“Thank you for breakfast.” I can tell he made these potato pancakes, and I try to swallow down the lump in my throat,remembering the last time he made them for me, my stupid hope that maybe our night together meant something to him.
He lifts a brow, but nods. “You’re welcome.”
“Could you…” My intention drifts away like smoke as I stare at him. Why are all the things that are bad for you have to be so pretty? Alexi’s wearing a black t-shirt stretched across his broad chest and jeans that cup his ass in a way that’s just criminal.
“Yes?”
I mentally slap myself on the back of the head. “I thought you could sit with me, we could have breakfast together? You certainly made enough.” I nod down to the tray, piled high with thedrankini, an enormous bowl of kasha, a pitcher of orange juice, a bowl of sliced strawberries, and a pile of rye toast. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were trying to fatten me up.”
He frowns. “You should gain weight. You worked too much and didn’t eat enough. Your curves are gone.”
My mouth drops open and I stare at him like a simpleton. Curves? I went from the girl who couldn’t lose weight - even if she starved herself - to a size four. I can see my ribs when I look in the mirror and thought I finally had the perfect figure.
Still, he sits down and I take it as a win. We eat in silence for a moment and I let myself enjoy the food. The kasha was thick and perfect with a little milk and strawberries. “I haven’t had porridge since I was a little girl,” I volunteer, “I’d forgotten how good it is.”
“Hmm.”
“Did your mother teach you how to cook?” I ask.
He leans back, taking a sip of coffee. “My father would have beaten the shit out of me if he’d found me in the kitchen.”
“That tracks,” I mutter.
“What?”
“Nothing.” Maybe bringing up his mother was a bad idea. She’d passed away a few years before my father was murdered. Cancer, I think. “Do you think we could talk about what’s happened?” Oh, for fuck’s sake. Isn’t that the same sentence I used at breakfast the last time? Will he shut me down again?
Wiping his mouth with his napkin, Alexi eyes me impassively. “My Pakhan was quite clear on the call, wasn’t he?”
“Okay, well- sure.” I’m really screwing this up. “Why did you kidnap me? You terrified me, you threatened my sister’s safety! You left me in your murder shack for two days!”
I’m not sure if his frown is attempting to cover up a smile or if he thinks I’m unhinged and he’s humoring me. “You were there for four and a half hours.”
“Oh. Well, time flies when you’re handcuffed to a torture chair in a pitch-black room.” Admittedly, I’m failing in my attempt to soften him up.
“I abducted you and your sister because that is what my Pakhan ordered,” he says.
Something occurs to me. “If he’d told you to kill us, would you have done it?” I whisper.
Something shifts behind his implacable gaze and he rises, taking the tray.
“Can we just-”
He shuts and locks the door.
Alexi…
Leaning against the wall outside her room, I fight the urge to throw the tray into the nearest window, just shatter the fuck out of every breakable surface in this building.
Her sea-glass eyes, looking up at me imploringly when she asked if I would have killed her. I force myself to walk into the kitchen and put the tray down gently, gripping the edge of the granite countertop.
WouldI kill her if my bastard father ordered it?
The vision of my cousin, bloody and desperate, kneeling on the floor at that grotesque dinner party surges back and I grit my teeth. I will never know if he was guilty or innocent. I slit his throat because I was ordered to. That was the night that killed all emotion in me. Regret. Fear. Grief. My cold and barren soul worked just fine until myKolibrifluttered back into my life.
My phone rings and I answer it quickly, grateful for any distraction.
“Who is this?”
