Chapter 26 Natalie
NATALIE
Two weeks after I returned to the penthouse, I sat with Claire in her building.
We were in the massive ballroom, watching Anya teach Maisie more of how to play the piano.
Once again, I was entertained by how silly my daughter was while she could still be a diligent student and pay attention.
She had bonded so well with the teenager, and I saw how much Anya enjoyed having her around too.
Yet, while I sat here, I couldn’t forget the last time I was here and how that night had ended.
Every time I came into this massive room for Maisie’s piano practice, I remembered how I’d gone outside on the balcony and happened to overhear the truth about how my husband had been killed, and by whose pull of the trigger.
Claire noticed my mood. And she didn’t laugh at my reminder or think it was stupid after I told her about what I was thinking about.
“Anya has that same problem. About this room, actually. I suspect it’s why she always asked me if I’d listen to her play, so she wouldn’t be alone in here. I think it’s why she loves teaching Maisie here, too.”
I looked at her, curious.
“She was almost shot and kidnapped out of this room.” She pointed at the massive grand piano. “Mikhail had to order a replica of the one that was shot up while he protected her.”
I couldn’t help but glance around the room nervously. It was such a huge, cavernous place. There are a lot of windows…
“He also added plenty of extra security measures,” she said, patting my knee. "But it’s natural to have a traumatic incident color a scene.” She shrugged. “If I were to return to the ER, I’d experience that too.”
“It sounds like leaving your job was a blessing, then.”
“It was. And it’s also natural to let go, too. To heal and grow with our past behind us, not bogging us down.”
I frowned, watching Maisie and marveling that we were here. “I want to,” I admitted.
She smiled gently. “Then perhaps, next week, my wedding here can be another, newer, and brighter memory to patch over the old. I look forward to it. We all do.”
I couldn’t help but smile with her. Meeting Claire made this new phase of my life so much easier.
It wasn’t a one-sided fondness, either. She confided in me before that she wished she had been here when I heard that detail about my late husband’s death.
She hated that she hadn’t been here for me because I was here for her.
As an outsider integrated into the family, she lacked having anyone else to fully understand the struggles she faced fitting in.
I did.
I was a fellow “normal” person brought into this violent world the Orlovs ruled. I saw how happy she was to have me experience this life with her.
“It will be a lovely day,” I agreed. Instead of immediately thinking back to my wedding with Fitz so many years ago, I imagined hers.
As she’d walk down the aisle in this room to Mikhail.
Wearing that gorgeous gown and her baby bump there.
The friends and family surrounding them so close to Christmas.
But when my mind shifted to Sergei, as it always did, I hated how easily I could picture him waiting at the end of an aisle for me.
I let out a deep sigh and slouched.
“Still not talking to Sergei?” Claire guessed.
I was amazed about how good she was at reading me. We truly clicked like the best of friends.
I shook my head. “At this point, I’m not even sure if I’d know what to say.”
“Easy. You tell him how you feel.”
That wasn’t easy. My feelings were so conflicted.
Being here reminded me of how lucky I was. Alive and not captured. With my daughter instead of being separated. Free to focus on being her mom and not holding down a job I didn’t want. I was cared for and protected.
I wanted to hate that Fitz’s killer was the one man who made my life this perfect.
“I feel obligated to hold a grudge against him.”
“How so?” she asked.
We’d talked a lot about this already. I explained to her how Fitz had died. She had explained why the violence happened that night—not necessarily justifying the Orlovs’ violence but that Fitz hadn’t been an intended death or target.
“My life isn’t over just because his is.
” I knew that. “But it’s been such a hard loss to accept.
I feel like I have to hate him.” Before she could say anything, I held my hand up and cut her off.
“I understand it was an accident in the way that Sergei was only there shooting up the place for his job and Fitz had been passing by.”
“And it’s not so easy to hate him when he is showing you how unhateable he is?”
I nodded, wryly amused. “Unhateable? That’s not a word.”
“It should be.”
I sighed. “Thank you for saying that instead of the opposite. Of how ‘loveable’ he is.”
She arched a brow. “Before you learned of his connection with Fitz, before he learned of it too, couldn’t you imagine loving him?”
I winced, feeling guilty to hold a grudge against him. She, Mikhail, Andre, and Roman had all told me that Sergei hadn’t known about how he’d killed my husband.
“Yes,” I whispered. “But I don’t know how to look past the fact that he killed him.”
“I’m sure that whenever you are ready to talk to him, he’ll be there.” She rubbed my back as the piano lesson wrapped up.
The next day, I had another example of how “unhateable” Sergei could be.
Daria video called me in tears. Extremely happy tears.
“It’s gone! It’s all just gone!” She sniffled and smiled. “It’s all gone and paid off, Nat.” Beaming as she caught her breath from the excitement, she stared at me on the screen.
“What’s gone?”
“They paid it all. Every cent of my tuition. All those old debt collection things. It’s all taken care of. That guy came to tell me in person.”
“What guy?” My heart beat faster at her news because I knew. I could guess.
“The guy who asked me about where you and Maisie were that one night when you went for a walk.”
Went for a walk.
Right.
That was what I’d told her I’d done after Roman went to question her in the search.
“They paid your tuition off?”
She nodded, filling me in about all that Roman said.
I would continue to let Daria believe that it was a misunderstanding that had Roman talking to her that night I’d escaped.
I didn’t want her to know I was living with Fitz’s killer.
I didn’t want her to know I was with a man I would need to escape.
He must have done it to show he cares.
I hadn’t asked him to do that good deed.
The following day, George and other soldiers arrived with my things from my place.
Even though the apartment was still there, vacant and paid for by Sergei and available, I knew better than to think I should walk out of here and return to my former life.
I saw how I would suffer if I tried to. I would put myself and Maisie at risk of being captured.
And I’d risk upsetting my daughter who was attached to this place and these people.
The symbolism of my apartment mattered. By letting me keep it, even in name, albeit as a useless space I didn’t live in, Sergei wasn’t literally forcing me to live here with no other choices.
The arrival of my things mattered, too.
Maisie had talked to Sergei about a collection of small horse figurines that she had in a box in her closet, and that was what prompted the delivery of our possessions.
Sergei interpreted her talking about them as a request for what she missed and was familiar with.
So, he had George and the others go get the stuff.
Seeing my personal things touched me. It wasn’t a complete bridge between my former life and whatever this new version was supposed to be. But it prompted me to react with sentiment.
Sergei didn’t need to care. He didn’t have to go out of his way to honor my past like this. To respect that I had a life before him.
When I saw my framed wedding photos in the box, it struck me as a sign that Sergei wasn’t trying to sweep away any memories of Fitz. He wasn’t campaigning to make me forget about the man he’d accidentally killed.
The gesture was unexpected, and with his act of kindness, it was that much more difficult to hate him. That much more challenging to resist him.
Harder yet was how Maisie continued to seek him out as a source of comfort and friendship. She asked him to color with her. She’d request that he play a game with her after dinner.
And I never stopped her. Guilt hit me whenever I thought back to how I’d set us up to be captured. That had been my rash mistake, my fault when I was the one who should always protect her.
While it was deeply ironic to watch her grow closer to the man who killed her father, I tested myself to change my outlook. That he wasn’t only Fitz’s murderer but also the strong man who protected my baby girl.
“Mister Sergei, it’s your turn,” she told him while they were playing a board game.
I stood at the windows, giving them their space and time to play. As I tore my gaze from the cityscape and glanced at them, I caught him watching me. That same patient, hungry, but solemn interest burned in his blue eyes. Unwaveringly.
I pivoted to look away again.
“Your turn, Mister Sergei,” Maisie said again.
I sighed, crumbling at how she only grew more attached to him.
Life wasn’t black and white where he was concerned.
This nagging indecision of how I could take Claire’s advice and move forward with him ate away at me.
How can I forgive you for having a part in taking away the man I thought I’d grow old with? The peaceful and gentle father of my daughter?
How am I supposed to hate you forever when you once hinted at so much hope for new love?