Chapter 29 Alexei
Alexei
Inarrow my eyes at my mother when she walks over with the turkey, setting it down like it’s something fucking sacred before glancing at Kelly and giving him that sharp smile she does when she’s pretending to be warm.
“I made food that Americans like.”
I lift my brow at the turkey. I’m sure that’s a Thanksgiving thing. Do they even eat it for Christmas? Fuck if I know.
“Wow. Thank you. It looks good,” Kelly says, and he actually sounds like he means it, smiling a little as he glances at the table looking impressed.
We all start pulling food onto our plates. The turkey’s dry as hell. I don’t say anything because she always sends the staff home for the holidays so they can be with their families, which means she actually cooked this herself.
“I think I just chipped a tooth on the Sahara you call dinner,” Yulian says, chewing right through another bite without any filter whatsoever.
Everyone groans.
Mother swallows slowly, her jaw tightening. “I spent time making this food. So eat it,” she says, pointing her knife at him without even raising her voice.
Yulian gives her a look but shoves another piece in his mouth anyway. He’s not completely suicidal.
I glance at Kelly. He’s been chewing the same bite for a full two minutes. His eyes flick toward me like he’s begging for help or permission to spit it out.
Lev clears his throat to break the tension. “So, Kelly. Tell us about yourself.”
He finally swallows and reaches for his water. “I’m a veterinarian. Between jobs right now. My boss was kind of an asshole, and he died.”
Mikhail snorts with amusement. “Yeah, I heard he choked on a cookie.”
He stabs a piece of potato with his fork, eats it, then immediately picks up a napkin and spits it into it without any shame.
I scratch my forehead with my middle finger aimed at Mikhail. He replies by scratching his jaw with his.
My mother doesn’t even blink. “What do you mean he choked on a cookie?”
Kelly glances at me, his eyes wide with silent panic.
Mikhail coughs into his fist and blurts, “Alexei killed him.”
“You did what?” she asks.
I give him a glare that could cut glass. “Technically he killed himself with that cookie. I had planned to break his neck and push him down the stairs.”
I point my fork at Yulian. “I could have rigged a gas explosion. But that takes out the houses next door too. I don’t like unnecessary mess. You, on the other hand …”
Lev shifts in his chair and opens his mouth like he’s about to launch into some lecture, but our mother cuts him off before he can start.
“Why would you say such a thing? We don’t murder in this family,” she says deadpan, not even looking up from her plate while she cuts another piece of dry turkey.
Yulian scoffs. “You can stop pretending, Mama. If Kelly’s with Alexei, I’m sure he knows that psycho kills people for fun by now.”
Kelly stiffens beside me. I slide my hand onto his thigh under the table, just a calm touch to anchor him. He grabs for mine immediately and clutches it tight.
“I heard about your and Mikhail’s little murder spree that night,” Yulian says. “Three policemen in one night, how very thorough of you both.”
“If you don’t shut up, you might be next. And since you’re so interested in our work, one of those three was that retired detective that Father wanted eliminated.”
He scoffs and leans back in his chair. “Right, like you’d risk our father’s wrath by touching his favorite son.”
I pick up my knife and throw it at his head without hesitation.
He ducks just in time, and the blade hits the wall behind him, sticking there and still humming from the force. He shoots me a glare.
Kelly stares at me with his mouth open, then turns to look at the knife embedded in the wall. Doesn’t say a word, just blinks at it like he’s processing what just happened.
My mother sighs. “Can we please have one normal holiday where we don’t throw knives? I’ve had to say this to all of you since you were children. What is the matter with you?”
Mikhail snorts. “Kelly’s gonna think we’re all psychopaths.”
Kelly rubs the back of his neck with his free hand, eyes still on the knife, then glances down at where I’m gripping his thigh under the table. He mutters something I can’t catch.
Yulian stands and stretches. “No, if we really wanted to scare him, we’d bring up the vase. That’s when things really get good.”
Mikhail groans and drops his face into his hands. “Don’t bring that shit up or we’re leaving.”
I pick up my fork and point it at him threateningly. “Enough, Yulian.”
He rolls his eyes. “What, is that the next thing you’re going to throw at me?”
I don’t even think about it.
The fork’s buried in his thigh before he finishes the sentence, metal sticking out through his pants.
He stares down at it quietly for a second, then picks up his plate and hurls it at me like a fucking frisbee. I duck and it smashes into the cabinet behind me with a crash that makes Kelly flinch hard.
My mother speaks again, her voice tired and resigned. “I’m going to stop throwing family gatherings since none of you can behave. Sit down and stop throwing things.”
“You could’ve hit Kelly,” I snap, rising from my chair so fast it crashes back onto the floor. “You are fucking dead.”
“Boys. That’s enough,” Mother snaps, her voice cutting through the tension.
But it’s already too late.
Mikhail’s up too, pointing straight at Yulian with rage written all over his face. “You’re the biggest asshole in this family. Why do you always need to start something?”
Lev cuts in, switching to Russian. “Can we please just act normal in front of our guest?”
“Shut up,” Mikhail shouts, turning on him with wild eyes. “You guys are impossible. Why do we keep letting Yulian get away with this shit?”
Yulian shrugs, calm as ever. Then picks up a knife and flicks it across the table casually. It misses Mikhail but nearly hits Daniil, who jerks back just in time. Mikhail looks at him, then at the knife embedded in the table, then slowly turns back to Yulian and raises his eyebrows.
That was a mistake. Yulian just activated Mikhail’s nuclear button on purpose by doing that.
“You almost hit Danya with that thing. I’m going to tear you apart, motherfucker,” Mikhail yells across the table.
I don’t wait to see how it plays out because I know exactly where this is heading. I glance at Kelly. “We’re leaving.”
He doesn’t move, still staring at the chaos around us. At the fork sticking out of Yulian’s leg. At the wall dented from the plate. It’s his first real taste of what my family is like.
I grab his hand again. “Now.”
He stumbles after me with his mouth open. Stunned silent while we pass the table.
Behind us, Mikhail launches himself at Yulian, grabbing him mid-step and slamming him into the floor into a chokehold.
Kelly jumps at the sound of bodies hitting marble. “Did Mikhail just … is he choking him? In front of everyone?”
“Don’t ask,” I mutter, pulling him faster toward the exit.
We walk toward the front door. I can hear furniture breaking behind us.
When I open the door, Calder comes into view on the steps.
I cut him off before he can open his mouth. “Mikhail’s trying to murder Yulian. Go stop him before someone actually dies.”
He mutters a curse, picks up Tank, and bolts past us into the house without another word.
Kelly stares after him with his eyebrows pulled tight. “Why did he look like a vampire covered in tattoos?”
I don’t answer because explaining Calder would take too long.
I open the car door and look at him expectantly. “Get in.”
He doesn’t move at first, just stands there looking back at the house.
“I don’t know what the fuck my mother was thinking,” I mutter while I walk around to the driver’s side. “That was a total disaster.”
I’m certain my family just ruined everything and now he’s going to run.
Which means I’ll have to kidnap him for real, chain him to the bed, and wait for Stockholm Syndrome to kick in so he remembers he loves me.
That was a fucking mess. I knew exactly how that dinner would go, and I still let her drag him into it anyway.
We walk into the living room, and Kelly bursts out laughing.
“Your family is insane,” he says. “I thought you were the handful, but they’re worse.”
“I’m perfectly sane. They’re the problem.”
“Right. Sure. Perfectly sane. It’s definitely them, not you.”
I scoff and shake my head. “You should have seen last New Year’s. The ceiling got two new holes in it when my father tried to stop Yulian from murdering Lev.”
“Is that what those bullet holes were from? But there were so many.”
“It’s his go-to move to make us stop fighting since we were children.”
“Jesus Christ.” He walks off with his hands on his head, then looks back at me with wide eyes.
“What is this vase thing? Why does everyone keep freaking out when it gets mentioned?”
I groan and tilt my head back toward the ceiling. “Not you too.”
“Is the vase some metaphor for something else?”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Nyet. It’s a fucking vase.
My great-great-something grandmother smuggled it out of some revolution in Russia.
It’s been in my mother’s family ever since.
Someone broke it when we were kids, no one confessed, and they’ve been fighting about it for almost twenty fucking years. ”
I glance up at him. “Last year, Yulian even made a PowerPoint to prove it wasn’t him. Timeline and everything. Our mother was so distraught she had a photo of the vase framed. That’s in the living room now. The glass is cracked because Mikhail once threw it at my head.”
“I have no idea what to say to any of that.”
“I should have warned you about how they can be.”
“No, Alexei, you could not have prepared me for what I was about to walk into. I think I might excuse myself from family functions from now on.”
I grin at him because that works perfectly for me. “Gives us a reason to stay home then.”
He grins. “Yeah.”
Then he walks up to me and wraps his hands around my neck, pulling me into a kiss. “Come on, let’s go open our presents. Then I want you to fuck me.”
I mentally fist-bump myself and thrust my tongue into his mouth.
He is everything I have ever wanted.
He witnessed my family in its full chaotic force, and he’s still here, still choosing this, still choosing me.
My father hasn’t spoken to me since he saw us together.
I weirdly don’t care anymore. I have Kelly and that’s all that matters from now on.
I pull back just enough to look at him, really look at him.
His green eyes are bright with something that makes my chest feel tight.
“You’re not running,” I say, and it comes out quieter than I meant it to.
“No,” he says, his thumbs brushing along my jaw. “I’m not running. Your family is insane, and I’m still here.”
He knows exactly what I am and wants me anyway.
“Presents first,” he says, stepping back with a smile that’s pure mischief.
I follow him toward the bedroom, thinking maybe my mother knew exactly what she was doing. Maybe she wanted Kelly to see what he was stepping into, to choose us with full knowledge of what we are.
“Alexei?” he asks as we walk to the bedroom room.
“Da, zaychik?”
“Did you break that vase?”
I let out a sigh. “Nyet, I didn’t do it. One of those assholes did, and they’ll never admit it.”
He pulls out a present that looks like a complete disaster from under the bed. Wrapping paper crumpled and taped at crooked angles like he wrestled it into submission. I love it already.
He bites his lip and walks over to me, holding it out. “I know it’s not much. I hope you like it.”
I hesitate for a second, then reach for it. My hands are careful as I unwrap it, peeling back the mangled paper slowly like it might fall apart if I’m not gentle enough.
The frame is wooden. A single rabbit burned into the corner, mid-jump, tiny pawprints trailing behind it.
It’s us. The first picture we ever took together.
Kelly’s pressed up against me, smiling at me with the sweetest expression I’ve ever seen on his face.
I’m holding Clover up between us, but I’m not looking at the camera.
I’m looking at Kelly. At that smile, as if nothing else in the world existed in that moment except him.
At the bottom of the frame, engraved into the wood: I love you to the sun and back, forever and always - Kelly.
I can’t breathe right. Can’t think past the fact that he made this. That he chose this photo, this frame, these words. That he’s standing here giving me proof that I matter to him.
I grab him, pulling him into my arms hard enough that he stumbles forward. I breathe him in like oxygen, bury my face in his neck, hold him so tight I’m probably hurting him, but I can’t let go.
I don’t know what I did to deserve him. Don’t know how I got this lucky. But I’m never letting him go.
He’s mine. Completely.
I gift him a custom stethoscope with his name engraved on it, sea green like his eyes. And the keycard. It’s for the front door, the gate, everything. Because this is his home now, and he belongs here with me.