“Did your brother tell you what happened? Why I brought you here against your will?” I nod, not wanting to say morethan that. “So you understand? You understand it couldn’t be avoided?”
“What I understand is that you prefer brute force over a simple conversation.”
When he starts laughing at my statement softly behind me, I roll onto my back just to see his face. “Are you actually laughing at me right now? Seriously?!”
“I’m not laughing at you,milaya. I would never dream of laughing at your pain. It’s just that—”
“Just what?”
“Well, you haven’t exactly been open to conversation either. I know that if you were in good shape right now, you’d rather beat me black and blue than talk about your real feelings. About why you’re so angry with me. Why you’re so hurt.”
“You think my feelings are hurt?” I seethe, hating the fact that he can read me so well.
“I know they are. You think I used you,” he states, going right to the crux of it.
“Didn’t you?”
“As much as you used me.”
“And how did I ever use you?”
“To get the answers you wanted. To impress your father, if you found anything useful that you could use against us. I don’t know. But I do know you didn’t come to my club alone just because I intrigued you. At least not at first.”
He’s got me there.
“Fine. Maybe I did. So what? Does that make us even?”
“No,milaya. Just equals.”
My brows pinch together at the genuine look in his dark eyes. How can black eyes hold such warmth? Such caring and sincerity? They should look cold and empty. But they don’t. Kirill’s eyes always hold something. I just wish the emotion he’s showing now didn’t affect me the way it does.
Uncomfortable with the look he’s giving me, I shift the topic to safer ground. “So Frankie is your niece.”
“She is,” he says with a small smile.
“And that blind woman you told me about, who was she in the grand scheme of things?”
“My grandmother,” he confesses, gently wrapping a strand of my hair around his finger.
“I had a sense she was important to you.”
“I thought as much.” He smiles tenderly at me, his eyes silently begging for forgiveness. But I’m not there yet. Not yet. “She was the one who raised us when—”
“Your mother died,” I finish, remembering the rest of his story and how she’d passed from a drug overdose. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I don’t remember much about my mother. Mikhail and Aleksandr are the ones who hold most of the trauma she brought into our lives.”
“Still… it must have been hard to grow up without a mother,” I say quietly.
My mother and I butt heads all the time, but the thought of her not being in my life is too much pain to even imagine.
“I had a mother,” he says, interrupting my thoughts. “Katya was my mother. She was the one who stepped into that role and raised us.”
“Katya,” I say the name like someone summoning a ghost for a visit. “She was your sister. Frankie’s mom, I’m assuming.”
Kirill nods. “You would have liked her,” he whispers, inching closer and brushing my hair away from my face. “And she would have loved you.” He smiles softly. “Katya always had a strong spirit. Fiercely independent, but protective of her family. You remind me a lot of her in that way.”
I don’t add anything to his statement. I can tell it means something to him just to say the words out loud.
