I hear the low murmur of conversation from the other room, then the front door closes again.
“Kolibri?Dinner’s here.”
“How long have you and your sister been here?”
We’re sitting on a long leather couch that’s clearly custom-built for Alexi’s 6’6 body, since I had to scramble up onto it in the most undignified way possible. There’s a coffee table in front of us covered with half-finished takeout boxes. “You must have been really hungry,” I say, staring at the mountain of food.
“I didn’t know what you would like,” he shrugs, devouring half a cannoli in a single bite. My fork pauses over my tiramisu as I watch his tongue dart out to lick a bit of cream off his lower lip. “But back to my question. How long have you and Inessa been here in Boston?”
“Mother sent us here four years ago. Her excuse was wanting us to have an American education, but…” I hesitated. The Turgenev Bratva is cordial with ours, but should I be discussing such personal information? He’s still watching me, his sculpted face expressionless.
“But what?”
“I think my mother saw howDyadya, Uncle Rurik looked at us.” It came out in a rush and I watched his face harden.
“Did he ever touch you?” he growled.
“No. But I overheard him a couple of times, talking about how he was going ‘to use us.’” I shudder. “It sounded less like an advantageous marriage and more like… I don’t know. But Mother had to use her own money to send us here.”
Alexi leans back against the couch, sipping his Scotch as he listens. I’d forgotten how focused he could be, his attention completely on me. “I see. Is Inessa going to school?”
“Yes!” I say proudly. “She’s in her fourth year at Northeastern.”
“And you?”
“Oh. Well…” I toy with a loose string on my borrowed t-shirt. “I was accepted at Harvard, but there’s not enough money for both of us to go at the same time. I’ll keep working until ‘Nessa graduates and then it will be my turn.”
“That’s why you’re working double shifts at the restaurant?” He doesn’t sound happy about it.
I shrug, feeling defensive. “We have to make ends meet.”
“Is Inessa working, too?”
“No. We thought it would be better for her to focus on her coursework.”
Alexi’s blue eyes gleam from the flames in the fireplace. “How old are you now,Kolibri?”
The question feels charged with a different energy and I’m aware of how close we’re sitting. His hard thigh is brushing my knee. “I’m twenty.”
He grunts, still staring at me thoughtfully. All my childhood memories of him come surging back; when he pulled me from the freezing water when I was eleven. And when I was sixteen and he yanked me out of harm’s way when that horse nearly trampled me at their ranch. He was always my savior, even if the rest of his life was dark and bloody.
“Tell me why you took out the Albanians.”
Brow arching, he stares at me, taking another sip of his scotch. “I think you heard enough while you were crouched by the dumpster.”
“I- I wasn’tcrouching,”I protest.
“I was handling business,” he says.
“So, when you ‘handle it,’ you’re doing it in a way that most people would classify as ‘murder.’” I hold my fingers up, making quotation marks. “Boston isn’t like St. Petersburg, Alexi.”
“Don’t I know it,” he snorts, rising to refill his glass. “It’s a mess here, everynizhniy fider, every little bottom feeder, fighting for street corners and sloppy shipments of arms getting taken by the Coast Guard, raising unneeded attention.” His head cocks, like he’s making a mental note, “I need to bribe a couple of captains in the local Coast Guard unit.”
“So the Turgenev Bratva moves in and takes over the city?”
He smiles at me over his glass. “Exactly. The Italians and the Albanians will never know what hit them.” His smile is dark and freaks me out until I realize why.
I’ve never seen Alexi smile, other than the time he saved me from the ice.
