Finally, the Chiaroscuro butler manages to point me the right way, telling me that Miko took the hallway leading back toward Svetlana’s apartment.
But he couldn’t say what Miko might be looking for there—or even how long ago he had been headed in that direction.
A sliver of anxiety wiggles its way into my stomach.Was he just checking on Svetlana to make sure she’s alright? Is she in danger?
My steps quicken, my thoughts straying from the pregnancy test still grasped in my palm as I follow the familiar hallways toward her room.
Her door is ajar, and my breath catches as an ominous feeling settles in the pit of my stomach.
Then I catch the sound of Miko’s deep baritone. Relief floods me, and I move closer, preparing to join them—until I catch his tone.
“You knew.” Miko’s voice is startlingly jagged, almost broken, and it makes my steps falter. “This whole time. You knew who I was.”
Who he was? As in, he’s no longer that person?
Frowning, I creep closer to the door to peer inside.
Svetlana sits at one of her reading chairs, her body language relaxed despite Miko standing in front of her like a shadow carved from steel, every line of his back rigid.
“Of course I knew,” she chides with a grandmotherly affection. “You think I wouldn’t recognize my own blood? It doesn’t matter that I haven’t seen you since you were a toddler. I felt it in my bones the moment I laid eyes on you. You move like your grandfather. And your eyes hold the same sadness Viktor’s had.”
Ice trickles into my blood at Svetlana’s strange explanation. It tickles something at the back of my mind and, at the same time, puts my stomach in knots. I study Miko from the back, his hunched shoulders and bent neck—as if he’s either looking down at something, or about to buckle under the weight of Svetlana’s confession.
“Pyotr,” Miko whispers. “He was my brother.”
Something heavy hits the floor with a soft thud, and neither of them move to pick it up.
Perhaps the sound was actually my heart, and it only sounded distant when it sank to my feet because my whole body has gone numb.
I can’t seem to find a clear thought in my buzzing brain as Miko’s words slowly worm their way into my skull.
Pyotr… had a brother?
“No,” Miko growls, anger crackling around him like lightning. “You’re lying.”
My heart stutters, the blood draining from my face at the sudden shift in his temper.
But Svetlana seems perfectly at ease. “I’m not,” she says calmly, but that only seems to aggravate him.
“You’re just saying it to screw with my head.”
“Mikail—”
“Don’t call me that!” he roars.
Ice floods my body, and I take an involuntary step back at the white-hot fury rolling off of Miko in waves.
It’s powerful enough to make it all the way into the hallway, and I swallow hard as I place my hand over my heart, willing it to stop racing.
But before I have time to recover, Miko’s fist is lashing out with lightning-fast speed.
My hands fly to my mouth to cover my squeak as the blow blasts through the wall to his left.
To her credit, Svetlana doesn’t even flinch.
All my instincts scream for me to go help her, but fear has frozen my feet to the floor.
In fact, I can’t seem to move a single muscle as I watch the man I love turn aggressive in a way that rocks me to my very core.
