Indeed,” Misha says.

“I don’t know who The Architect is,” I offer.

Misha takes another sip of his coffee.

“That’s the thing. We don’t know either. There are clues and theories because we’re not the only people talking about The Legion. There are all kinds of inroads on the dark web. That’s actually how Max came to be with us.”

Hm. Makes sense.