32. Tatiana
TATIANA
T he Adrian I had known growing up was gone. Truly dead.
In his place was this damaged, bitter, hateful man.
We were on a plane. A fucking cargo plane at that, and I swear to God, I could hear a dog barking on the opposite side of it. The below deck of this plane was illuminated, leaving us in semi-darkness.
I couldn’t keep my eyes from flickering Adrian’s way, afraid my brain and eyes were playing tricks on me.
My gaze darted up to his face, then back to the gun he held pointed at me.
His face was familiar, yet the expression was one I had never seen on him.
I could see scarring on part of his cheek, but he kept that side of his face hidden from me.
I swallowed, that ache in my chest I felt since his death slowly returning.
“How are you alive? I saw you! You were dead. I tried to revive you.” My brain was having a hard time making sense of this.
For a minute I didn’t think he’d answer me.
He wouldn’t look at me, staring off as if his mind was somewhere else.
“Nikita knew I was still alive even if you were too stupid to realize it. You actually did me a favor with all of your theatrics that night. You managed to convince them that they’d succeeded.
You also distracted them enough that you gave Nikita the chance to pull me out of the way when the car was about to blow.
He just didn’t pull me far enough,” he said bitterly.
Who was this man? Did I ever really know him? Did my brothers? I couldn’t comprehend him hating us - me - so much that he’d leave me believing him dead. Mourning him. That he’d use me.
“I loved you,” I murmured softly and at that moment I knew those words were true. I loved him. Maybe the illusion of him, but I did. However, it was all past tense. Loved, not love. Obviously, he didn’t love me because nobody sane would ever do something like that to someone they loved.
An emotion flickered across his expression but he quickly masked it. I couldn’t reconcile this man to the smiling and teasing Adrian I had known all my life. They were like two different men with the same face.
“What happened, Adrian?” I rasped with a lump in my throat. “How could you hate us so much?”
“What do you mean?” he snickered. “You were a way to get to him, that’s all.”
“Really? That’s so comforting to know,” I said, keeping the emotion out of my voice.
“If I was your way to get to Illias, why target my brothers?” Surprise flashed across his expression, but he didn’t answer.
“I saw those videos.” He kept staring away from me, ignoring me.
Two decades of friendship. Two decades of love.
All thrown away. “Don’t you think I deserve to know?
” His lips thinned, but I believed I was getting through to him. “My brothers are your friends.”
“Were,” he snapped.
“Are,” I corrected him.
He spun around and crossed his arms over his chest, glaring at me. “Were, Tatiana. They were my friends as long as I was in line with their goals. As soon as I chased my own justice, they ganged up on me.”
I sighed. I didn’t know if it was the truth but it sounded like my brothers. “They always choose their baby sister,” he scoffed.
I shook my head. “You must hate me so much to use me like that,” I whispered.
Something shattered in his gaze and my chest clenched. I couldn’t hate him. Even knowing all that had happened, I couldn’t hate him. But I couldn’t love him either.
“I didn’t hate you,” he finally said. “Not until that night at the gazebo.”
“Gazebo,” I murmured.
“Of all the men on this planet, you pick Illias Konstantin,” he spat out.
“I didn’t pick him that night!” I exclaimed.
“That note was meant for you. I thought it was you that night. You know that!” His jaw clenched, but he refused to admit nor deny.
But we both knew there was no way of denying it.
I even told him I thought it was him back at The Den of Sin so many years ago.
“You knew it wasn’t you and yet, you proceeded with the farce, making a fool out of me. ”
“I used it to my advantage,” he continued as if he hadn’t heard a word I’d said. “It was an opportunity I couldn’t miss. So I started my plan.”
I shook my head in disappointment. “What plan?” I asked tiredly. I might as well learn it all before my untimely death.
Adrian leaned back in his chair and stretched his legs. The move was so simple, yet it was his signature move I’d watched for years.
“I made sure Illias couldn’t learn your identity,” he answered.
“I erased all surveillance of that night in the entire D.C. area so he couldn’t find you.
I bought you a few years of freedom.” I stared at him in shock.
“You’re welcome,” he retorted and I feared he actually believed he did me a favor. “It gave me time to line it all up.”
Anger simmered in my veins and heat flushed through every pore of me. I scoffed. Adrian had lost his goddamn mind.
“You bought me a few years?” I asked incredulously. “I’m only twenty-seven and you’re planning on killing me.”
He remained silent, his expression dark. “How will that bring your parents back?” I tried to reason with him.
“It won’t, but it will make his life hell,” he hissed, glaring at me.
My eyes stung. Anger and ache mixed in my chest. How did we get here?
“How did you survive?” I rasped. “I saw you—” I licked my dry lips. I haven’t had anything to drink or eat for hours, and it was starting to catch up. “I thought you died.”
He retrieved his phone and started tapping on it. I thought he wouldn’t answer but after a few minutes, he started talking.
“Half of my body is burned.” My eyes moved to his scarred cheek. My heart ached for him. He was so bitter and wrapped up in his thirst for revenge that he threw us away. The chance to be happy. “Do you know how fire feels against your skin?”
I shook my head, swallowing the lump in my throat. The terror of that night rushed to the forefront of my mind. The pain. My desperate attempts to revive him. Months of searching for something to keep me going.
And all along, he hid. From me. From the enemies he created.
“You left me wide open and vulnerable,” I said, keeping my voice even. It’d do me no good to go into attack mode. “The Yakuza were particularly eager to get to me.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, they’ve always been eager to take down the Omertà. The only problem is that they’d continue the tradition, but only in their own favor. Rather than eliminating all those fucking families.”
“Why do you hate them all so much?”
He glared at me. “First, that old fucker Konstantin snatched my mother so he’d take her for himself. Then, he killed my father and my mother. In front of me. He destroyed my life. Killed my family. What should I do? Let him go?”
“But the old man is dead,” I pointed out.
He snickered. “But his legacy isn’t. I won’t rest until they’re all dead.”
So much hatred. So many lies. So much hurt.
And for what? For something that neither one of them could control. They were both kids. They both suffered. They both lost a mother. Growing up under Illias’ father wasn’t easy. For Christ’s sake, Illias killed his own father.
“You’re taking this too far, Adrian.”
He leapt to his feet and was in my face in my next breath. I had never seen so much rage and hate on his face. That beautiful face that I swooned over each time he saved me in high school. Each time he called me pipsqueak, regardless of how much I objected.
“Too far!” he shouted, his hot breath on my face. “I saw my parents murdered in front of me. I lost everything. EVERYTHING. I was abused, beaten, and starved under my foster parents. But you wouldn’t understand that, would you? Spoiled little princess, sheltered by her big brothers.”
My heart drummed fast in fear, cracking my ribcage with each beat. The man in front of me wasn’t who I thought. It couldn’t be. Then his scent registered.
I blinked, then stared at him wide-eyed. I even leaned in and inhaled deeply. He didn’t smell how I remembered. There was no hint of citrus and sandalwood scent. There was no hint of my old Adrian.
“We could have been happy, Adrian,” I whispered, my heart thundering. “We could have had the world. Instead, you chose revenge over that. Revenge over us.”
Something shattered in his eyes. Maybe my words hurt him. Maybe there was still a chance at saving him. Not for me. It was too late for that. There was no more us. But for himself.
It was one thing that the world got wrong about us, the Nikolaevs. They thought us unhinged, slightly mad, cruel even. But we had soft hearts. We cared too much.
“Adrian, please–”
I didn’t get to finish my statement. He pushed me hard and I fell back against the dirty seat.
“It’s too late,” he spat, then stood up as if he couldn’t stand to be around me.
Pain rushed through me. Not the physical kind but the one that you couldn’t put a band aid on. It was raw and real. My bottom lip trembled. Tremors shook my soul.
“I gave you a warning,” he grumbled, his voice low.
My eyes widened. “What warning? You left me in the dark, stumbling through some clues that made no fucking sense,” I accused.
“Memento Mori,” he uttered in Latin.
“Remember you must die,” I translated in English, my heart cracking all over again. This time not for him, but for me. For the betrayal. For our tragedy.
“It’s too late, Tatiana,” he repeated softly.
I shook my head. It couldn’t be too late. I had a future, my babies to think about. But I didn’t want to tell him about my pregnancy. I didn’t know if it’d set him off further or make him spare me.
“No, it’s never too late,” I rasped.
“My body is ruined, pipsqueak,” he murmured, giving me a glimpse of the old Adrian. He misunderstood my comment thinking I wanted another chance with him. I didn’t. But I didn’t correct him. He stood up and started to remove his clothes. His jacket slid off his broad shoulders.