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And the guys.
I grab Niko’s hand because he’s sitting next to me, and squeeze it. I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure he’s tearing up.
Of course, I am too. There have been so many milestones lately.
Like my own graduation. I downplayed it so it didn’t overshadow Evie’s. I finished my bookkeeping certificate and stuck around the local city college to earn my two-year degree. While Evie will go all the way with her education, my little diploma is the first anyone in my family has ever earned. My mother would be so proud.
I suppose my father would, too.
There was no funeral for Pops, no ‘celebration of life,’ nor any sort of remembrance. The guys took care of his cremation but I don’t know where they stored his ashes. I asked that they not be buried with my mother. After I learned the real story behind her death, it didn’t seem right to leave them together for eternity.
The twelve-year anniversary of my mother’s death just passed, and I acknowledged it by putting flowers on her grave. We got her a proper headstone, something my father never bothered with, and we’re now paying to have her gravesite regularly maintained. It felt good to visit and have a conversation with her in my head. I’ve stopped all my ‘why’ questions, where for years I didn’t understand what happened. I still don’t and have accepted I never will.
Sometimes there are no answers to questions. The ‘why,’ the wondering, and the questioning, have to be left behind. I carried them around long enough, and now that I’ve shed their weight—or at least most of it—I am a different person.
Actually, a lot of things have conspired to make me a different person. I don’t feel good about all of them.
For example, I don’t feel good about killing Dimitri Yegorov. I don’t regret it, but I also don’t feel good about it. It was a necessary evil, if I ever wanted to live in peace. Now that time has passed, I find I have compassion for him, as miserable and tortured as he must have been. It’s better for all of us that he’s gone, don’t get me wrong, it’s just too bad he couldn’t save himself from himself.
Same goes for Dominika. She was as evil as they come, that wretched woman, and is another person better off dead. She caused so much pain and destruction and while we never have gotten definitive proof, we think she was the one behind the car crash that killed Clara, as well as the one that killed Stacey. ThePakhannever divulged what he did with her, but I have no doubt she’s dead, her body or ashes dumped somewhere in an unceremonious fashion. That’s all she deserved.
The one downside to thePakhantaking the lead on getting rid of her is that none of us got to have a final conversation with her. But what would we have said? What would we have asked?
More questions to which there are likely no answers, or at least none of the answers we want.
I finger my mother’s locket while the new graduates stream out of the auditorium, each heading to their families for photo time. Evie bounds up to us and Kir hands her a huge bouquet of her favorite flowers.
The same kind our mother loved so much.
Now that Evie is eighteen, an adult, and off to college, I know I have to tell her the story of what happened with our mother. It seems cruel to share something so devastating when everything in her life is looking so positive, but if I don’t tell her soon, I know I’ll chicken out and never do it.
Which might not be such a bad idea.
The guys have convinced me that honesty is the best policy, and even when important information is not happy news, it still needs to be shared.
But we won’t tell her today. That’s not the kind of graduation gift I’d wish on my worst enemy.
Still, it’s going to be a hard conversation and I imagine my sister will go through the whole gamut of emotions I did two years ago, when I found out from Victoria.
Who, by the way, we have not heard a word from. It kills me, knowing nothing, but I have to believe she’s doing what she needs to. When thoughts of how she is and whether anything has happened to her start swirling around my head, I remind myself, again, that we don’t always get answers to our questions.
As frustrating as that is, it feels like my new mantra.
But one thing I am sure of, sure enough to bet my life on, is that I have the full love and support of Vadik, Kir, and Niko.
The strong, sexy, devastatingly handsome Alekseev brothers.
“Are you ready?” Vadik asks Evie.
She looks over her shoulder at her friends, who are also tearing off their caps and gowns. She thrusts hers into my arms and plants a kiss on the cheek of each of the guys, saving a rib-cracking hug for me before she looks at me one more time and runs for the bus her other classmates are boarding, which will take them directly to the airport.
Lucky kids, they’re on a graduation trip to London and Paris, where they are supposed to ‘enrich their knowledge of art and history,’ but where I imagine they’ll basically goof off and consume all the wine and beer they can’t here in the US.
But I’m not worried. Later tonight, the guys and I will board our own private jet and follow the kids so we can keep somewhat of an eye on them. We’re not formal ‘chaperones,’ but we were desperate for a getaway and figured we could watch over Evie at the same time.
I swallow away the lump in my throat as Evie turns to wave at us one more time before climbing aboard the bus full of noisy teenagers.
Kir slings an arm around my shoulder. “Well then. The kiddo is gone. Time for some adult fun. What do you say, baby?”
