Chapter 25 – Egor
Two Weeks Later
“My cousin tried this one, based on my recommendations, of course.”
The plastic smile on her face was not wavering as she glanced over her shoulder, pointing to the large screen on the wall. With a click on the remote, the slides made a smooth transition, replacing the previous text-filled page with a picture of a happy man and woman bathed in a cloud of pink color. “They had a baby girl.”
She—the professional event planner, Ms. Alex Barnett—looked back to us with that same darn plastic smile, her porcelain skin glowing under the faint illumination from the screen as her arms moved, gesturing as she spoke.
“They opted for the fog machine, which turned out to be a much safer alternative than the smoke bombs, and also tried Taking a Swing . You know, that’s the one where you can decide to fill up plastic baseballs or golf balls with color. So, um, when you take a swing, the balls break, and—”
“Yeah, we get it,” came the impressed voice on my right. My brother’s.
Beside me, Niko’s eyes didn’t leave hers. His gaze coasted her skin-tight black dress that hugged her little figure. Her brown hair in waves over her shoulder, not as long as Freya’s, including her dark eyes and red lipstick. He ogled everything, thoroughly assessing like some examiner ready to award marks.
With one leg hoisted up over the other, he gave a carefree shrug with his shoulder and tucked his hands into the oversized pockets shielding his torso, and the seriousness on his face faded when he smirked—at her.
And although he was draped in an old black Scooby-Doo hoodie and a pair of jeans, she worshipped him—or, more accurately, eye-fucked him like he was a celestial being descending from open skies with golden wings and a halo.
This was no matter of green lights or red lights. The lights were level-one shit for amateurs. What these two had was a fuck-me fire alarm going off in the room. And it had been going off for one long hour now.
“Why don’t we try something else?” he offered.
Mrs. Barnett pursed her lips and blinked her big brown doe eyes like she’d been drawn out from a trance. “Something else?”
The immediate rush of red heat that crept up her cheeks indicated that she didn’t intend to sound that raw. So, to save herself, including the shred of dignity she had left, she cleared her throat and returned en route to sounding more learned.
“I mean, of course, the client or family of the client can make suggestions, as well, and in some cases, helpful recommendations. I’m here to do whatever pleases you. You all. ”
On my left, Anatoly quirked an intrigued brow, and I thought I heard her mumble “shit” under her breath. You’d have expected the professional to handle these kinds of advances professionally .
Nikolai laughed and carded his fingers through his hair, the sound sending warmer signals, obviously to ease her nerves.
“Lingerie.” A smothering look settled in his eyes when he lowered his voice. “I was thinking lingerie. Let’s say, hypothetically speaking, you are the wife, and I, the husband. For this…thing, you, the wife, could hypothetically decide to wear the color as the lingerie, and I’d hypothetically peel off that gown of yours for the big reveal.”
If I’d thought porcelain skin couldn’t turn red before, I stood to be corrected. She licked her lips, her eyes cautiously darting across the room.
“But…but we can’t do that sort of reveal in public.”
“That’s the point.”
Okay, that’s it.
My last thread of patience had officially snapped. A strange, hybrid sound, both growl and bark, ripped from my throat. “Remind me again why the fuck we’re doing this?”
Two pairs of eyes, brown and dark, snapped to me, and I watched their small little bubble dissolve around them until they were back and alert. They finally remembered that I was in the room.
Niko comported his features and straightened on his chair, his dark brows forming an uneven knot on his forehead when he raised one.
“What do you mean? You asked for my help. I’m helping.”
He was right. I had called him for help. Literally . The night after we returned to the house. The night after the big scare. I’d replayed everything Dr. Millie told us about taking care of her health: her diet, the environment, ensuring she was happy. That part stuck. For the sake of our baby, or so I had convinced myself, I needed her to be stress-free. That was why I called the one person I believed knew more about women’s shit than I did.
My brother, Nikolai.
Since we were both younger, we had been that way. While I was more invested in hard work, actual business, and throwing myself into the physical and psychological toll our type of life offered, he preferred things smoother, smarter, and less greasy, although he knew how to get his hands dirty when he needed to. A few times, I’d believed he consciously tried to top the charts by being more ferocious than I could be, especially when he was mad. If Freya thought I was a monster, she wouldn’t have wanted to see my brother when he got upset. All that charm was nothing but a fa?ade, a mask hiding the real Niko. The one with all the pent-up fury I was sure the world could not handle.
Regardless, he always had been the ladies’ man, with the smooth lines, charisma, and everything else that could pull them on their knees and between his legs in less than sixty seconds. And when any one of them bothered to look deeper, after they discovered there was more to meet the eyes than pearly white teeth, rogue tattoos, and Yamaha superbikes, they grew clingier than grass seeds.
Fast forward to the present moment. From outside, bass thumps reverberated through the thick coffee-brown walls, and muffled echoes of music sliced through the momentary quiet.
My call for help was why we sat in this private meeting room in Skyline, his nightclub, in West Hollywood, LA.
“Yeah, I did, and the last time I checked, I was the client, not you. I asked how to make my wife happy because I want her to have a stable pregnancy, and yet, dear brother, I still don’t understand what the fuck is going on.”
Ms. Barnett squirmed in her polished loafers and fiddled with her fingers, keeping her head low to avoid the scorching heat, which had absolutely nothing to do with their fire alarm.
Niko held my eyes, his mouth forming a wry line and his eyes rolling, silently suggesting that I was overreacting. Even if, I dare say, I wasn’t.
“And that’s what the lovely lady here is doing. She’s showing us ways to be romantic.”
Anatoly coughed out a short laugh at the same time I said, “What the fuck?”
Romantic?
Romantic?
What the fuck was that? What did it even mean?
Weapons, I could handle. Shitty government officials and top-secret information, I was used to. The fucking Feds, I could deal with. Romance? That was fucking alien, Area 51 conspiracy business, and not my fucking turf.
However, it was somehow related to the reason why I was seated on a chair, facing a projector screen, and listening to some life-sized doll with certified qualifications in event planning and management while she rambled about baby gender reveal ideas.
Rather dramatically, Niko shot up from his chair and peeled the black hoodie over his head from the neck.
“It’s quite hot in here,” he huffed.
No, it wasn’t.
I rubbed between my eyes. “The air-conditioning is working perfectly, Niko.”
“Says you.”
The hoodie rode up and tugged on the white round-neck vest he wore inside, revealing a glimpse of the midnight-blue and black butterflies-choked-on-thorns tattoo crafted across his back. Barnett didn’t miss it, and her skin flushed to a deep, rich red, like the vibrant color of a ripe bell pepper.
With that arrogant, all-knowing cocky grin of his, as huge as his head, he tossed the thick piece of cloth on his vacant seat and walked up to her, unnecessarily leaning in close to ease the remote out of her grasp.
I massaged my temple, gritting my teeth. “Oh, my fucking… Nikolai !”
“Shit. Jeez.” He rolled his eyes and stepped away to point at the screen. “You don’t have to bark so loud. I’m in the same fucking room; I can hear you.”
“Wrap this shit up. You’ve wasted my time enough.”
“Your presentation was perfect, darling.” He smiled at the brunette and glared at me. “ Korol , this party is the fucking answer to your cries.”
“I don’t remember crying….”
“You want something that will take her mind off the torture and pain you put her through.” I narrowed my eyes, but he ignored me, continuing the presentation with the passion of a salesman working his ass off to get the deal. “And this is it. Surprise her, invite her friends and family, eat fucking cake. The point is, there are lots of ways to do this.”
Without missing a beat, he continued, “You can pop a fucking balloon, get a smoke machine, fill a pinata. Alex mentioned something about confetti, making handprint art, or just opening a fucking box. Dude, just let your fucking guard down a little, for your baby’s sake.”
He added that last part with a look that revealed more than he said—more than I refused to acknowledge.
I stared at him. “And you chose to have this important meeting in your club.”
All he offered was a quick nod. “Yeah. Now, back to the urgent shit. This sounds great on paper and screen and in theory, but a lot of work goes into the actual planning of this thing. Right, babe?”
Hearing him call her babe seemed to revive her from whatever world she’d gotten lost in while gaping at him as if he were some sort of god. At the same time, it worsened her case of red-skin syndrome.
“Yes…uh, right,” she stuttered, and he winked.
“See?” His eyes found mine again. “We have to start now with the details. Alex, over to you.”
He returned to his chair, wearing his hoodie with a cheesy grin that meant a fine piece of ass was guaranteed for the night. At the same time, the package in question continued the session by firing off more questions, listing things like cake, number of visitors expected, preferred styles and designs, and any vendors in mind.
Arlo, who had been quiet throughout the conversation, working on his laptop behind us, finally voiced out, and his comment was hurled straight at me.
“We can’t do anything without knowing her favorite color first. That would usually help when making further decisions.”
Fucking great .
It turned out my lawyer also had a fair share of knowledge when it came to dealing with women. But what irked me was not the sudden display of expertise but rather the pin-drop silence that followed immediately after his suggestion.
My silence. Because I’d lived in the same house with the woman for months and didn’t know her fucking favorite color.
“Lilac.”
All eyes turned to my left, where Anatoly sat, disregarding our curiosity with a casual shrug. “That’s her favorite color.”
A burning feeling, with stings like jealousy, spread through me when I realized he knew something I didn’t. It didn’t make sense, but I felt he had entered a private space, leaving me out of something important.
“And how the fuck do you even know that?”
If my sharp retort fazed him, he didn’t so much as flinch. “Back in Moscow. One day, I heard her tell Anna that lilac was such an underrated color, and it made the world a much more beautiful place.”
Before I could interrogate him further, I remembered the withering lilac bouquet she’d held on our wedding day with tears in her eyes, and it made sense. Anna must have gotten them for her.
Whatever happened now was like a wake-up call. The veil lifted from my eyes, enabling me to see parallels between my distance from Freya and the rift my absence had caused. I tried to ignore the nagging feeling inside, but I couldn’t, and it ate deep, leaving me feeling disconnected and uncertain about a lot of things.
But most importantly, how to bridge the gap.