I sighed and turned back around to find Astrid waiting with a slightly dimmed customer service smile on her face. “Okay, we’ll agree. Hey, Pasha, you might want to get a bin, or is there a cubby situation tucked away somewhere? We’re cautious to the point of psychosis, and it might take more than two of you to hold everything.”
By the time we filled the little plastic bin Yuri produced on demand, Astrid’s smile had lost some of its tension. Pasha looked incredulously at a tube of lipstick in the weapon’s bin. “Is that a… taser?”
“You said that wrong,” Lennon said with a roll of her eyes.
Both of us said in high-pitched unison, “It’s a…lipstick taserrrr!” Cricket sighed next to me, used to us quoting the kids’ movie. Lennon and I snickered at each other and high-fived. God, I loved my bestie. She made everything better. Yuri swiped some kind of black wand over each of us, nodding to Pasha and stepping back when he was done checking us for bugs or whatever his magic wand did. Pasha opened the door, and my pulse sped up in anticipation. Time to face my new family.
Riordan
Astrid led my cousin and her friends into the penthouse. “Mr. Petrov,” she said stiffly with a slight incline of her copper head when she entered the room, “your guests have arrived.” Pasha held the door open as my cousin and her friends walked into the room. “Is there anything else I can do for you, sir?”
“No, Ms. Vaughn. That will be all.” Astrid turned on her heel and left the suite with a smile for Indigo as she passed. I noted with wry amusement that my usually stone-faced assistant even had the physical ability to smile. She’d definitely never smiled at me. “Thank you for coming, Indigo. Lennon, Bear…” My smile dimmed a bit at the last of her guards for the night—“Cricket. I’m glad you could be here.” Indigo fidgeted a bit, looking nervous. I’d tell her not to be, but that’d be like telling Ivan not to be a smart-ass. She was meeting her family for the first time, so of course she was nervous. “Come,lisichka, my parents are excited to meet you.”
Indigo seemed subdued, her usual frenetic energy dimmed in anticipation of meeting my parents. She followed me into the sitting room, trailed by her friend and guards. My parents, who had been seated on the large leather sectional couch when I left the room, were now standing in the center of the spacious living room. If the situation were any less serious, I’d give my old man hell for being so nervous, but I didn’t have the heart to tease him now. The fact that he was standing at all, rather than sitting like the king he was when receiving guests, spoke volumes to the gravity of the moment for him. In public, he was thepakhan: cold, ruthless, and lethal. In private, he was Mikhail: a grievingbrother, a loving father, and a devoted husband. Right now, he seemed torn between the two facets of his identity, and the resulting expression on his face made him look constipated. I was so thankful that Ivan wasn’t present for Indi’s introduction today.
“Otets, Mom, I’d like to introduce you to your niece, Indigo Evans. Indigo, these are my parents, Mikhail and Cara Petrov.” I was midway between Indigo and my parents, acting as a buffer for my cousin. I couldn’t imagine how overwhelming all of this had to be for her. Indigo’s friends held back, allowing her to step forward on her own to meet her family. She eyed my father up and down, taking him in, her eyes occasionally darting over to me, as if in comparison. My father had darker hair than I did, his wiry black strands now liberally peppered with silver. We shared the same green eyes, height, and build. Other than my hair color and preference for Irish whiskey, I hardly look related to my mother at all. She was tall, only two inches shorter than my father’s six foot. Her chestnut hair was pinned in an elegant bun at the nape of her neck, and her hazel eyes scanned my cousin good-naturedly.
“Hi,” Indigo muttered, giving a small wave. “It’s nice to—Oh shit! I almost forgot!” She whirled around nervously, gesturing to Lennon. Lennon reached into her purse to hand Indigo a plastic container. Indigo muttered to herself as she stepped closer to my parents, who were watching her curiously. “Bones said it’s polite to bring a gift when you’re invited to someone’s home. I mean… I know it’s not yourhomehome, but still…” Indigo blushed and hastily added, “Duke’s ole lady, Lorna, helped me make them. They’re lemon squares.” She handed the container to my mother, who graciously accepted the gift.
“Thank you, Indigo. What a lovely and thoughtful gesture,” my mom said, opening the container to give the contents an appreciative sniff. “They smell divine. Please send our appreciation to Lorna, as well.”
“Thank you,dorogaya,” my father said in a voice tightened with emotion. His eyes scanned Indigo from head to toe, greedily taking in her appearance. I noticed each time he clocked a scar, adding them to his mental tally of things Roark Callahan deserved to die for. “We are looking forward to getting to know you and welcoming you to our family. Please”—he gestured to Indi and her friends—“sit. Would anyone care for a drink?” Lennon and the Crows took the far side of thesectional sofa, and Indi perched in the middle, leaving a healthy amount of space between her and my parents.
“I’d like to say something, if that’s okay?” Indi looked nervous. Her eyes darted over to me for a moment. “It’s about Tatiana. My…mother.” My father nodded, giving her permission to speak. “Unc—Roark told me that my mother was a nobody, a whore who abandoned her baby and disappeared. I hated her for a long time, for leaving me with him.” Indigo rubbed absentmindedly at a scar on her wrist, her eyes clouded with memory. She gave it a little shake and took a deep breath. “Now I know that’s not true. I wish I could tell you where she is, or how she is, or even where her body is buried. Unfortunately, all I can say is that I never met her in the basement, and knowing Roark like I do… I’m sorry to have to be the one to tell you, but she’s probably dead.”
My father sighed and nodded, reaching for my mother’s waiting hand. “Da, we assumed. At first, I searched in hope that I might find her before the worst happened. Every day that passed without news of my sister’s fate, that hope frayed. A lifetime has passed since I last spoke to her, and I’ve had to accept that if she were still alive, Tatiana would have found a way to contact us by now. My sister…” He shook his head. “It is too late for me to help her. But her daughter?” He turned determined eyes on Indigo. “I can be here for her daughter. You are family, and we take care of our own. If you need anything…” He widened his eyes in emphasis. “Anything,dorogaya, you can come to us and it will be done.”
“What doesdorogayamean?” Indigo asked, tripping over the pronunciation. “Sweetheart,” my mother replied, smiling softly. “It meanssweetheart.”
“I told you,lisichka,” I said to Indi with a smug smile. “Family means everything in the bratva, and you are family now.”
“You Russians,” Indi said with a shake of her head and blush-stained cheeks, “and yourendearments.”
“Is it so hard to believe,angel,” Lennon quipped. Indigo blushed furiously, catching my interest. I didn’t have to guess which Crow might be calling her pet names.
“Honestly”—my mom laughed musically—“I’d never seen someone so covered in poison ivy. Ivan played a horrible trick on Ri when they were camping, and he ended up wiping his bottom—"
“And that’s enough stories about my childhood, thank you very much,” I shamelessly interrupted my mother. Indigo giggled, and I was tempted to let my mom finish her story just to hear her laugh again. Indigo and her friends relaxed a bit as we talked, and I watched my cousin thaw and become accustomed to our presence. The resort staff served our meal in the penthouse’s dining room, and the atmosphere in the room was friendly, if a little awkward occasionally. I’d take it. There was no rulebook or guide to integrating long-lost and alienated family members into what essentially is a bratva royal family. We’d have to play things by ear.
Dessert, a delicious vanilla bean crème brûlée, had been consumed (with gusto on Indigo’s part) before a knock on the door interrupted our meal. Gregor, the youngest son of one of my father’svory, appeared in the doorway to my office, where he’d been doing busywork for my father.
“Izvinite, ser,” he said with his head bowed respectfully to hispakhan. “You have a call.”
“I’m unavailable,” my father snapped in English, aware that Indigo didn’t speak Russian and not wanting her to feel excluded purposely. Indigo had gone rigid the moment Gregor had spoken. My father noticed but pretended he didn’t. My mother, however, cut her eyes to me as if to say,did you see that?I did.
“Apologies, mypakhan, but it’s urgent. It’s fromtheBarvikhahouse.” Mention of our property in Moscow could only mean onething—Aunt Natalya. She was probably the only person on the planet who could tear my father’s attention away from his new niece.
“Excuse me, I must take this. Gregor, you are dismissed.” Gregor bowed his head slightly at my father’s words and left the penthouse. My father rose from the table and strode into his office, but I barely noticed as he left because all my attention was on my cousin. She was sitting rigidly, back ramrod straight. Her dessert spoon was clenched tightly in one fist, with the other hand gripping the table so hard her knuckles were turning white.
“Indi?” Lennon asked, her voice pitched low and soothing. “Indi, are you okay? What’s happening, hun?” Indigo didn’t respond at all to her friend’s voice. Her eyes were glassy, pupils blown wide. I wasn’t sure what had triggered her, but something had stumbled over a tripwire in her mind, and I had no idea how to coax her back to us. Cricket rose from his seat at the table and crouched down next to Indigo, his hand gently running over her arm. He softly muttered in her ear, all while calmly anchoring her with his touch and attempting to soothe her enough to make her relax her fist.
“You’re safe…Your name is Indigo Evans. You’re not trapped in Boston anymore. You’re in Nevada. Lennon is here, and Sheila is waiting in the lot for you…He can’t hurt you here.” Tenderly, Cricket plucked the spoon from her grasp and clasped her hand with his own. Everyone else at the table sat transfixed, not wanting to break the spell he was weaving.
After a few more moments of murmuring, Indigo seemed to pull herself through the muddy morass of her panic and reemerge in the present. Her eyes began to focus, fixed on Cricket’s steadying hand grasped in hers. Breath jagged in her chest, her bottom lip trembled slightly before she bit it in an attempt to regain her composure. I hated that she felt she had to.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered to the table at large, refusing to make eye contact with anyone.
“Don’t, please,” my mother spoke, the gentleness in her tone belied by the ferocious glint in her eyes. “You have nothing to apologize for.”
