Her fingers rub my chest. “You couldn’t have known, Maxim.”
“That’s the bitch. I should have known. I’d lost my parents. I knew she was old.”
Misha picks up the miserable tale of our childhood. “After Maxim set fire to the orphanage, we ran away together. Nikolai kept us afloat while we had to be treated in the hospital for burns and, after, he just carried on. Got this dump for us to live in and did the worst shit imaginable for food.”
“Then, of course, we made things worse by bringing in strays.”
“What do you mean?” she asks, wide-eyed. “Like dogs?”
“No. Kids. There were a lot of children who’d prefer to be on the streets rather than live in an orphanage. We used to find them, round them up, and Nikolai had to figure out how to feed them.”
“If we’d known…” Misha’s gaze sweeps down to his knee.
“Known what?”
I dodge the subject. The depths to which Niko sank to provide for us still keep me up at night. “It’s how we got into the Bratva. Nikolai needed help and they were the only ones who’d give it to us.”
“That’s so sad.”
“Hey, we’re some of the success stories,” Misha teases.
“True.” She frowns. “I guess.”
“Those kids are the reason we are where we are,” I correct.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, there were few paths for us. We were forgotten.” She stills, but I continue, “No one remembered us. Apart from Nikolai. So when we cut ties with the Bratva, Nikolai was our natural leader because he always had been.”
“Even Maxim’s big head had to accede to that.”
I kick Misha, hard enough for him to wobble then fall off the bed and collapse beside it. “I was injured. In Moscow.” I steamroll past her distressed gasp. “They had to get me out of the city or theKrestniy Otetswould have had me killed.”
“I had to sneak into the country.” Misha’s head pops over the side of the bed like a Whac-A-Mole. “That was a riot, I can tell you. The only reason we survived is because of those kids… all grown up… who wanted to help us. Just like we helped them.” A smile kicks up the corner of his mouth. “We never asked. They just came. Intel, manpower—they’re the reason we got out. They’re the reason we have any position in this country at all.”
“That’s how you selected the name,” she whispers.
“Yup. Nikolai says we should be called the lost boys because everyone gets it wrong all the time?—”
“Until we slice their throats,” I mock.
“Until then.” Misha grins before repeating, “But we were forgotten. Until he remembered us.”
“That’s…” She swallows, then turns her face into my chest and hugs me. Hugs me like she’ll never let go of me. Hugs me as if she’s mourning my past, when she’s the reason I have a future.
Misha’s gaze softens on her heaving shoulders while she weeps, quietly, against my chest.
I slide my hands over her waist, holding her tight, smoothing my fingers over her back as I growl in Latgalian, “You wake me up, wake her up, share our sob stories, and then make my new wife cry. Tell me why I shouldn’t slice off your tongue.”
“Because it’s Thanksgiving.”
I snort.
“Stop speaking in Latgalian,” she warbles in my ear.
Rolling my eyes, I switch to Russian. “Fuck off downstairs. We’ll eat soon.”
“Aspen’s here,” Misha says, a bounce to his step as he stands and stretches. “Figured we could eat together.”
