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“Me?” He raises an eyebrow. “No, she went toIvan. He was the liaison between themafiyaand the Winthorps.”
“They did your accounts,” I recall from what Mischa told me—but he never mentioned thatVanyaoversaw that little arrangement. “In return, you protected their investments.”
“Yes.” His eyebrows furrow. Is he surprised I know as much? “Marnie went to Ivan with a proposition: She would tell him everything she knew about the Winthorp business if he rescued her and her daughter.”
“So there was no kidnapping.” I can’t tell if the hitch in my voice is due to shock or relief. “The whole start of this war was based on a lie—”
“Not quite,” Sergei corrects. “Winthorp was growing bolder. He planned to attack us eventually and control our territory himself. By warning Ivan, Marnie thought she was saving his life. She was also sly enough to ensure she got something out of it.”
Could the mother I knew truly be that selfless? And simultaneously selfish?
“So then what happened?” I prompt.
“Ivan came to me with her plan and I agreed to use my resources to assist in her escape. But, in the end, Briar was left behind.”
Something pinches in my chest. Jealousy? I know it’s selfish to feel it now. But a cruel part of my mind eagerly points out the glaring facts I want to ignore. Marnie sacrificed her freedom for Briar, but in return, she doomed me to a lifetime of hell. Did the fact that Vanya was my father make it easier for her to live with such a choice?
Maybe, as Mischa believed, her love had been a lie.
“How was she recaptured?” I ask, returning to the topic at hand.
“I don’t know.” Sergei meets my gaze, but I can’t discern a single emotion from his expression. “When she had a child roughly nine months later, I suspected that you were Ivan’s.”
“So why didn’t you tell him?”
He stiffens and eyes the knuckles of his hand. One by one, he curls each finger into a fist. A ring glints from one of them: silver, sporting the visage of a coiled serpent.
“Tell him what? That the woman he loved turned her back on him? That she would rather raise his bastard among the Winthorps than send her to her father? How could I tell my brother that?”
My chest tightens with the weight of such a twisted dilemma. I couldn’t imagine making a decision at all—but I’ve had twenty-four years to live with the consequences of his.
“So you left me there.”
“With your mother,” he corrects. “And when she died… I didn’t know your circumstances were as dire as they were. How could I?”
But something in me won’t accept that answer. “You told Mischa that I was the continuation of your line.” At least before Anna was found. “You said you knew about me since the day I was born. For someone who seems to care so much about your family, you have an odd way of showing it.”
“And I deserve your anger, yes.” He nods. “I deserve your mistrust, even. But for a second, think from your mother’s point of view. She kept you from your father, but perhaps that, more than anything, reveals her true thoughts of Ivan? Perhaps we were her pawns all along? After all, would you return your son to Robert Winthorp?”
“Don’t.” I cut off his scenario with a sharp wave of my hand. “Don’t you dare mention him. I never had a choice in how he grew up.”
“And if you could have done things differently?”
My heart breaks. “I would have never left him alone. Never.”
Even if it meant putting on a charade with Robert.
“And maybe your mother felt differently than you in that respect,” he says. “But now that you have been reunited with your son, what choice will you make?”
I grit my teeth at how effortlessly he’s managed to turn the tables. “Why do you care?” A suspicion creeps into my brain as if on cue. “Could it be because he’s the Winthorp heir? If Robert dies…”
Then Eli could stand to inherit it all.
“Maybe you should ask Mischa the same question?” Sergei steps forward and brushes his hand along my cheek. “It’s not my place to poison you against him—”
“You couldn’t,” I counter, but my voice falls flat. A weakness he doesn’t miss.
“I would caution you to carefully consider your circumstances. I didn’t kidnap Marnie Winthorp. I never brutalized her or made her a martyr, but can Mischa say the same?” His thumb grazes my branded cheek for emphasis. “There are some lines even I won’t cross. I wouldn’t use your child against you, and when you realize that, we can further this discussion.”
