I blink in confusion. “Maybe you like to be in control. Maybe you get off on it.”
“Oh, I do,” he admits freely. “But I don’t need to kidnap women to get them to do what I want. I know an airplane bathroom that can attest to that.”
Embarrassment and shame and something far too close to arousal rolls down my back in hot waves. I groan in frustration. “For God’s sake, would you stop bringing that up?”
He tilts his head to the side. “Why? Does the memory bother you?”
“Obviously.”
What I don’t add is, It’s only my greatest shame and the single sexiest moment of my life wrapped into one.
“It complicates things, doesn’t it?” He leans forward, eyes locked on mine. “Because you wanted to believe in the fairytale I spun that day. But now, I’ve given you too much evidence against it.”
“Don’t flatter yourself.”
“I never do. I’m only telling you what I can see.”
My jaw clenches, but I refuse to drop my gaze. “Oh yeah? Go on, then: what else can you see?”
“A woman who would do anything for her family. Including bargaining away her life for a year to make sure they’re safe.”
The change in subject is jarring, but I roll with it. Anything to avoid talking more about the airplane bathroom. “I don’t recall doing much bargaining. Besides, they would do the same for me.”
He nods. “Believe it or not, I admire that about you all. You, your mother, your sister. Even your irritating fucking brother. In my world, loyalty is the most important thing.”
“My father used to say that,” I whisper. “Well, some version of that. He used to tell us that we needed to look out for each other no matter what. Especially when he wasn’t around anymore.”
“How long has it been since his death?” Aleks asks somberly.
“Seven years. Feels like a lifetime ago and like yesterday at the same time.”
It’s easy to speak the truth as long as I don't look at him. Even though I still feel those eyes burning on me like spotlights.
“You see yourself as living in the past,” he remarks. It’s not really a question. Just a statement of fact as he sees it. “That makes sense.”
I frown. “What makes sense?”
“People who live in the past find it difficult to live at all.”
I glare at him. “You know nothing about my life.”
“I know enough, kiska.”
“No, you don’t,” I argue. “You may know the broad strokes, but you don’t know details. You can’t know someone based on a fucking file folder. People have nuances. I have nuances. At least, I did. Before you stole everything from me.”
“Nuances, hm?” he asks, calling my bluff. “Say more. Paint the picture of your life for me, Olivia.”
I shake my head, trying to pull together a scrapbook of my life in a matter of seconds. Not because he told me to—because fuck him, after all—but because if I don’t take the time to remember it, it’ll start to feel less and less real, more and more distant, until New York is nothing but a fever dream and all that’s left is the cold, hard reality of this nightmare.
The words fall from my lips like snowflakes. “Walks through Central Park beneath the trees. Sketching on my balcony while the sun set behind the skyscrapers. Strolling through museums that never seemed to end, in a city full of people who looked at beautiful art and felt the same way I did about it. Awed by the genius. Proud to be artists in their own right.”
“Sounds lonely.”
I raise my eyebrows. “Just because I was alone doesn’t mean I was lonely.”
“I think you’re lying about that, Olivia. That’s all I saw when I first set eyes on you. How badly you wanted someone to make you feel seen.”
I flinch, thinking about my father’s words. Words he repeated to me countless times in the last year of his life.
Living is for the brave, he said again and again. I’m starting to think he was wrong.
“Living boldly didn’t bring me anything but heartache,” I say aloud. “So now, I live carefully.”
“What is your definition of living boldly?” he asks.
I frown. “It’s not important.”
He smirks. “That’s what I thought.”
That rankles me. “You know what? Spare me your judgment, okay? You’re a freaking Bratva don. Our definitions of ‘bold’ are probably very different. Our perspectives on life are different, too. You live only for yourself. But when you live together as a family, things change.”
“I live for my Bratva,” he corrects.
“That’s not a person,” I counter. “It’s a lifeless fucking thing. I’m not talking about a legacy, Aleks. I’m talking about family. But I wouldn’t expect you to know anything about that.”
He exhales quietly. “You’ve been talking to my mother.”
“You don’t treat her with respect.”
“I don’t tolerate being questioned. Especially not by her.”
“Why? She can’t have opinions, or you just don’t want to have to hear them? Women can know things, too, Aleks. Your mother can know what’s best for you. What’s best for the Bratva. After all, she ran this thing for four years while you were off doing who-the-fuck-knows-what in Russia.”
He goes silent for a moment, his eyes scouring my face. “What else did she tell you?”
Instantly, I know I’ve made a mistake. I shouldn’t have let on that Yulia opened up to me so much. If he starts limiting her visits to me, then I won’t have a single soul in this house left to vent to.
“Nothing,” I mumble. “That’s all.”
“She wasn’t the leader she claims to be,” Aleks says. “She made mistakes.”
“She was learning on the job. Mistakes are part of that.”
“Well, isn’t someone Mommy’s little champion?”
I hate his condescending tone. “She’s the only one here who is kind to me.”
He glances towards the window. “I’ve been hard on her, but it’s because that’s the only way to make her listen. She’s… stubborn.”
“So that’s where you get it from.”
He smiles. “Not every parent-child relationship can be a love story like yours.”
“Mine is a love story without a happy ending,” I tell him. “An ending that I could have prevented.”
He raises an eyebrow curiously. Despite my reservations, I find myself speaking. Saying things I haven’t said since my father died.
“He was diagnosed with a heart condition. Three blocked arteries. The doctor said that his heart was running on fumes. He had a bypass scheduled two days after he was diagnosed. The doctor told all of us to watch him,” I say. “He wasn’t to be left alone. His condition was fragile and we needed to look out for signs of deterioration. But Mom was at church. Mia and Rob didn’t live at home anymore.”
“You were left alone with him?”
I sigh. “I had a party that Dad had known about for weeks. The boy I liked was supposed to be there. Most girls go to their mothers when they have crushes; I went to him. But after the diagnosis, I told him I’d skip the party, obviously.”