Chapter 16 #3
"Where the hell did you learn this?" I wound up another massive bite, shoving it in my mouth without caring about burning myself. "This is better than any Michelin chef. Seriously, this is the best pasta I've ever had."
Nikolai took a sip of whiskey, ice clinking softly in the glass.
"My mother taught me." His tone was flat.
My chewing stopped cold.
Mother.
My brain spun fast. Today, at that dead house in Maryland, besides the old man and Derek, I'd seen no one resembling a lady of the house. The seat beside the head of that long table had stayed empty.
Christ, my stupid mouth.
"Sorry." I forced the pasta down, awkwardly setting my fork aside, hands rubbing the edges of the jacket. "I didn't see her today... I didn't mean to bring it up."
"It's fine." He tilted his head, staring at the ice bobbing in his glass. "She's been dead for many years."
The kitchen went quiet.
I bit my lower lip, fingers clawing at the jacket hem, not knowing what to say. I thought he'd cut the topic off with his usual cold toxicity or just tell me to get the hell back to my room.
But he didn't.
He just sat there quietly under that dim yellow light. His tall frame slightly hunched, the jawline in profile pulled taut.
I looked at him, then down at the steaming pasta in front of me.
The scent of garlic and olive oil hung in the air. This dish was too simple—too simple to be something a Pakhan who could unleash bloodbaths would make. It carried a raw, homey warmth completely at odds with the cold brutality he wore like skin.
I suddenly realized this plate of pasta was probably one of the few things his long-gone mother had taught her son who was destined for blood and chaos.
The awkwardness and guilt from saying the wrong thing dissolved instantly into an indescribable ache in my chest.
I released my grip on the jacket and lifted my head again.
"She must have been very gentle." I met his eyes, my tone softening involuntarily. "Anyone who could teach you to make something that tastes like this had a heart full of love."
Nikolai's fingers tightened violently around his glass.
He slowly raised his eyelids. In those unfathomable gray eyes, for the first time, a raw, unhealable old wound cracked open before me.
"She was a woman who loved to laugh. But that house, that man, destroyed her.
" His voice was hoarse with the acid of alcohol.
"She hated the refined food served on pure silver at the estate.
Said it always tasted cold, metallic. The old bastard was too busy stealing territory to come home for months.
When she couldn't take it anymore, she'd sneak into the kitchen at midnight and make herself a plate of pasta with the most basic ingredients. This is the only thing she left me."
He tilted his head back, draining his whiskey in one go. His Adam's apple rolled bitterly.
"She didn't die of illness, Vivienne. The old man drained every bit of life out of her with his rules and cold violence. I watched her go from a vibrant woman to an exquisite, obedient shell with no soul. Then finally, a dried corpse hanging in the bathroom."
My heart felt like it'd been crushed by a spiked iron claw, the pain making even my breath taste of blood.
It wasn't condescending pity. It was the bone-deep, blood-connected kind of pain that made me want to tear that old bastard apart for him.
I shoved the plate aside, jumped off the stool, circled the wide marble island, and wedged myself precisely between his solid thighs.
I reached up, palms trembling slightly beyond my control, cupping that sharp, brutal face hard.
"He didn't deserve her." I forced him to meet my eyes, looking straight into the ruins in his gaze with the most honest, certain stare I had. "And he sure as hell doesn't deserve you. Nikolai, you're a living, breathing person. You're not his copy. Not his tool."
Nikolai didn't move.
He just tilted his head back, staring at me hard. We were too close—close enough for me to see clearly in the deepest part of his gray pupils that fragile thing a predator shows only when all defenses drop.
His breath, sharp with whiskey, puffed against my cheek again and again.
No testing.
His big hand shot up, gripping the back of my head and yanking me down.
This kiss was nothing like the wild brutality in the car. It carried suffocating desperation and crushing dependence. He didn't rush to conquer—just pressed deep and hard against my lips, as if I were the only oxygen he could grasp in this frozen abyss.
I opened my mouth obediently, arms circling his broad shoulders, pulling him tight into my embrace.
He set down his empty glass, both solid arms locking around my waist, face buried deep in the crook of my neck. Burning breath ironed against my skin. The Pakhan who could summon storms outside was, in this moment, just a man who needed to be held.
Only the soft ticking of the wall clock remained in the kitchen.
I didn't speak. Just stood there quietly, fingers threading gently through his silver-short hair, stroking slowly and tenderly.
In this moment, I knew clearly.
We'd gone way beyond any agreement a long time ago.