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“Hmm. A very long time ago. And your mother too.”
“Tell me what happened? Please?”
“I can tell you all I know, but to tell you about your parents, I must also tell you about Alexei. Their story is his too.”
I nod and close my eyes. “I want to know everything.”
“Your father was always the smart one while Alexei was much more outgoing and confident — arrogant some would say. Boris was your grandmother’s favorite, and she protected him from the darker side of living with the Bratva, but Alexei thrived at his father’s side, and all of the darker personality traits that he possessed were encouraged and nurtured by the life he was forced to live. He was the perfect choice to take over when your grandfather died.”
“So, he and my father didn’t get along as children then?”
Vlad shakes his head and sucks in the air through his teeth. “On the contrary, Jessie, despite their differences, they were as close as two brothers have ever been. By the time Alexei was a man, he was uncontrollable, but your father was always the one man who could reach him. He was the only man who could keep Alexei in line, and the only person whose counsel he would heed. They shared an unbreakable bond. At least it appeared that way, until Alexei met your mother.”
My mom! A wave of sadness and nostalgia washes over me. I miss her so much. “So Alexei met her first?”
Vlad nods as we continue walking through the park.
“How did they meet?”
He smiles and the corners of his eyes crinkle softly. “At the opera.”
“The opera?”
“Yes. Your father was supposed to go with your grandmother, but he was ill with the flu, so Alexei accompanied her instead. Your mother was there with her father.” He turns to me at this point and studies my face. “She was a true beauty,” he says, reaching out and brushing his fingertips over my cheek. “As soon as Alexei saw her, he decided he wanted her, and that was that. The fact that she was the daughter of one of the wealthiest and most influential men in Russia meant nothing once the head of the Ivanov empire set his sights on her.”
“So, what happened?”
Vlad sucks in a long breath and glances behind us. Mikey still follows closely behind, as well as his sons who keep a more discreet distance than my own bodyguard. “It is a very long story for some other time, but Alexei wanted her to be his wife, so she became his wife. She had no family other than her father, and he died a few months after their union. Alexei was always a cruel man, and I don’t expect that he was able to hide his true nature from her.”
I blink back the tears as I think about my mother being ripped from her life and forced to marry the head of the Bratva. How terrified and alone she must have felt with no family around her. “But her and my father?”
Vlad nods solemnly. “I don’t know when that started, but your mother and father must have fallen in love. I didn’t often see them spend any time in each other’s company, but I recall one dinner when I caught the two of them sharing a look that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.” He shudders slightly at the memory.
“Why?”
“It was the look of two people so deeply in love that they would risk everything to be together, Jessie. I knew that it would bring trouble, and it did. But at the time, I tried to pretend it was all in my imagination. I convinced myself that Boris would never do that to his brother. Then she fell pregnant and Alexei was the happiest I’ve ever seen him. He threw a massive ball in Nataliya’s honor. He commissioned portraits of him and his pregnant wife. He boasted to everyone he met that he was about to become a father. But a few weeks later, your mother and Boris disappeared.”
I swallow. “How did Alexei react?”
“As you’d expect,” he shrugs. “Like a crazed madman would. He tortured anyone with any allegiance, be it perceived or genuine, to your parents. He tore the country apart trying to find them. He searched for sixteen years before he found you all.”
“And then he had the Wolf slaughter his own brother and his family?” I snap as the bile burns the back of my throat.
“Any flicker of humanity that Alexei held in his heart was snuffed out by the betrayal of the people he loved most in the world.”
“You think it was their fault he was such a monster?” I challenge him.
He shrugs. “No judgment. I am simply stating the truth, Jessie.”
He picks up his pace slightly and squeezes my arm tighter, and I sense the tension in Mikey, even though he’s a few yards behind me.
“I don’t have much more time. We must walk and talk faster,” he adds with a reassuring smile.
“Sure,” I nod. “Did Alexei ever meet the Wolf?”
“No,” Vlad shakes his head. “Nobody has ever seen the Wolf and lived. Nobody except you, Jessie.”
“So, he was supposed to deliver me to Alexei?”
