Page 76 of Sexting the Silverfox

“Yet you resemble her the most. Your eyes have that tint of grey that hers had. Your hair’s a tad darker, like hers, and your face, oh, Vitaly, it reminds me so much of her. If you find yourself forgetting, just look in the mirror. You’ll see her right there, smiling back at you.”

“Audrey, we never deserved you. You know that, right?”

There is pain in my brother’s eyes. The pain of a brother who had no choice but to sit back and let our father hurt me, push and pull me in every which way that he saw fit. He couldn’t protect me because had he stepped in sooner, the retaliation would’ve been downright bloody. “I could have been a better sister,” I concede with a slight shrug. “I could’ve told you about my plans. Maybe then you would’ve known how to react when I left.”

“Nah, Anton must’ve told you already that we kind of knew. It was a matter of when with you, not if. I could tell that you were emotionally exhausted. You’d literally checked out of the family long before you ran off. As angry as I was back then, I couldn’t blame you, Audrey. Not even a little.”

“How bad was it?”

“Oh, it was awful,” he chuckles. “The old man fumed for weeks. He shot two of our house guards simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I had to pay them both off just to keep things in the family. There were already plenty of rumors spreading about Papa flipping out and losing control. The last thing we needed were two bodyguards with bullets in their legs to further cement that theory.”

“I’m sorry.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry about. Like I said, I probably would’ve done the same if I were you,” Vitaly says. “And that prick, Piotr. Wait till I get back to New York. He’s all giddy again, thinking we’re bringing you back so he can marry you. I cannot wait to sit him down and lay the law of the land on his ancient, wrinkly ass.”

I can’t help but smile. “How do you know his ass is wrinkly?”

“Do you have any idea what it’s like to do a Russian sauna with these old fuckers? My God, Audrey, there are things I can never unsee, and there isn’t enough vodka in the world to make me forget.”

We laugh heartily. It’s been a while since we’ve been able to just sit down and reminisce like this. The minutes fly by with memories that Vitaly and I pluck from the recesses of our tired minds—of us as children, of our mother, of the few good moments that we shared in the company of our father.

“What do you think Jason is proposing in there?” I ask my brother after a long silence. I can hear their voices from inside but I can’t make out the words.

“Probably a deal that our father will have no choice but to accept.” He glances down at the gun in his lap. “Lord knows he’s fully aware of his only other option. I don’t want to have to do it.”

“I don’t want you to have to do it.”

He shakes his head. “Jason should’ve just …” he trails off.

“Jason should’ve just killed him, yeah. I understand the sentiment, and I get it. As awful as it sounds, I honestly think we’re allowed to feel whatever we want to feel where Papa’s concerned,” I say to my brother. “He’s the one who backed us into this corner, Vitaly. We’re simply protecting ourselves, our peace, and our future. If he cannot be reasoned with, what else can we do?”

“Except put a sick dog out of its misery, huh?”

“You knew this might happen,” I remind him with a stern tone. “The minute you signed the papers, the minute you sat down with the other Bratva families, you knew this was a possible outcome. Papa doesn’t relinquish control. He says he’ll do it, but he doesn’t know how because he lived his whole life trying to control every single circumstance, every single person within his reach. Letting go of that control means the very end of who he believes he is. That’s why we’re having these issues now. That’s why he can’t let go of me.”

“I considered the possibility, but I just didn’t think it would actually get this far, Audrey. Anton and I swear we tried to talk to him; we tried to reason with him.”

“I did that for years before I left.”

Vitaly lets a bitter smile sit on his lips. “And now I feel precisely the way you felt.”

“Except you have the gun and the spine needed to pull that trigger. All I could do was run and hide.”

“Yet you’re just as brave,” he says, giving me a long, affectionate look. “Mom would be so proud of you. You know that, right?”

I wonder what she might feel about all this as I subtly cradle my belly with both hands, an aching pang tugging at my heart. “I don’t know, Vitaly. Everything seems so uncertain right now. There are things I could’ve handled better myself.”

“She would want you to be happy,” he says. “I want you to be happy. Anton wants you to be happy. And Jason is in there right now, doing everything in his power to make sure you get that freedom to pursue your happiness. That makes him a good man in my book, and Mom would agree. It’s a shame she wasn’t able to meet her grandchild.”

“Yeah.”

Tears prick my eyes. I would’ve loved to turn to our mother for comfort and advice during these trying times. “She would have been helpful today; I’ll tell you that.”

“I think, in a way, she is helping. Her life here on this earth was not without consequence. We are living proof of that, Audrey. We just need to make sure we live accordingly.”

I don’t know when my brother became so wise. Two years ago, he was still arguing with Anton over which fashion magazine cover model would be willing to screw them both on the same night. I guess life got real, really fast, after I left because the man sitting next to me now is not the man I left behind in New York.

Our mother would definitely be proud of Vitaly, though. I’m sure of it. To stand up to our father the way he just did … hell, I think deep down, and despite the threat of death looming over his head, even old Grigori Fedorov is fucking proud of Vitaly.

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