Page 50 of Thorns of Lust
“You better hope she lives longer than you,” I said without looking back at him. “If something happens to her, I’ll gut you alive regardless if you are guilty or not.”
Then I walked out the door and locked him in there.
SEVENTEEN
TATIANA
Questions came. Answers didn’t. Time didn’t fly. It dragged in slow motion.
At least it seemed that way.
I was lost. Nothing made sense. Not the information I found on Adrian’s laptop in our home. Not the signature on the funeral documents. Not the necklace that showed up on Christmas along with the password to Adrian’s kingdom.
Maybe Adrian knew he’d die and wanted to protect me by passing along information.
Except, none of it made any sense.
So here I was at Alexei’s penthouse.
Flicking a glance over my shoulder to Yan and Yuri, I nodded, signaling them to stay there. It was okay for them to enter my place, but Alexei preferred nobody outside family to enter his.
My hand shook as I knocked on the door. After the first five knocks came up empty, I raised my hand again, prepared to pound on it, but the door opened before I could make contact.
Alexei stood there with his son on his shoulders, and for a moment, I stared at my brother. Two years ago, I couldn’t have imagined this scenario. I’d bet that neither could he. Yet now there he was - with his own family. Content. Happy even, despite all the horrors life had put him through.
He tilted his head. “Come on in.”
I reached out and brushed my fingers over Kostya’s soft cheek.
“Hey, buddy.” He grinned, then took my finger into his mouth and bit. “Kostya! That’s my finger,” I protested.
“He wants his pacifier back,” Alexei explained. As if that made it ok to bite my finger.
I shook my head, then marched past him and into his penthouse, while nursing my poor finger.
“You’re lucky you’re family, buddy,” I grumbled softly. “Or I’d bite you back.”
The corners of my brother’s lips tugged up.
“Where is Aurora?” I asked, glancing around, expecting her to appear any second.
“She’s meeting her brother for lunch.”
I raised my eyebrow. “You weren’t invited?”
He shrugged. “I was. Byron has some shit going on. Kostya didn’t need to listen to it.”
“Oh.” I wondered what shit Byron Ashford got himself into. Not that it mattered. I had enough problems in my own life. “I could have babysat Kostya.”
The moment I said those words, I realized how dumb they sounded. I had hardly been a reliable sister since Adrian’s death. To Alexei’s credit, he didn’t voice that opinion. Just watched me in that unnerving way that I had gotten used to.
He waited for me to continue. My eyes flickered to Kostya, then back to my brother. Tattoos marked most of his skin, even his face. We shared our eye and hair color, just like Sasha and Vasili. But unlike any of them, I didn’t have any ink on my skin. Their stories were harsher than mine. Compared to them, my life was fairly easy. Minus being a widow.
Sunrays flickered through the floor-to-ceiling windows, throwing shadows on Kostya’s hair, so similar to his father’s. To mine. To Nikola’s. There was no mistaking our family trait. I wondered if my child would have had the same coloring.
A sharp pain pierced a hole through my chest. Bitterness filled it.
“Tatiana.” Alexei’s voice softened, his eyes seeing through me.
