I press a soothing hand to her arm and stroke her there until she settles. “He asked if I’d told you about our… living accommodations while we were children.”
She flinches. “I know you were homeless.”
“Homeless isn’t how I’d phrase it,” I clarify. “We lived on the streets?—”
“Isn’t that homeless?”
“We had a roof. Most of the time.” Misha drags a bag ofbatonchikcandies from his pocket. He offers her one and, of course, she accepts.
“Do we have to do this in my bedroom?”
“Our bedroom,” she corrects and unwraps the praline. “Go on, Misha. You two know everything about me, which is so unfair. This will go some way to redressing the balance.”
Misha leans against one of the posts on the bed. “Nikolai, Maxim, and I were close in this orphanage the state dumped us in?—”
“What made you bond?” she interrupts.
He glances my way, but I motion at him to do the talking. While sending a signed, “Fuck you,” at him.
She clicks the candy against her teeth. “Need to learn sign language too.”
“Back then, Nikolai didn’t talk. At all. But he was a big bastard. Big for his age and bigger still for the paltry amount we were fed.
“Everyone thought there was something wrong with him. Being ‘weird’ in a Russian orphanage back then wasn’t something to brag about. One of the caretakers had taken an interest in me… If I hung out with Nikolai, then he left me alone.”
My hand balls into a fist. “I set fire to that man’s office when that interest turned physical.”
She gasps so loudly that Misha jumps. “Did he?—”
“Maxim got there in time. Just like he always does.”
I grunt. “Don’t think you can get around me by bringing up the past, Misha. I’m pissed at you.”
“Why? You know I talk to Nikolai more than you do. I’m not going to keep him in the dark about Victoria’s safety when you’re crazy for her.”
Victoria shoots me a loving, but still smug, smile. “Yeah, Maxim. Why would he keep that a secret from Nikolai? I liked him.” It’s an announcement, pronouncement, and a declaration. “He looks like he turns his enemies into ground human but that he’s putty for the people he loves.”
Misha snorts. “Maybe if you’re his wife or kids, or… maybe you.”
“He’s kind to Aspen,” I chide.
“So, women are his weakness?”
I grimace at that assessment. “He witnessed his father kill his mother.”
“That explains his nonverbal nature as well as the desire to protect the women in his life,” she justifies.
“He’ll cut a bitch too. Don’t make out like he’s a saint when he has a pet alligator called Vasily!”
“Don’t!” I butt in before, ever eager, Victoria leaps onto the fact.
“But—”
“I’ll take you to meet Vasily before I have to talk about Niko’s psychotic pet,” I grouch, glaring at my brother who, feigning innocence, shoves the candy bag back in his pocket and pops one into the corner of his mouth.
Old habits die hard…
It’ll stay there for an hour if he leaves it alone.
