Page 20 of Vitaly

Now, fifty degrees feels like spring.

I stare at her name carved into the stone.

Nina Ivanov Petrov - Devoted wife and mother

Footsteps crunch on the gravel path, and I tilt my head ever so slightly that way but don’t turn. My eyes stay on my mother’s name.

The person steps up next to me, her perfume drifting with the faint breeze.

“I thought I might find you here.”

I don’t recognize her voice, but when I turn, I spot my aunt’s face.

I haven’t seen Sophie since I was a little boy, long before I was sent away. Her arms are wrapped around herself as she lifts her tight lips, a sadness in her eyes that makes me want to frown. So many people look different, but she looks the same, even after … fifteen years?

I turn back to the grave. “They let you come back.”

Her feet shuffle. “A few years ago when my father died and Nikita took over.”

I nod.

We stand in silence for several moments, Sophie rubbing her arms uncomfortably until she sighs and drops her hands. “What are you doing here, Vitaly?”

I gesture to the stone. “Is it not obvious?”

“I mean in Vegas,” she says impatiently. “It isn’t safe for you here. You must know that.”

“How didyouknow I was here?”

Did Mila tell her?

Are they friends?

Sisters-in-lawas Mila claims?

“Nikita called to warn me. He thinks you’re here to dethrone him and that you’d use me to get to him.”

“Hmm.”

“Vitaly.”

Taking a deep inhale, I point to the grave. “How did she die?”

Sophie doesn’t answer. I take in her pitiful face, her arms crossed over her chest.

I hold her stare, but the longer she takes to answer, the further my stomach drops until it’s sunk into my feet. I can see the dark truth written in her sullen eyes.

“They killed her,” I say, my voice smooth even as my chest threatens to quake.

Putting Petrov as her last name on the headstone…Devoted wife and mother. I’m surprised the Petrovs allowed it.

Sophie shakes her head, making my eyes constrict with confusion.

“Not exactly, no… I um…” She tucks a loose strand of blonde hair behind her ear. “I wasn’t around when it happened, but Nikita told me about it.”

I turn back to the headstone, my face pinching as I grunt.

“She’s the reason I got to come back, Vitaly. He wouldn’t make up a story about it. Not to me.”

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