Thief (Boston Underworld #5)(30)
It’s probably not appropriate of me, but I stand and move to the other side of the table. I’m eager for the opportunity to leave this house, even if only temporarily. The idea of having a friend fills my heart with hope.
Alexei hands me the phone, and I stare at the photo, cataloging the details of the woman on the screen. She is beautiful, but there is also something heartbreaking about her. The gray eyes staring back at me are haunted and sad, and I’m left to wonder if she’s happy with her husband. And then I wonder why I would even question it.
What mafia wife is ever happy?
I want to assure him that she’s beautiful, which is probably what he wants to hear, but instead, I tell Alexei that she looks like she could use a friend. He nods, and it takes him some time to drag his eyes away from the photo.
“She has not had an easy life,” he admits. “And I don’t know that I make her happy, but I try.”
The profound level of sorrow in his voice provokes me to do something I probably shouldn’t. But I reach out and touch his hand, if only to let him know there is always hope.
“Will you tell me about her?”
For the remainder of the meal, we get lost in conversation. He opens up about his wife’s background, giving me intimate details about someone I’ve yet to meet. But I can see that it’s what he needed, and when I hear her heart-wrenching story, I feel like we are friends already.
After such a deep subject, the natural progression is to move on to lighter topics. Alexei explains his position within the Vory, their hierarchy, and some of their customs. The things he tells me are not so different from my own family’s codes, and I’m surprised to learn that I even find some of their practices more agreeable.
It’s when we are on the matter of children that Nikolai chooses to return. The timing isn’t ideal, considering he left us as strangers and returns to find me leaning in to study more of the photos on Alexei’s phone. The flash in his eyes as he examines the narrow distance between us warns me that his mood has only darkened, but for the first time in as long as I can remember, I’m enjoying myself, and I know he’s about to ruin it.
“You are dismissed, Nakya,” he thunders. “Go to your room.”
Not about to argue with his tone, I move to get up, but Alexei halts me with his hand on my arm. “She can stay.”
A silent war rages between the two brothers while I remain in my seat, hands clutched in my lap. The game of trying to provoke Nikolai is no longer fun, and at the end of the day, it is him I must answer to.
“Perhaps I should go to my room,” I volunteer.
“I think perhaps you should stay here,” Alexei argues. “It’s not a problem, is it, bratan? You trust me, yes?”
Nikolai’s nostrils flare, and I can’t be sure, but I’m beginning to think I have become the proverbial stick between the two.
“With my life,” Nikolai answers. “As blood should.”
Sticky silence descends over us before Nonna suggests we all move to the sitting room for drinks. She is quick to follow our movements, already prepared with fresh beverages. It’s my third vodka cranberry of the night, and I am feeling it more than I should.
I don’t drink often. Only on a few occasions did I steal a sip from my father’s liquor cabinet or nurse a beverage during a dinner party, but in general, I don’t make it a habit of imbibing. In the past, it was partly because my father had high expectations for my behavior, but mostly, it was because there were too many calories.
Tonight, however, I am not thinking of the caloric content. I am only thinking of the impending doom that awaits me if this tension does not dissipate before Alexei takes his leave.
Watching Nikolai as he speaks to his brother in Russian, I’m cursed to wonder what made him this way. Volatile one minute, and placid the next. His emotions do not ebb and flow like a ripple in the sea. They are either a tidal wave or the eerily calm silence before disaster strikes. I have known him to be kind, and I have known him to be cruel. But it’s apparent I am not the only recipient of his mercurial mood swings.
He is self-destructive in his own right. For someone constantly surrounded by people, his relationships are shallow and meaningless. He seems to have sabotaged the only ones that stand a chance at a deeper connection. I have an intense desire to understand what caused the rift between these two brothers, and more importantly, why their shared DNA needs to be kept a secret.
While I’m attempting to sort through these thoughts, Alexei’s attention drifts back to me, much to Nikolai’s vexation. It’s deliberate at this point. Alexei wants to provoke his brother, and it might be amusing if I wasn’t the one who will bear the brunt of it.
“Enough.” Nikolai moves in front of me, obscuring Alexei’s view. “I thought we could be civilized, but it’s obvious that you can’t let go of the past.”
“Perhaps when I am dead,” Alexei answers. “I will let go of it then.”
Nikolai curses his displeasure in Russian. “You never listen. You would not listen when I told you she was a whore. You would not listen when I told you she was servicing your Vory brothers. You needed to see it for yourself.”
“And you needed to take what was mine,” Alexei sneers. “Because you couldn’t allow me to have anything. You are just like Sergei.”
Before I can comprehend what’s happening, the two men are grappling with each other on the floor. Rage-soaked insults are hurled between punches as I watch on in horror. Drink glasses shatter, and the coffee table splinters across the room as I take shelter behind the sofa. I am not immune to violence, but this is pitiful.