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eyes everywhere. Ears as well. Both of you can’t forget that.”
    As Natalya opened her mouth to remind him she was more than aware of Dmitri’s connections, her phone chirped inside her purse. She fished it out and glanced at the display. Her stomach slowly turned over.
    “It’s Dmitri, I’ve got to take this.”
    Crossing the room and heading for Kate’s bedroom, she answered in her fiancé’s native tongue, “Hello, darling.”
    A

s Kate left the couch in her sister’s wake and disappeared into the kitchen, Sergei watched Derek mimic fighting a fire with the hoses on his toy truck. His thoughts drifted to Natalya’s proclamation that she’d get him a job inside the club. He had no doubt she’d arrange it. But coming face-to-face with Brandon Moretti posed more problems than the blush that had infused her cheeks at the mention of Brandon’s build.
    The possibility that Brandon would recognize him, though he’d been eighteen when he’d last spoken to his brother, could destroy the entire mission.
    Worse, Sergei would have to explain what happened to Stefan Moretti. How the FBI agent that had placed their family in witnessprotection had pulled him out of work that fateful day, less than thirty minutes before their mother and sister, and the agent, perished in their home’s explosion.
    He’d have to explain to Brandon why he’d never let him know he’d survived. How, for a while, he hated himself for surviving and how he’d blamed his brother for causing the explosion. How, by the time he made peace with his inner demons, he’d been so wrapped up in the CIA he couldn’t contact the brother he’d once looked up to.
    A year after the day their family shattered, Sergei had learned the truth. Brandon had nothing to do with the bomb. If anyone could be blamed, it was Carmina Moretti. When the FBI had ushered her off to Texas with a new last name, they’d never stopped to consider how a native Sicilian would blend into the landscape. They claimed they couldn’t send them to an Italian sector because Angelo Mancuso had too many connections—a fact Sergei now understood as true. But Texas? She didn’t have a chance.
They
didn’t have a chance.
    When Angelo got word of her whereabouts, he extracted revenge. Twelve years of separation had hardened his love for his children—if he’d ever possessed any—and he issued the order to exterminate them all. Brandon escaped because he’d gone to college. If it hadn’t been for that FBI agent, who caught word of the plan, Sergei would have perished alongside his twelve-year-old sister and his mother.
    But now… So much time had passed. So many memories had been put to rest. Sergei had no way of guaranteeing Brandon wouldn’t recognize him, even with his longer hair and adult size. And while he felt certain his brother would never align himself with the mafia, any mafia, he couldn’t chance exposure. He’d spent too many years gaining Dmitri’s trust. If Natalya’s plan failed, his role as Dmitri’s most trusted bodyguard must stay secure.
    Yet, he saw no way around the necessity to be as close to both Kate and Natalya as possible. He couldn’t protect either one of them from a distance. He couldn’t confide in Natalya either. Too much chanceremained that she
would
fail, and somehow, through the inevitable torture Dmitri would exact upon her betrayal, she’d say too much. In doing so, she not only risked Sergei’s life, but the only living family he could claim. While years stood between him and his brother, that love ran too deep. Too fierce.

Four
     
    N

atalya approached Fantasia alone. Behind her, Sergei watched from within a nondescript four-door sedan. He’d remain there until the club closed at four in the morning. Kate would arrive on her own sometime in the next fifteen minutes. For now, the less time she spent with her twin in public, the better the chances no one would notice their similarities, despite their outwardly different