We sit in silence for a while. It’s comfortable, but it’s not hostile either. It’s just two people sitting in a library at midnight, both mourning the same man in different ways.
“You should sleep,” Dimitri finally says. “Dr. Petrov comes at nine.”
“I know.” But I don’t move. “Dimitri?”
“Yeah?”
“The pasta. Tonight. That was…” I struggle for words because what exactly do I say to him? “Thank you.”
He nods once, not looking at me. “Get some rest.”
One step forward, two steps back. But I pause at the threshold, looking back at him. He’s staring at that photograph again, his expression unguarded in a way I’ve never seen.
He looks young. And lost. And so heartbreakingly alone. My heart goes out to him. It must be so hard to be all alone in this world.
“He would have been a good father,” I say softly. “If he’d lived. He would have loved that baby so much.”
Dimitri’s hand tightens on the photograph, but he doesn’t respond.
I leave him there with his grief and his memories, and head back to my room.
I place the blanket he brought me on my bed. The plate from the pasta sits on my nightstand.
Small gestures that contradict the suffocating control.
He’s not just trying to control me. He’s trying to protect what's left of the brother he loved.
It doesn’t make the surveillance okay. It definitely doesn’t make me any less trapped.
But it makes it understandable.
And that understanding makes everything so much more complicated than simple hate or fear ever could.
12
DIMITRI
The scream tears through the silent house at 2 am and I’m moving before conscious thought kicks in.
The scream is raw and filled with terror. It cuts through the darkness like a knife.
Vera.
I take the stairs three at a time, my heart hammering in my throat. Something’s wrong. Someone’s hurt her. Someone got past my security, past my guards, and they’re in her room right now?—
I burst through her door without knocking, adrenaline flooding my system.
But the room is empty except for her.
She’s in bed, tangled in the sheets, and thrashing violently. Her head whips from side to side, her hands clawing at the blankets. Another anguished and broken sob tears from her throat.
“No, no, no—Alexei, please?—”
A nightmare. She’s having anightmare.
The relief is so intense I have to brace myself against the doorframe for a moment. She’s safe. No one’s hurting her. It’s just a dream.
But watching her thrash and sob and beg my dead brother not to leave—that hurts worse than if someone actually had broken in.
