10. Aleks
Aleks
The trip was . . . long and tiring, which made it better than expected.
There was no conspiracy, and Anatoliy hadn’t been kidnapped by the government to lure us in. No, he met us upon arrival, looking well-rested and nearly chipper.
The ghost standing behind him, well . . . that was a different matter altogether.
Oh, Viktor didn’t look half-starved or bruised and battered. He was still in possession of all the limbs and digits he’d ever had, at least the ones that I could see while he was wearing heavy black boots.
The outfit looked nearly like a uniform. Black boots, black cargo pants with lots of pockets for who knew what. A tight black T-shirt covered up with a jacket that had even more pockets. His hair was longer than Leo kept his, but it wasn’t tangled or dirty.
No, the posture and bearing weren’t broken or defeated.
They were military.
The problem wasn’t that Viktor looked beaten and injured. It was that he looked like a robot or a doll, waiting on orders that wouldn’t come.
He didn’t visibly react to our presence, just continually scanned the area, as though assessing threats. His gaze paused on first Leo, then me, but it wasn’t in immediate recognition and joy at seeing his twin brother.
It was because we were threats. We were the tallest men in the room, strong, werewolves. He looked us each over like he was a scanner. No emotions, only gathering information.
“Viktor,” Leo whispered, and his voice was low, pained, and I knew he was on the verge of an emotional outburst.
But we were in public. In Russia. It couldn’t be allowed. I sharpened my voice into a knife the way I’d watched Grant do so many times, and said my brother’s name as a rebuke. “Leonid.”
His whole body jerked, then he drew himself up and took a step back to stand behind me. In his place, like he was a bodyguard and not a friend and brother. Like he was one of Grant’s bully goons.
More than our appearance, though, hearing his brother’s name seemed to grab Viktor’s attention.
He paused his continual assessing of his surroundings and turned his gaze back to me, then to Leo.
This time, he paused, and I could see the precise moment he recognized who we were.
His whole body tensed even more, and after a flash of something, his face went completely blank.
He hadn’t initially recognized his own twin brother.
Had he not looked in a mirror in the last six years?
Worse, now that he had recognized us, he remained coolly indifferent, perhaps even more than before.
Anatoliy sighed and rolled his eyes, dragging everyone’s attention back to him. “Come. We should go and eat. You have a room for the night, yes?”
“We do,” I agreed. I had strongly debated simply getting an immediate flight back, but that would have involved being in an airport or on a plane for literally three days straight, since we’d had to fly through Seoul, and between layovers and crossing oceans .
. . well, it was more time in flying metal tubes and enormous smelly crowded public places than any werewolf was comfortable with.
Anatoliy nodded sharply and turned to lead us out of the airport.
Viktor watched him go for a second, then fell in behind him.
I hurried to catch up, and Leo stayed behind me.
I spent a moment deciding how to proceed, but I realized that Leo remaining behind me was a choice in itself.
He’d recognized my rebuke for what it had been, and didn’t think he could rein in his emotions, so he was hanging back deliberately.
It was understandable.
Among us, I’d always been the best at staying quiet while seething on the inside, and that skill had only improved during my years with Grant.
It seemed, however, that during those same years, Viktor had been getting a masterclass in the subject from the Russian government. So I drew up beside him, making something of a diamond formation of the four of us as we walked.
I was pleased that Viktor didn’t seem uncomfortable to have his brother behind him. It felt like a good sign, considering the rest.
“You remember us,” I said rather than asked, trying to leave his options open.
He gave a sharp nod as his response.
Good enough, for now. I had no notion what he’d been through, and no reason to assume that he understood what was happening, or trusted us, or . . . anything. There was nothing that could be counted on in this.
“We went to America,” I continued, my voice low, trying to emulate Mama’s tone when she was being comforting, but not patronizing.
“We live there now, where my father was when he was alive.” Viktor’s eyes narrowed, as he clearly remembered the stories of my father, the raging monster, but he didn’t openly respond or react.
“My father is dead, though. His brother is in charge of the pack. I am a US citizen, and so is Mama, and since she’s adopted you, it’s a way for the two of you to become citizens as well. ”
Behind me, Leo’s breathing had gone fast, like he was terrified of what his brother would say. Like he thought Viktor would say no and walk away from us.
But he was wrong.
Well, neither of us knew what Viktor might do, it was fair.
He’d been kidnapped and had fuck only knew what done to him for half a decade.
What Leo didn’t understand was that I was only giving Viktor the choice to come willingly.
If he said no, Anatoliy would help me knock him out, and we’d take his unconscious body on the damn plane.
Yes, Viktor was an adult who could make his own decisions. But we were pack. And while Grant was my pack alpha, in my family? I was alpha. I had to make the decisions. And I was Grant’s heir anyway, even if I doubted he’d ever do the pack the kindness of dying and letting us move past him.
While I would give Viktor anything he wanted while he was healthy and making his choices without coercion, this was not that. Viktor had been kidnapped and tormented. I doubted he was capable of making his own choices in a meaningful way, and that doubt would be confirmed if he tried to leave us.
He made a funny noise then, like a sharp exhale through his nose.
When I turned to look at him, his body was still facing forward, but his head was slightly tipped toward me, and his eyes met mine with the most emotion that had been in them since last time I’d seen him.
There was the tiniest smirk playing around his lips.
He knew precisely what I was thinking.
And he was still Viktor.
For the first time since I’d laid eyes on him, I was able to take a true, full breath. “Mama has missed you,” I told him. “She’ll make her borscht for you when we get home.”
Behind us, Leo muttered, “Grant will hate it.”
I grinned at that. “Good.”
It wasn’t hard to get back home.
Oh, it was exhausting. Plane travel always was.
Airports were terrible, flights were worse.
But nothing went very wrong. No government officials turned up to stop us from leaving, only Anatoliy to see us off, nodding to me and suggesting my brothers and I not come back to Russia until “something changed,” even if I did have dual citizenship.
Flights weren’t canceled, or even rescheduled by more than a few minutes one way or the other.
No one attacked us or tried to steal any of our bags—not least of which because our luggage was held together by more duct tape than original fabric, and clearly contained nothing worth stealing.
Plus we were all very large, dangerous-looking men.
It was . . . nice. For too much of my life I hadn’t been the biggest man in any room, and I’d been bullied accordingly. I liked the change.
By the time we got back to the US and were driving from Boise toward home, Leo had at least calmed down a bit, and was talking Viktor’s ear off about everything that had happened to us in the years since we’d last seen each other.
It was very Leo. He was ignoring the fact that Viktor had yet to speak a word since we’d gone to get him.
Anatoliy had told me privately that he hadn’t said a word to him either.
I didn’t want to bother either of my brothers with a discussion on it, but part of me worried the government had done something to Viktor, and he couldn’t speak anymore.
But Leo could talk enough for both of them.
So he did. He told them about Mama and Grant and the pack and .
. . well, it reminded me that while sometimes things in Idaho weren’t wonderful, they were always better than they had been in Russia.
As I reminded myself regularly, the American government didn’t attack packs and kidnap their members.
The bar was in hell, sure, but the American government had managed to pass over it.
So far.
Leo was waxing poetic about the house Cash was building for Mama, when I noticed that Viktor was paying closer attention than before.
“Cash is special,” I told Viktor, reverting to Russian as Leo had, for speed and accuracy.
“He learned from a human carpenter,” Leo added, taking to the subject with pleasure. “He spent years away from the pack, among humans, and he seems to know everything about building.” A sly smile crept onto his face. “And our Aleks likes him even more than the rest of us.”
Viktor’s eyes narrowed, and for a moment, I was reminded of how humans in Russia viewed men who loved other men.
I swallowed, nearly crossed my fingers on the wheel, then met Viktor’s eye in the rearview mirror and nodded to him.
“He’s something special. I care about him.
And he’s . . . he’s vulnerable. Nervous.
I think my father did his family many wrongs before he died. ”
Viktor’s eyes narrowed at that, but he nodded, sitting back in the backseat and considering.
He didn’t seem offended or disgusted. Simply thoughtful.
It was how he usually was now, and honestly, not too terribly far from what he’d been as a teenager.
He’d always been the one of us most prone to introspection and deep thoughts.
Leo was too happy for that, and I, too focused on facts and needs to think about such deep things. I was no philosopher.
Viktor? He just might be.
“I think you’ll like him,” I promised.
Viktor gave me a tiny smile and nod, and for now, that was enough.