31. Alexei
Alexei
Despite my father having at least some inkling of my feelings for Ofelia, I’m still more nervous than I might have imagined as I wait for him to open the line. My tension isn’t relieved when his face appears on the screen, grim and unsmiling.
“Soy myn.” His eyes fix me with a stern, hard blue that isn’t at all dimmed by age. “You are putting that child in grave danger by having her with you.”
“I’m aware, Papa.” If I’d thought my father might be a softer landing than Roman and Darya, I was clearly mistaken. “I take it Roman did not respect my request to tell you in my own time, then.”
“Don’t shift the blame. I saw Darya shortly your call. She told me Ofelia is with you.”
“I wish she hadn’t done that.” But I know this isn’t my sister’s fault.
“And don’t tell me this was Ofelia’s choice.” He glares at me. “We both know there should never have been a choice to make.”
I remain silent.
“Roman is Darya’s husband. My son-in-law.
Not to mention Aleksander’s son, a man who was as a brother to me.
And now you have betrayed Roman’s trust in the worst way any man could.
In doing so, you have also dishonored me.
Beyond all of those considerations is the worst crime of all: your selfish actions have put an innocent girl directly in the path of mortal danger. ”
“I thought,” I say stiffly, “after we spoke, that you understood—”
“I understood that Ofelia had formed a strong attachment to you. I understood that your life might be in danger. Critically, I understood that those two things could very likely be used to hurt you both.” My father’s voice is hard and unforgiving.
“But if you thought our previous conversation was me giving you tacit permission to take Roman’s daughter as your own, you are either a deluded fool, Alexei, or woefully mistaken.
” His eyes cut through the screen like shards of ice. “Which is it?”
In the face of such outright condemnation, my initial shock is rapidly morphing into a slow, churning anger I was unaware still lived inside me.
I match his tone. “Clearly, I am both. A deluded fool for assuming you might, just once, show me the same loyalty you have always reserved for a dead man and his son.” My voice doesn’t shake, and my eye doesn’t waver from his.
“Woefully mistaken,” I continue, “to believe you have any understanding of the cost we have all paid for the honor you prize so highly.”
His eyes narrow. “Do not think it does not pain me to see your scars, Alexei, and know that I am the reason you carry them.”
“I don’t give a fuck about my scars.” My voice is as flat, hard, and unyielding as his moral judgment. “I never did. Every one of them just made me grateful it was no longer my sister lying beneath the blade—or my mother.”
I feel a savage satisfaction when he flinches at the final words.
“Alexei—”
“Throughout all the years after you left Miami,” I continue as if he hasn’t spoken, “no matter what the Orlovs did to me, I never stopped planning to overthrow them. Never once did I question the importance of guarding that vault or reclaiming the Naryshkin legacy inside it. I understood what was important to you, Papa. After all.” My mouth twists painfully.
“You had already sacrificed one family for that legacy, back in Paris.”
His face seals like the door of that cursed vault.
“You know better than anyone that it isn’t our own pain that hurts the most.” I twist the emotional knife harder. “It is being forced to witness the suffering of those we love—and knowing that we caused it. That is the stuff of nightmares, Papa, wouldn’t you agree?”
“To speak of such things causes only pain,” he begins.
“You opened this door, Papa.” I cut him off coldly. “I would have left the ghosts behind it undisturbed forever, if you had not. Because although I have always lived with your ghosts, you have never been forced to face mine—or the nightmares they left behind.”
I pull off my leather eye patch. “Perhaps you thought this was the worst of them.”
To his credit, Papa doesn’t flinch.
“But the truth is that after Ofelia’s kidnapping, when Vilnus Orlov put a blade in my hand and sent me into her cell while he and his men watched, I wished he’d taken both of my eyes, and my hands with them.”
I pause long enough to see stark horror begin to dawn in his eyes.
“You call Ofelia a child.” I shake my head slowly. “But her childhood ended the day that Vilnus forced me to take a blade to her skin. Forced us both to pretend, for Masha’s sake, that her screams were just a game and the blood on my knife just for show.”
The color drains from my father’s face. I know I should stop, but it’s too late.
“That’s where my nightmares come from, Papa.
From the cuts I made with surgical precision, in places I prayed would hide the scars.
From inflicting atrocities convincing enough to satiate Orlov’s horde of sick spectators, while using every sadistic skill I’d acquired at his hands to minimize the harm. ”
“I didn’t know.” My father’s voice is hoarse with pain and sadness, his gaze lingering on the crude scar where my eye once was.
“No, you didn’t.” The heat of my anger has faded, leaving behind a hollow sense of all that has never been said, and the futility of reopening those old wounds. “Because for years, and to spare everyone we both love from pain, neither Ofelia nor I ever spoke of it at all—not even to each other.
“But now that we have found happiness together, you will keep our secret, because I am not going to explain our story further. Not even to you. And the next time you accuse me of being selfish, I want you to remember that not only did Ofelia and I not choose the bloodstained legacy we both inherited, or the brutal manner in which we met, we also never blamed you, or anyone else, for either of those things.”
I lean forward, holding my father’s eyes. “But we did earn the right to choose each other, Papa. Without consideration for the judgment, opinions, or feelings of anyone else—particularly yours.”
Perhaps it is my own sadness that makes the lines in his face seem deeper, his brilliant blue eyes duller, but whether it is imagined or real, I suddenly find I can’t bear to see it.
“We will forget this,” I say abruptly. “And never speak of it again. I need to go now. Give my love to Rosa.” My mouth twists. “And Ofelia asked me to send her love to you.”
His eyes widen, but before whatever inadequate response he has to offer, I hit the button to end the call and push my chair away from the screen as if it threatens to swallow me.
I need to get out of this room.
And I need Ofelia.
I need her so badly it hurts.
When I come upstairs, Ofelia is drifting on her back in the water, eyes closed, beneath a cerulean sky.
The early-morning sun turns her legs to gold, her hair rippling like a mermaid’s beneath the surface.
I stand inside the cabin, watching her through the glass, savoring the relief of having her near, the exotic thrill of watching her supple limbs glide through the water.
“Your selfish actions have put an innocent girl directly in the path of mortal danger . . .”
My father’s words poison the day like oil in the ocean.
“And don’t tell me this was her choice . . . We both know there should never have been a choice to make.”
Every accusation is no less than what I’ve told myself. What I’ve been telling myself, for years now. I have no defense to give, no excuse to make.
And, I think, catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror opposite, I’m done trying to find them.
Mind made up, I slide open the door and step out onto the deck.
Ofelia rolls over, her face lighting in a smile that breaks my fucking heart as she begins to swim toward me. I meet her smile with one of my own as I go behind the bar and pull out a bottle of Krug and two glasses.
“Krug?” Her smile widens. “I take it the call with Sergei went well, then?”
“Of course,” I lie, stroking the hair back from her face as she rests her elbows on the poolside. “Which is just one of the reasons that today is a celebration.” I touch my glass to hers. “To no more secrets.”
Her face lights up like the sun glittering on the water. “No more secrets,” she repeats softly.
We drink. I put the glasses on a poolside table, then pull off my shirt and dive over her head, grinning at her squeal as I go under.
I surface with her in my arms and kiss her, on and on, losing myself in her sweet taste and long limbs.
She wraps her arms around my neck, nestling into me as I turn us both slowly in the water.
“No more secrets.” She shakes her head in wonder. “Do you have any idea how good that sounds, Alexei? To know I don’t have to lie to my family anymore . . . that we can just be happy, like this. Forever.”
She stops speaking abruptly, turning her face into my shoulder.
I kiss the top of her head, then tilt her chin up so she can look at me. “It was always going to be forever, Ofelia,” I say quietly. “You do know that, don’t you?”
She bites her lip and nods slowly, the sun catching the crystal drops threatening to spill down her face.
“I said that no more secrets was one of the reasons today is a celebration.” I carry her toward the edge of the pool, my lips moving against her temple as I speak.
“Would you like to know what the other reason is?” I lift her out of the water, then deposit her on the side of the pool and move between her legs, my hands resting on her thighs.
“Sure.” She gives me a quizzical look.
“It’s this.” Reaching into the pocket of my discarded shirt, I bring out the leather box I pocketed inside the cabin.
Ofelia stares at it, her eyes widening. “I’ve been carrying this with me ever since I left Miami.
” I hold the box against her legs, looking up at her.
“In fact, I brought it to your twenty-first birthday. But the moment I saw you that night, I knew I couldn’t gift it to you.
I knew you’d see straight through me if I did.
“I’m not worried about that anymore, Ofelia, because the truth is, you saw through me a long time ago.”
She strokes my face. “We saw through each other,” she whispers.
“Yes.” Despite my certainty in the cabin a few moments ago, my heart is racing harder than if I’d run a marathon. “We both inherited so much history that is not our own. This”—I open the box—“is part of our shared history, but it’s also something that is just ours, Ofelia.”
She stares at the egg-shaped pendant on the end of a fine chain, resting on a bed of satin, her eyes widening. “Is that—”
“Fabergé?” I nod. “Yes. He made it for Papa’s sister as a birthday gift, but she never wore it. She never even saw it. The pendant went into the vault before she even opened the box, and she didn’t survive the gulag to reclaim it.”
“Are they musical notes?” Ofelia traces the white-gold decorations down the side of the blue enamel. Each note ends in a small pearl.
I nod. “Anya—that was her name—played piano. She was gifted, I believe, just like you.” I place her fingers on the tiny diamonds that encircle the middle of the egg. “Turn it.”
Ofelia’s eyes lock on mine. “It opens?” Her voice is very quiet.
“Yes.” My heart has slowed to an even, heavy certainty. “As I’m sure you know, Fabergé always hid his most precious work inside his eggs.”
Her fingers twist the diamond band, and the pendant clicks open. My thumbs shaking slightly, I lift the top half, and Ofelia gasps.
“It’s white gold,” I say as she stares at the ring inside.
“The stone is a sapphire, surrounded by diamonds.” When she doesn’t speak, I go on.
“When I first found the piece and learned the story behind it, I wanted to give it to you right away. It just felt like it belonged to you. But I didn’t know how to explain the gift, or what I’d say.
“Then, later, I thought that perhaps I could just give you the pendant and keep the ring separate, so you didn’t think that I—well.” I clear my throat. “It’s yours,” I say roughly. “It was always yours, Ofelia. And I don’t want there to be any confusion about what it means.”
I take the ring out of the egg, then pick up her hand and slide it onto her third finger. “It means forever.”
I stare at the rich stone gleaming on her hand, looking so perfectly right that some hard pressure inside my chest slowly eases, then disappears altogether.
“Whether you want to wear that ring or simply keep it inside the pendant is up to you.” I take both her hands in mine. “But either way, I’m asking you to marry me, Ofelia. To be mine, always.”
When she raises her eyes, they are clear of any trace of tears, gleaming instead with the rich depth of the sapphire on her finger. She lifts the necklace over her head, and the pendant settles against her skin as if it’s always belonged there.
“No more secrets,” she says quietly. “I want to wear the ring where everyone can see it. Because I was always yours, Alexei. This has always been forever, for me.”
Sliding my arms beneath her, I lift her into the water. “So is that a yes?”
She gives a gurgle of laughter as she wraps her legs around my waist, encircling my neck with her arms. “Of course it’s a yes.”
“I love you.” I don’t think about the words. I don’t need to. They’ve been in every kiss, every touch, since Paris, if not before.
“And I love you.” She touches her lips to mine for a long moment, then pulls back. “I’ll love you even more if you hand me that glass of Krug.”
I start laughing. “We’re seriously going to need to address your day drinking, Miss Borovsky.”
“Soon-to-be Mrs. Petrovsky,” she says primly, taking the glass I hand her. “And I thought you said this was a celebration.”
“Oh, believe me, it is.” I touch my glass to hers. “To us, angel.”
“To us.” Ofelia sips her drink, then raises it to the sky. “And to whoever is trying their hardest to kill you,” she says, giving me a mischievous smile, “since they managed to bring us together, whether they meant to or not.”
I force a smile, but I don’t raise my glass in response to her toast.
I can’t.
We both know that the perfection of this moment exists precisely because it cannot last.
Whoever is trying to kill me won’t stop because I’ve put a ring on Ofelia’s finger, just like that ring won’t protect her from being used against me.
We just upped the stakes in a very deadly game.
One I’ve never had more reason to win.