Page 68 of The Russian's Bought Bride

The words still hurt to hear since they make it real all over again, but I do my best to stomach it.

I lower my gaze briefly toward my drink and watch as the remaining ice cubes shift around. “Thanks.”

Vera is quiet for a second before beginning again, “Artem understands that kind of loss better than most people.”

I glance up, feeling more curious than I have any right to be. “What do you mean?”

Her eyes drift toward her brother upstairs, and a touch of sadness lingers in them. “His wife died a few years ago.”

The information catches me completely off guard, and I let out lamely, “Oh.”

“It was sudden and ugly,” Vera says softly, obviously remembering it all too well. “He doesn’t talk about it much, but some days are harder than others.”

I look toward Artem again instinctively.

He doesn’t look broken or tragically fragile. Instead, he’s composed and terrifyingly strong. You wouldn’t know he’s someone who survived something terrible and kept moving anyway.

Oddly enough, the thought comforts me a little.

It’s not that I’d ever wish grief on anyone else, but lately, I’ve felt isolated inside mine like the world kept moving while I got trapped somewhere between shock and heartbreak.

Hearing that someone else understands, even under completely different circumstances, makes me feel a little less alone.

“Does it ever get easier?” I ask quietly before I can stop myself, wondering if I’m pushing too far.

Vera considers the question carefully, then she hums to herself. “I think it gets quieter from what I’ve seen. It doesn’t go away, but the edges soften with time.”

I swallow hard around the sudden tightness in my throat as a glimmer of hope manifests in my chest. I want her to be right.

Eventually, the conversation drifts after that into easier territory towards safer things, like family stories, Vegas gossip she has heard recently, and, to Vera’s delight, embarrassing childhood moments involving Nikolai. Apparently, she’s delighted to weaponize it against him.

“He was impossible growing up. Even worse than he is now,” she says with dramatic exasperation, as if she’s been waiting to spill these details eventually. “Instead of joining in, he’d always lurk around corners looking judgmental, and when he wasn’t, he was lost in his own head.”

I laugh softly. “That honestly hasn’t changed.”

“See? He’s so private it’s infuriating. He’s always been wound up so tight, refusing to admit to anything.”

That I understand completely.

“He barely tells me anything,” I admit, quietly irritated by the thought. “I had to shout at him to get a single answer from him.”

“Welcome to the club.” She leans closer conspiratorially. “One time, he disappeared for three days because Roman scolded him for handling a situation wrong when he first started in the business.”

I scoff to myself. “Three days?”

She nods. “Roman was prepared to scour every inch of the desert, assuming he had been buried somewhere. But he came back as if nothing had happened.”

That sounds exactly like him, actually, and I shake my head, smiling despite myself.

For all my frustration with Nikolai, which there is still plenty of, I can’t deny that hearing these stories humanizes him in ways I wasn’t expecting. At the same time, knowing he has also frustrated his family feels like standing in solidarity together.

Around me, he always feels so controlled and perfectly measured, like every emotion gets locked behind steel doors before it can reach the surface.

But apparently, he’s always been like this, and it makes me feel a little less crazy.

“Still, for all his frustrating parts, he gets stuck in his head because he cares very deeply. Even if he’s terrible at showing it normally.” Vera’s expression softens slightly as sheglances toward him again. “He’s scary as hell out there when he’s working, but I swear his heart is the biggest out of all of them.”

I follow her gaze to see that Nikolai is still speaking with Artem with his rigid posture, though every so often his eyes drift instinctively toward where I’m sitting, like he’s checking to make sure I’m still there.