Page 71 of Bound in Blood
Logan ducked behind the bar, rubbing at his eyes one last time before reaching for a towel. Vik made a show of stepping aside, but Marco noticed how he didn’t stray far. Just leaned against the back counter and offered quiet guidance when Logan’s fingers hesitated over the wrong bottle.
He was giving Logan something to do with his hands, something to focus on other than the door.
Smart, that one. Marco would have to thank him later.
Beside him, Alexei sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose like he’d aged a hundred years in the last ten minutes. Maybe he had. Marco felt it too—tired in a way that sleep couldn’t fix. Tired in his bones, in his blood, in the memory of a brother’s grief he couldn’t quite patch back together.
“He’s going to beat himself up all night,” Marco said quietly.
“Let him,” Alexei replied, just as quiet. “Sometimes guilt makes the apology real.”
Marco hummed low in his throat, unsure how he felt about that.
Across the room, Logan was biting his lip as he stirred something in a glass. His shoulders were hunched like he was trying to disappear into himself. Marco couldn’t stand the sight of it.
“Why’d you go with him?” Marco asked Alexei, leveling him with a stare, giving him no room to questionwhoMarco was talking about.
Alexei thought for a moment, not like he didn’t know the answer, but like he didn’t know how to explain it. “I have been alone long enough to know how self-destructive someone can be without a reminder that people care.”
“What do you mean by that? You’ve never been alone. You had Isabella’s group before us, right?” Marco tilted his head in confusion.
“Yes, but believe it or not, I didn’t come by this accent and name by watching Russian movies.” Alexei rolled his eyes. “I have been around more than thrice the amount of time I’ve known you.”
Marco blinked. It wasn’t as if he’d never considered Alexei’s age, but Alexei was such a closed book that being offered up any information so freely felt precious. Like discovering a rare gemstone.
Alexei continued, softer now. “A lot of that time, I was lost. I didn’t speak. Your brother and I are kindred spirits, I think. Except he wears his anger where everyone can see it.”
“So when he ran to Boston…”
“I saw the signs,” Alexei said simply. “He was fraying at the edges, even back then. Too many years of being the strong one. The protector. Eventually, even the strongest person snaps.”
Marco looked away. It wasn’t like he didn’t know that already, deep down. He just hadn’t wanted to believe it was happening to Mateo. Not again.
“He thought I was choosing Jiro over him,” Marco admitted, voice barely above a whisper. God, he hadn’t even said the other man’s name in decades. “And the worst part is… maybe I was. Not on purpose, but…”
“You were in love,” Alexei said, shrugging. “We’ve all done foolish things for love.”
Marco glanced over at Logan, who was still hunched over the bar, watching Vik fail to make a drink the way Logan thought he should. Logan scrunched up his nose, bunching all the freckles together as he shook his head, the tiniest grin playing on his face, instructing Vik to try again.
“I’m not sure I really knew what love meant back then.”
Alexei followed Marco’s gaze, eyes resting on Logan for a long moment before replying, “Maybe not. But you’ve got the chance to try again and do it right this time.”
Marco let the words settle between them. He thought of how Logan had looked earlier—brave and shaking and furious and heartbroken all at once. How he’d still stood his ground. How he’d cried but hadn’t backed down. How he still wanted to forgive.
That was love, wasn’t it? Not the grand gestures. Not the dramatic declarations. Just…staying.Even when it hurt.
“I just hope he can forgive Mateo,” he sighed, scrubbing a hand over his face. “I think Logan has been waiting for the other shoe to drop since the wholematething dropped into his lap.”
“He will, if he hasn’t already,” Alexei said, tone sure. “Logan is not the grudge type.”
Marco smiled faintly. “What did either of us do to deserve him?”
“You don’t,” Alexei replied flatly. “But you have several lifetimes to make up for that fact.”
Marco glanced back toward the bar again, watching as Logan passed Vik a drink with all the focus of someone trying to rebuild a shattered world one shaker at a time. When Vik tasted it and gave a thumbs up, Logan lit up just a little. Barely there, but it was something. A flicker. A flame not quite snuffed.
He’d hold onto that.
