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He nods once. “Fine. But remember, Kirill. You made it be this way. You, not me.”
What the fuck does he mean by that? Am I going to get taken away when term ends and locked in the cellar again? The thought has cold sweat breaking out on my neck, but I tell myself I can endure it. For Mackenzie. For my brothers. For the four of us to keep doing this crazy, fucked up, wonderful thing we are doing.
In the end, it will be worth it.
“You always were a disappointment, Kirill. I thought that might have changed.”
My father stands and leaves. He snaps his fingers at Igor.
They walk out the door, and I try to tamp down the sudden sense of dark fear that washes over me and focus on the good instead. I’ve finally stood up to the son of a bitch.
Whatever happens, I can handle it.
Chapter 34
Mackenzie
The water is so warm.
I float on my back and smile. The past few days have been awful, but this is heavenly, and a nice respite from all the stress and trauma.
When Dom said he had a friend who ran a health spa located at one of the lakes and asked if we wanted an afternoon there, it was too tempting to say no. The friend—some girl I tried not to be jealous of—said she’d close it, so we could have the facilities all to ourselves. It’s for Tino, Dom said, but I’m enjoying the heck out of it, too.
Tino has been out of the hospital for four days now. They only kept him in for two days. They didn’t place him on any kind of hold, as he’d not purposefully tried to take his own life. Luckily for him, it was more the booze that knocked him out rather than taking too many pills, so after a couple of days of monitoring his organs to ensure no damage, he was let go.
Kirill has met with his father and insists all is well, but he seems quiet to me. He’d been buoyant before the meeting, but after it, much less so. We have all asked him what was said, and he claims it went well. That doesn’t parse with what little I know about Grigoriy Stepanov.
“Hey, pretty girl. You come here often?” Tino swims up to me, and I laugh at his dreadful line.
“This place is amazing. Dom is lucky having friends who own this kind of spa.”
Tino smirks. “Are you fishing for information, Duchess?”
Guilty, I glance away. “No, of course not.”
“I think you are, but don’t worry. Martina really is just a friend. If you saw her, you wouldn’t worry. She looks like a horse.”
“Tino!” I splash him with water. “Don’t be bitchy.”
“It’s a simple observation.”
I lower my voice so the other two, who are having some sort of stupid diving contest at the far side of the pool, don’t hear me. “How are you doing?”
He shakes water out of his dark hair. “Good.”
I sigh. Tino seems to want to brush what happened under the rug, but I’m not convinced that’s the healthiest way to recover from it. “You can talk to me, you know.”
He grins and throws me a wink. “Maybe I want to do other things besides talk?”
“Tino, be serious.”
“Mackenzie. I do talk. To the fucking therapist Nataniele makes me see daily. I don’t want to talk about it here with you. I’m having a nice time for once. Can’t we leave it at that? I do my therapy, I take the tests. I scared myself to death with what I did, and I promise you I don’t want to have that happen to me again.”
“But the pain.” I gesture vaguely at his body.
“I’m having physio and learning pain control techniques. I’m okay, Kenzie, truly.”
I don’t fully believe him, but the way he’s looking at me is so affectionate that I don’t want to ruin the moment by pushing.
