Chapter 41
41
ROMAN
“ I never want to be cold again.” Darya turns her face up to the Spanish sun, sighing in deep contentment. “It’s so good to be home.”
“It’ll be even better after the wedding.” I turn on the sun lounger to face her. The soft swell of her belly is barely noticeable, but it’s an exercise of will not to touch it all the time, particularly now, when she looks absolutely delicious stretching a blue-and-white polka dot bikini in all the right places. I brush my lips across her knuckles, and she blushes in a way that makes me want to pull her inside. “You’re absolutely certain a small wedding is what you want?”
“It’s hardly small.” She casts a wry look at the field next to the finca, where a small army of men are laboring to create the garden wonderland in which we’ll soon make our vows. “By the time we factor in all of your business associates, then Mak and his men, not to mention my brother and his ...” She rolls her eyes. “Your idea of small is very different than mine.”
I snort. “I never planned on having a wedding at all.”
“You have to marry her,” Mickey yells from the pool, grinning at me. “You knocked her up, remember?” He tosses Masha in the air, and she shrieks as she falls back into the water.
“Watch it,” I hiss, casting a wary look in Sergei’s direction. The old man, however, just smiles and claps as Masha surfaces, paddling frantically. Rosa’s presence seems to have had a transformational effect on Sergei’s health, despite the fact that the two of them bicker so much that it’s amusing to watch. His mobility is getting better every day, and his speech is almost completely restored.
I didn’t so much as ask the old man’s permission to marry his daughter as I informed him it was going to happen, in the same conversation I informed him he was going to be a grandfather. To Sergei’s credit, he took both pieces of information with remarkable equanimity.
He almost looked happy.
Not that I give a fuck.
The only happiness I care about is that of Darya and my children. And right now, they all seem in the best spirits I’ve seen them since Miami.
Masha has finally ditched her arm floaties and is paddling across the pool toward Mickey’s waiting arms, cheered on by Sergei. Ofelia is sitting beneath an umbrella opposite us, her booted leg propped up on cushions. Wearing a wide-brimmed sun hat, dark glasses covering her eyes, she’s still pale. She’s also still too thin for my comfort, though Darya assures me her appetite is improving every day. Even thin and pale, and with a heavy boot on her leg, nothing can diminish her extraordinary beauty. I dread to imagine what challenges the next few years will bring. I’m grateful as hell I have Darya beside me to help navigate them. A willing father I might have become, but handling beautiful teenage daughters isn’t something I’m any better prepared for than I ever was.
“You’re getting lazy, brother.” Dimitry collapses in a lounger beside me, grinning. “The geeks at the lab are starting to forget what you look like.”
“Bullshit.” I toss him a beer from the cooler beside me. “I saw Pavel this morning.”
“And we’re going back this afternoon,” Mickey calls from the pool. “Aren’t we, Roman?”
I barely stifle my groan. “I never should have agreed to that.”
Dimitry snorts. “Bet you can’t wait until he gets his license.”
“The day cannot come fast enough, my friend.” It’s not entirely true. I could insist Luis drive Mickey where he wants to go. The truth is that I enjoy the time I spend in the car with him. Mickey’s mind works in a hundred directions at once, most of them leading to interesting places. He’s already working with Pavel to tighten up a number of processes associated with Mercura.
And he’s stayed in close contact with Lars Andersson.
This last is a development I’m not entirely a fan of. Lars will be arriving with Alexei before the wedding, so at least I can finally get the measure of the man who has been side hacking my project for the past few months. I’m not sure whether I want to hit him or shake the man’s hand.
I glance over at Abby, who is walking with Darya into the house to refresh the drinks. “So you’ve convinced her to stay, then?” I ask Dimitry.
His smile fades. “Only until the wedding. She insists she has to go home to Australia, spend some time with her family. But she won’t let me go with her, and I get the feeling it’s just an excuse.”
“You still think there’s more going on with her than what she’s telling you?”
Dimitry shakes his head. “I dunno. Abby doesn’t shake easy, but what went down at Pillars would have knocked anyone sideways.” He shakes his head, expression dark. “I can’t stop her going. I’ve just got to hope she comes back.”
There isn’t much to say to that, so we just shoot the breeze for a while about nothing in particular, until Darya comes out in that ridiculous bikini and I find an excuse to take her upstairs.
“Roman.” It’s the following afternoon when my mother says my name quietly, from the open room where she’s set up an informal workshop. It seems that dressmaking is the one thing that has remained unchanged in her life since my childhood. I’ve found a strange comfort, these past weeks, in hearing the hum of her sewing machine and the snip of scissors through silk. She’s been making Darya’s wedding dress. From the giggles that come endlessly from this room, she’s apparently outdone herself. Not that I’d know. The dress itself is safe behind a screen, which might as well be Fort Knox for all the chances I have of seeing behind it.
“Thank you for making this.” I nod at the screen. “I know it means a lot to Darya.”
“It’s my pleasure.” My mother smiles gently. I feel slightly awkward, as I always do in her presence. We’ve all had time to absorb one another’s stories, to forgive the mistakes of the past. But forgiveness doesn’t take away the pain of more than two decades of absence. I’ve continued calling Rosa by her given name, for example.
Mama is a person who left when I was a child. The name itself is full of pain and abandonment. Rosa , on the other hand, is a kind and compassionate woman, with a rather wicked sense of humor and a core of strength I can’t help but admire. It’s this person I’m getting to know, and who my children have taken to as easily as they once did Darya.
“There’s something I would like you to have.” Rosa opens a drawer on her worktable. “When I left, your father gave me both of these. So I would remember him, he said.” She smiles sadly. “As if I could ever have forgotten Aleksander. He was the very best of men.” She hands me a small drawstring bag. “I’ve had them cleaned.”
I open the bag to find two white gold wedding bands, simple and elegant. On the inside, both are engraved with a lone rose. “Aleksander made them himself,” she says softly. “The rose was from his family crest. It symbolizes hope and love, optimism for the future. I don’t know if you have rings yet or not, but I wanted you to have them anyway.”
“Thank you.” I turn the rings over in my hand, and for a moment it is as if my father’s hands cover my own, large and comforting. “He never forgot you,” I say quietly. “Neither of us did. The house was... empty with you gone.”
Rosa’s eyes cloud over. “I never should have gone.”
“If you had stayed, you would be dead now too.” I take her hand and press it gently. “Instead you are here, giving me my father’s rings and making Darya’s wedding dress. Running was the right choice. The only choice, really.”
It’s taken me a while to get to this conclusion. But the hard truth is that no matter how much I might want to blame both Sergei and my mother for the decisions of the past, I can’t. I know there isn’t anything I wouldn’t do to keep Darya safe. Nor can I avoid the fact that only a few short weeks ago, I was actively helping her run.
While she was pregnant.
I shiver. I might never get used to the horror of that thought.
“If you would allow me to suggest something else?” Rosa looks at me tentatively.
“Of course.” Part of me hates the caution with which we both dance around one another. I’m also horribly aware that nothing but time can fix that hesitancy.
“Maybe talk to Sergei before you take Darya shopping for an engagement ring.”
It’s all I can do to keep an even tone and not roll my eyes. “More secrets?”
She smiles gently. “This one I think you will want to hear.”
I find Sergei sitting in a wide wicker chair on the terrace beyond his bedroom. He stubs his cigarette out hastily when I open the doors, then relaxes when he sees who it is. I wave a bottle of Graf vodka and two glasses, and he smiles appreciatively as I put them down on the coffee table and pour. He looks remarkably cheerful, given the impressive array of bruises on his face, and still bloodied knuckles.
“ Za zdorov’ye .” I raise my glass.
He touches it with his own. “ Za zdorov’ye .”
“I looked up Graf vodka,” I say, glancing at him. “Apparently it was started by a group of guards at the gulag in which you were born?”
Sergei nods, his eyes twinkling. “Our fathers made the original still. By the time your father and I finally left the gulag, we’d been running the business for decades, along with the guards who oversaw it.” He gives me a sideways grin. “I will always take credit for the quality of the vodka. Aleksander and I refined our fathers’ recipe. I like to think we improved on it.”
“Did the Russians know it was you who owned the company?” I ask, curious. “You were exiles. How did you pull it off?”
“Ah.” Sergei lights another cigarette and draws deeply, his pale eyes gleaming. “The gulag never dies, not really. There was always a fine line between those who ran it and those who were imprisoned in it. Especially for men like Aleksander and me, who were born and raised behind those walls.” A ruthless light crosses his face, there and gone. “That’s how we pulled it off , as you put it: power. Guards came and went. But to us, the gulag was our home. Our school. Our world. By the time we left, that world had belonged to us for many years. Men lived and died in the gulag depending on rules we made. We owned secrets and lives that extended far beyond those walls and those years.”
He turns to me, holding my eyes with his own. “Unfortunately, that world followed us into this one. It never left us in peace. In the end, it took your father’s life and stole too much of yours. I failed to stand between that world and you, Roman, just as I failed to protect my children from it. I will never forgive myself for that failure, and I do not expect you to forgive me for it. But I do hope you will allow me to give you this, at least.”
I’m so taken aback by his unexpected apology that I’m temporarily lost for words. Sergei reaches into the pocket of his shirt and pulls out a small box. “Aleksander made this for Maria,” he says quietly. “The diamond in it is from a ring that belonged to my mother, the only thing of value she carried into the gulag. She melted the gold down long before I was born, traded it for survival. But no matter how hungry or desperate she became, she never traded the diamond.”
I open the box. The square-cut diamond is simple, but also of perfect quality. It is the lone feature of the elegant white gold ring.
“I understand if you both wish to have no more association with the past.” He lights another cigarette, blowing a stream of smoke over the valley. “But that diamond belongs to Darya either way. And Aleksander always said that ring was some of his best work.” He lifts a shoulder, his eyes softening. “Beauty never ceased to matter to your father, regardless of the savagery that surrounded us. Aleksander was... different.” He sounds almost wistful.
I think of my peaceful father, the gentle movement of his hands on metal, the soft touch as he guided my own.
I remember the resignation on his face the day the Orlovs strangled the life from his body.
And then I think of standing in front of Mikhail and taking the bullet that was meant for him. The first of many I would take to keep him alive, right up until a bomb I didn’t foresee ended his life forever. My guilt over that failure has haunted me every day since his death. It almost stopped me from being able to give his children the love they deserve.
I know how heavy it is to carry the responsibility for lives other than your own. And I know the pain of failing to protect them.
I stare out at the mountains opposite, the late-afternoon sun turning them buttery yellow. “Perhaps,” I say slowly, “my father was able to be different because he had you to protect him.”
Sergei makes a dismissive noise and shifts restlessly in his chair. “Aleksander was the best of men.” He says it with a finality that is meant to end the conversation.
I stifle a smile. It isn’t lost on me that those words are the exact ones my mother also recently used to describe Papa.
“Thank you for this.” I hold up the box, very aware that I’m still holding off asking the questions I really want to. Instead I say, “I have been talking with your son these past few days.”
Sergei nods, but doesn’t say anything.
“Alexei will be arriving soon.” I choose my words carefully. “There are matters we would both like to see settled before the wedding.”
He smiles faintly. “Go ahead and ask your questions, Roman. I will answer anything you wish.”
Part of me thinks I should wait until Darya is with me. But another part of me needs to hear this alone, to learn my father’s story for myself.
“What happened in Paris?” It isn’t the question I thought I’d ask, but it’s the first one that comes. “Darya told me about the crates of Graf vodka, and returning the treasures to the families who had entrusted them to you. I know that Fedorov eventually found you. How did you survive? Why didn’t you and my father die in the fire?”
“The night he came for our families, Fedorov had Aleksander and me arrested.” All trace of his previous warmth disappears the moment he speaks Fedorov’s name. Sergei’s voice is hard, his breathing hoarse. It’s unexpectedly difficult to see the sudden, fierce agony in his face. “Fedorov owned enough Parisienne police to have Aleksander and me locked up for the night on trumped-up charges. In the morning, he came to see us in our cell. He offered us a deal: he’d leave our families alone if we handed over the rest of the treasure. Your father had two children, a boy and a girl. I had three. My eldest was a girl, Irina. She was eight.”
He swallows his glass of vodka, his eyes closed. Then he takes a deep breath and begins again.
“We agreed to his deal, of course. Promises to our fathers aside, we had tried to leave the gulag behind us. We both knew nothing was more important than keeping our families safe. We led Fedorov to the Graf warehouse and watched while he took all the remaining pieces, which was no inconsiderable fortune.”
He pauses. I refill his glass.
“We didn’t realize it was already too late.” He stares through the glass to a past I can’t see, his face gaunt. “Fedorov never had any intention of allowing our families to live. He’d already killed them all and burned our businesses to the ground. After the warehouse, he took Aleksander and me to look at the smoldering ashes that remained. He left us there, on our knees, staring at the rubble where our lives had been. I imagine he thought we’d never rise up off that ground, and he was almost right.”
Blyat.
I’ve seen a lot of pain in my life, a lot I wish I could unsee. But I can’t imagine standing before the burned bodies of Darya and my children. I don’t want to. Even the thought makes me want to cross myself, and I was never raised a Catholic. I have a compulsive urge to make some kind of sign to ward off evil.
“Exactly.” I realize Sergei is watching me, old pain etched deeply on every line of his face. “Now maybe you understand why we did not speak of this. Such evil should be buried and forgotten.” He grimaces. “Along with all that followed that night.” He turns the vodka glass on the table, his mouth a hard line. “I will not go into details of what we did,” he says bluntly. “Other than to say that instead of dying, Aleksander and I chose revenge. Maybe it was the gulag in us, maybe the steppe, but neither of us were able to just give up. Instead we destroyed Fedorov’s empire, piece by piece. We burned every business he had to the ground. We took back every single piece he had stolen, avenged every family he had tortured or ruined. Only Fedorov himself escaped us. Paris whispered he had died in one of our last attacks, but we had no evidence to support the whispers. Fedorov was elusive, and after a time, we realized that if he wasn’t already dead, he was certainly gone. Aleksander and I left Paris; there was nothing left there for us. We came to Miami. We tried to start again.”
His voice is hoarse, starting to slur, but he waves me away when I mention he can stop if he wants.
“Let it be said,” he rasps, tossing the vodka off like it is water. “Then done. What else do you wish to know?”
I pour us both another glass. “Promises to your fathers aside, why didn’t you just get rid of the treasure, after all the trouble it had caused you?”
Sergei nods. “We talked about it. Discussed donating the entirety to a museum, or selling each piece off privately and creating a fund we could invite the remaining descendants to join. But every plan had an obstacle, a downside. They all risked exposing us. Both of us were wanted men. The KGB were still searching for us. The French authorities would have killed us on sight. And if the Americans had any idea of our true identities, we’d be jailed for the rest of our lives. Whatever our crimes, we’d spent more than enough time behind bars. Neither of us wanted to risk it again.
“The few Russians in Miami back then knew nothing of our history, and of course we had new names. Aleksander wanted a simple life; he always had. He built a small but respectable business doing jewelry repairs and making safes for small businesses. I... It wasn’t so simple for me.” He shakes his head. “Paris had taught me that a simple life couldn’t ever be mine, not so long as we had a fortune in lost treasure. And after all that had been lost, after the exile and name changes and all the death, those treasures seemed the only real thing, the one solid reality in a life of smoke and mirrors. I knew crime; I’d inhaled it with my first breath, lived among violent men in the gulag for as long as I could remember. And I was angry.
“So I ran a few card games, got into a lot of fights. I was running close to spending the rest of my life in prison, whether I planned it or not, and I was getting to the point where I no longer cared.
“Then one day, when I was sitting in Aleksander’s shop drinking vodka, a young girl came in with a broken necklace for repair.” His mouth twists in a smile of reminiscence. “Aleksander and I stared at the necklace in shock. We both recognized the piece as one we’d returned to a woman in France many years before. Aleksander asked the girl a few questions. It turned out the necklace had, quite literally, saved the girl’s mother’s life. She’d been alone and pregnant, with nowhere to go but the Paris gutters, which back then was death sentence enough in itself.
“Instead, she sold one of the diamonds in the necklace and bought a ticket to the US. Started a ballet school, which subsequently became one of Miami’s most popular. The girl told us her mother prized that necklace more than anything in her life. That she still talked about her miraculous delivery from certain death. She was superstitious, like so many Russians. She told her daughter that Russian émigrés like her had been raised on stories of the angely vodki , the ‘vodka angels.’ She said there were countless tales of lives saved, and changed, by a crate of Graf vodka at the door.”
He lifts a shoulder, smiling wryly. “She also mentioned that nobody could seem to get Graf vodka anymore.”
“Do you still own Graf?” I eye him curiously.
“You will have to ask my son when he arrives.” Sergei laughs softly. “He is pakhan now. After all the treasures had been returned to us in Paris, we’d walked away from the vodka business, but it was a simple enough matter to buy it back under a different name. And just like that, I knew what my next step was. I set up an import-export business the next day, behind a false business wall, of course. Only this time, I understood the risk I was taking. And I made sure Aleksander was nowhere near it. He’d worked hard for a simple life, and he’d earned the right to live it peacefully.”
He turns the vodka glass on the table. The rasp in his voice has gone, as have the slurred edges. Sergei’s eyes are a piercing, fierce blue, as if speaking of those years has brought back the life force that drove him through them. “I was smarter,” he says slowly. “I knew that so long as our fortune existed, men with guns would want it. Money and riches are like that; no matter how well they are hidden, greedy men will seek them out. Perhaps Fedorov was dead, and perhaps not. Either way, I knew it was only a matter of time before I drew the attention of violent men again.
“So I didn’t try to hide. I didn’t try to build a simple life. Instead, I built an army. I built a fortress. I built one of the biggest, hardest criminal empires Miami had ever seen, and the Petrovsky legend was created.” His face is animated, once again the fierce pakhan . “I swore that no matter how long it took, I would make sure every one of those treasures was returned to a rightful heir. And this time, I would make sure Aleksander was kept far away from the process. The decision was mine, and so would be the risk.” He smiles with real affection. “But we had been partners, brothers, our whole lives. Aleksander didn’t like the idea of leaving the responsibility of our joint promise on my shoulders. In the end, we compromised: he would build a vault as secure as the one his father had once built for mine, back in Russia. A place to store the treasures safely until they were all distributed.” He pauses, staring at the glass, his smile fading. “And he made another promise. Or rather, we made a promise to each other. We swore the Naryshkin legacy would die with us. Neither of us had either a wife or children at that time. We never imagined we would again. Aleksander and I promised one another that, on our deaths, the master lock would be set by code on the vault, and nobody would ever enter it again.
“Then Aleksander met Rosa.” Sergei’s mouth tightens. “Soon after they were married, you were born, Roman.”
Is it just me, or does his smile seem forced?
“Shortly after that, Aleksander’s business was broken into.” I stare at him, surprised. This part of the story I know nothing about.
“To anyone else,” Sergei continues, “the break-in might have seemed insignificant, just a crime of opportunity. But not to us. For the first time, we began to consider that Fedorov might still be alive—and hunting us.
“The night of the break-in was the evening after your christening, Roman. Aleksander and Rosa had come to celebrate at my compound and were staying the night. It was sheer luck that they were not home. Maria, Rosa’s closest friend, was visiting for your christening.” He stares at the table, his face inscrutable. “We’d only met once before that night, at Rosa and Aleksander’s wedding. After that night, however, I was afraid for her safety. Maria never went back to Rosa’s house. We were married barely weeks later.”
He says this in a matter-of-fact tone, almost as if marrying Maria was just another part of taking care of business. I notice that while he always speaks about Maria with affection, there’s none of the intensity that was present when he spoke about his first wife in Paris, nor even the reverence with which he spoke about Aleksander meeting Rosa. I don’t doubt that Sergei loved his wife. But I can’t help but feel that marrying her had more to do with keeping her safe than a dramatic love story.
Then again , I think, closing my eyes briefly as Darya’s face swims across my mind, maybe I’m just biased. God knows I’ve lived my entire life, until recently, believing love was a myth. If I hadn’t met Darya, I might still believe that. Who am I to judge?
“Back in Paris, Fedorov had come for our families before we had a chance to get them to safety. We were determined that would never happen again. The fingerprints were our solution, our fail-safe, should everything go wrong. If by some chance we were to die, or were captured, the keys and fingerprints were a bargaining chip, something our children could use to survive, if it came to it. So, to answer your question properly, Roman.”
He looks up, holding my eyes. “We didn’t tie your fingerprints to the vault to keep the contents of it safe. We put them there so that if you ever needed to trade something for your freedom, you could.” His mouth twists. “We thought we had made you too valuable to kill,” he says softly. “It never occurred to us that we had also turned you into bait.”
The day is growing late, dusk falling over the terrace. A bird caws in the distance, a sad cry that echoes the tragic past my father and Darya’s have lived.
“Would you object to me telling Darya this story?” I ask him.
“No.” Sergei shakes his head and lights another cigarette, his hand shaking slightly. “It’s probably better if you do the telling.”
“I will also need to speak to Alexei.” I meet his sharp look calmly. “We need to decide what to do. This is no longer your decision, Sergei. It’s ours.”
He draws on his cigarette, then nods reluctantly. “I accept that.”
“Good.” I pour us both another glass, and we clink them together, drinking a silent toast to that decision.
“You never told Vilnus Orlov that my father hid a key. Not even when they tortured your wife and your children. You never told Alexei there even was a key—and you never told him about the one that Rosa hid.” I glance at Sergei curiously, but he stares straight ahead, his face as inscrutable a mask as his damn son’s. “It was Rosa herself who finally told Alexei the truth, first when she came through the tunnels, and later when she told him where the key was. You never betrayed her secret, even when it could have saved you and your children.”
Still he doesn’t speak.
“You had no reason to protect me all those years. You didn’t believe that I was alive. You thought you’d seen my ashes beside my father’s.”
Sergei flinches, his eyes closing briefly at the mention of my father.
“That means there was someone else you were protecting.” I clip the end of a cigar and light it, watching the smoke curl into the fading day. “How long have you loved Rosa?” I ask conversationally.
Sergei’s head snaps around, his eyes blazing into mine. Then he swallows hard, clasps his hands, and turns away from me. It all happens in a second. As quickly as his emotions betray him, he regains control.
I know that trick. I’ve done it myself a time or two.
“I see the way you and Rosa look at each other.” I swallow more vodka and pour us both another glass. “Not to mention the way the two of you fight. People only fight like that with those they care for deeply.” I grin. “I should know. I’ve fought with your daughter like that since the day we met.”
He clears his throat uncomfortably. “This isn’t appropriate—” he begins.
“You married Maria to keep her safe,” I cut him off. “But that wasn’t because you were in love with her, was it, Sergei? It was because you knew it would make my mother happy to know her friend was safe.”
When he doesn’t immediately answer, I glance sideways. It’s hard to be certain, but I suspect the red tinge on his cheeks has nothing to do with the rose-colored sky.
“Maria and I had a good marriage,” he says solidly. “She was a lovely person. We were blessed with beautiful children.”
I stifle a smile. “I have no doubt you made her very happy.” I glance at him again, but he stares stubbornly straight ahead, refusing to meet my eyes. “That doesn’t change how you feel about my mother. Did it happen before or after my father died?”
Sergei rounds on me at that, his eyes flashing. “Don’t ever suggest such a thing to me again,” he says, his voice shaking with anger. “Your mother is the most honorable woman I know. She would never have betrayed Aleksander like that. Neither of us would.”
I incline my head in apology and don’t ask anything more. A few moments pass, then Sergei turns to me.
“I met Rosa before your father did.” His voice is hoarse. I’m almost certain he has never spoken of this to anyone. “She worked at a dressmaker’s near Aleksander’s shop. I went in to have a suit mended, and we began talking.” He looks away, clasping his hands in front of him. “We talked all night,” he says slowly. “In the end she locked the shop and made tea, and we talked until the sun came up. And then I left and never went back.”
I turn to him in surprise. His eyes, when they meet mine, are resigned. “The next time I met her was a year later—when your father introduced her to me as the woman he planned to marry.”
I digest this in silence, the tip of my cigar glowing in the dusk. After a while, I say, “It was Paris, wasn’t it? The reason you left and didn’t go back.”
He doesn’t answer, but I know by the hard line of his mouth that I’m right. He couldn’t risk loving deeply again, not after the way it had ended the first time. I understand that. I’m not sure I could either, if I ever lost Darya.
I suppress a shudder.
“And afterward,” I say, “when you met her the second time, it was too late. You wouldn’t do anything to hurt my father.” I look at him curiously. “Did you and my mother ever discuss this again?”
“No,” Sergei says shortly. “It would not have been... right.”
“Well, I think that’s bullshit.” I draw on my cigar, ignoring the sudden, lethal stillness that betrays his tension. “More than twenty years have passed since my father died. It’s been a decade or more since Maria died. Neither you or my mother are getting any younger. And I doubt either of your children wish you anything but happiness.”
Sergei presses his lips together. His fingers are clasped tightly in front of him, and he stares straight ahead, his face still inscrutable.
“I know something about avoiding love.” I smile wryly at him. “Up until pretty recently, I was determined to outrun it. But if the past few months have taught us all anything, Sergei, it’s that love is the only thing that really matters. Even for men like us.” I tilt my head. “And if you ever remind me I said that, I will be forced to shoot you.”
He gives a huff of laughter.
I stand up, crushing my cigar in the ashtray by his chair. “You weren’t to blame for my father’s death, Sergei,” I say quietly. “No more than you, or my mother, were to blame for what happened to me. I’m not a priest, and you never asked for my forgiveness.” I put my hand out. “But for what it’s worth, you have it.”
He puts his hands on the arms of the wicker chair and pushes himself to standing. “I’ve been practicing,” he says wryly, seeing my surprise. “I will not be so feeble that I cannot walk my own daughter down the aisle.” He puts his hand out and grips mine. “I thank you, Roman Alexandervitch,” he says simply. “Your father would be proud of the man you have become, just as I am grateful that my daughter is marrying such a man.”
“It is I who am grateful, Sergei Naryshkin,” I say formally. “I will always protect your daughter. I want you to know that.”
He nods once. “I do.”
I leave him there on the terrace and slip back inside.
Much later, when I am heading upstairs to find Darya, I notice my mother sitting in the chair I recently vacated, watching the night grow with Sergei.