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“I would have asked Sokolov to take care of him. Find him a family here in the Bay Area. I didn’t because I was afraid Sokolov would take him with us and turn him into…me.”
I placed a kiss on his shoulder. “I kind of like that ‘me.’”
“You wouldn’t have back then.”
“Tell me about Sokolov. Why is he so important to you?” I’d met the man just twice, but on both occasions he’d given me the chills.
“He knew my mother and heard about her death. He gave me a choice—go with him or stay. I chose the path of theVory.”
“Do you ever wonder how your life would have turned out if you’d stayed?” I myself wondered all the time how different things would have been if my mother hadn’t died.
“I’d probably have gone to medical school.”
I looked up. “Medical school? You?”
“To become a surgeon. I like how methodical they are. There’s an art to the way they cut out diseases and repair what’s damaged.”
I pictured him in sexy blue scrubs. “I wished you would have become a surgeon. There were no hot doctors on the cancer ward.”
He gently stroked my cheek. It was a gesture of love, of solidarity. I’d never forget that time I’d believed my cancer had returned. There were no words of sympathy or looks of pity from him. Instead, Kristoff took me to a shooting range. Every bullet I fired felt like a release of pain, anger, and most of all, fear.
“I can never go back, Katya. That boy with those dreams doesn’t exist anymore.”
There was something in his voice that tugged at my heart. “I know that.”
“I can’t ever go back,” he emphasized. “Not because I would fail if I tried, but because I don’t want to. Sokolov didn’t just give me focus when he took me in. He gave me tools so I wouldn’t become like the sperm donor.”
It was eerie how casually he mentioned his father. His voice was flat, like he was talking about the weather.
“Have you ever met him?”
“Not yet.” His voice hardened. “And I don’t need to. I already know what he’s like. The man is poison. He’s tainted everyone in his life he’s ever touched. His daughter, his son, his late wife, everyone.”
“So Hector isn’t your only brother?”
“He’s the only one who counts.”
That didn’t sound fair, but I let it go. “So Sokolov helped you because he knew your mom?”
His lip curled. “Sokolov doesn’t do anything out of the goodness of his heart. He took me in and trained me because he saw potential. I was a loose cannon, just waiting to be aimed in the right direction. He already had cannon fodder, so he was looking for artillery for an army. Sokolov’s family was butchered during a Bratva war. AllVorymen have darkness inside their hearts, but there are different shades of black. You don’t just murder someone’s family, not the women and children, at least. But not everyone abides by those unwritten rules. Sokolov’s enemies didn’t. They even killed the babies in their cribs.”
I shivered. “I can’t imagine anyone being that cruel.”
Kristoff tensed against me. “That anyone’s name is Aslanov.”
“Is?” I was surprised to find out the man was still alive. Sokolov didn’t strike me as a man who didn’t retaliate for his family’s blood.
“Aslanov’s been in a Russian prison for the past twenty years. Ironically, that’s what has kept him alive for so long. That, and his Kremlin contacts. Sokolov can’t get anywhere near him. Yet. Now, I don’t care about politics. I care about profits. But in this case, I’ll gladly make an exception, and I’ve sworn Sokolov my allegiance.”
The news was unsettling. I felt like we’d just found each other and he was already leaving me.
“Does this mean you’re going to Russia sometime soon?” I cuddled closer to him. “We could go together. I don’t know anything about my father. Mom never talked about him. I asked a few times, but she just wouldn’t budge, no matter how much I pleaded.” In the end, I’d just given up, thinking the memory was too painful for her. “Maybe I could go with, and see if I can find him.”
He got out of bed and pulled me onto my knees. “Let’s have a bite to eat.”
He handed me my robe and we went downstairs. Most of the ground floor was still abandoned.
“Ah, there you two are.”
