I did.
I was a fellow “normal” person brought into this violent world the Orlovs ruled. I saw how happy she was to have me experience this life with her.
“It will be a lovely day,” I agreed. Instead of immediately thinking back to my wedding with Fitz so many years ago, I imagined hers. As she’d walk down the aisle in this room to Mikhail. Wearing that gorgeous gown and her baby bump there. The friends and family surrounding them so close to Christmas.
But when my mind shifted to Sergei, as it always did, I hated how easily I could picturehimwaiting at the end of an aisle forme.
I let out a deep sigh and slouched.
“Still not talking to Sergei?” Claire guessed.
I was amazed about how good she was at reading me. We truly clicked like the best of friends.
I shook my head. “At this point, I’m not even sure if I’d know what to say.”
“Easy. You tell him how you feel.”
That wasn’t easy. My feelings were so conflicted.
Being here reminded me of how lucky I was. Alive and not captured. With my daughter instead of being separated. Free to focus on being her mom and not holding down a job I didn’t want. I was cared for and protected.
I wanted to hate that Fitz’s killer was the one man who made my life this perfect.
“I feel obligated to hold a grudge against him.”
“How so?” she asked.
We’d talked a lot about this already. I explained to her how Fitz had died. She had explained why the violence happened that night—not necessarily justifying the Orlovs’ violence but that Fitz hadn’t been an intended death or target.
“My life isn’t over just because his is.” I knew that. “But it’s been such a hard loss to accept. I feel like I have to hate him.” Before she could say anything, I held my hand up and cut her off. “I understand it was an accident in the way that Sergei was only there shooting up the place for his job and Fitz had been passing by.”
“And it’s not so easy to hate him when he is showing you how unhateable he is?”
I nodded, wryly amused. “Unhateable? That’s not a word.”
“It should be.”
I sighed. “Thank you for saying that instead of the opposite. Of how ‘loveable’ he is.”
She arched a brow. “Before you learned of his connection with Fitz, beforehelearned of it too, couldn’t you imagine loving him?”
I winced, feeling guilty to hold a grudge against him. She, Mikhail, Andre, and Roman had all told me that Sergei hadn’t known about how he’d killed my husband.
“Yes,” I whispered. “But I don’t know how to look past the fact that he killed him.”
“I’m sure that whenever you are ready to talk to him, he’ll be there.” She rubbed my back as the piano lesson wrapped up.
The next day, I had another example of how “unhateable” Sergei could be.
Daria video called me in tears. Extremely happy tears.
“It’s gone! It’s all justgone!” She sniffled and smiled. “It’s all gone and paid off, Nat.” Beaming as she caught her breath from the excitement, she stared at me on the screen.
“What’s gone?”
“They paid itall. Every cent of my tuition. All those old debt collection things. It’s all taken care of. That guy came to tell me in person.”
“What guy?” My heart beat faster at her news because I knew. I could guess.
