CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Ben finds me sitting on a bench overlooking the beach. He hands over a cup of coffee and joins me.
“We’ve been ordered to Morocco. Our flight leaves within the hour.”
I glance at him. “On whose orders?”
“Grandfather’s.” He stands, clearly waiting for me to move. “The car is waiting.”
Slowly rising to my feet, I trudge to the car and climb inside. “What’s in Morocco?”
“Besides beautiful women, gambling, and a new Comic-Con—nothing special.”
I barely pay attention as we ride through the streets. I barely notice when we arrive at the airport and climb the stairs to board one of Grandfather’s planes.
My mind is focused on Everly. On every memory of her. Every kiss. Every conversation. Of the look on her face when she realized I’d betrayed her.
I’m on autopilot as we fly, then disembark to travel to meet Grandfather at his villa. A maid shows us up to the roof.
“Ah, you’re just in time for the show,” he says, gesturing for Ben and me to sit down with him. “Eat, eat.”
Mercifully, he doesn’t ask about Everly. I go through the motions of eating, but everything tastes the same. I have no idea if I’m eating a banana or caviar atop smoked salmon.
A flash of movement near the water catches my eye. “Is that who I think it is?”
“The one and only,” Ben says.
Vladimir climbs aboard his yacht and speaks to a man—the captain of the vessel—before disappearing from sight. Suddenly the yacht explodes, flames shooting to the sky. I jump to my feet, my mouth open in shock. Adrenaline runs through my body.
“Sit down, Kolya,” my grandfather says.
Only the command in his voice could get me to obey at that moment. My gaze flies to his. “I—I am not responsible for that.”
Ben leans back in his chair. “But I am.”
Shocked, I try to make sense of everything, but I can’t.
“Keep watching. There’s more,” Grandfather says and hands me a pair of binoculars. “In five minutes, twenty degrees west.”
“Vladimir thinks I helped him,” Ben says, digging into his eggs. “He wired a ton of money into my account to secure my cooperation.”
Pressing my face against the high-powered binoculars, I wait for the more that Grandfather wants me to see.
Out of nowhere, my mother appears. I nearly drop the binoculars. Then Vladimir appears, looking very alive. Furtively, they look around the marina, and then walk to the last pier, as if waiting for someone. “What the bloody hell is happening?” I growl.
“You’re not the only one in love with someone you shouldn’t be,” my grandfather says. He elbows Ben. “Eh, boy?”
“I wish our parents well,” Ben says. “But I also wish them to hell.”
“What?” I bark.
Ben shrugs. “What else can I do? I have no love for either of them.”
“Explain.”
Grandfather and Ben share a look. “Tell him,” my grandfather says.
“We’re brothers.”
“I’m not so obtuse.”
Ben rolls his eyes. “Yet you are completely unaware of what’s staring you in the face.”
I rake my gaze over my cousin. The similarities are there with our dark hair and blue eyes. We are of the same height and build, so we could pass for brothers. I shrug. “All Romanovs look alike.” This is true. With the exception of Vladimir and his twin sons, who are blonds.
My grandfather grunts, smacking me in the back of the head. I wince. “He’s your brother. Accept it. Rejoice in the fact that you are not alone in this world.”
The news is supposed to make me happy, but all I can think of is the wasted years. Years I’d spent with my little brother chasing after me. Time I’d spent teaching him how to ride his bike, tie his shoelaces properly, and shave.
Suddenly, it dawns on me. I hadn’t been denied anything. Except an explanation.
“Why?”
“Because the two of you were safer with me.” Grandfather cants his head. “Katerina’s judgment couldn’t be trusted when it came to her husband or her side of the family.”
Husband? “But my mother and father—” Ben clears his throat—loudly. This time I roll my eyes. “Sorry. Our mother and father never married.”
White teeth flash in the sun as my grandfather smiles. “They were married. Against my wishes.”
“And his English wife?”
“Not legal.”
Vladimir is a bigamist. If that were to ever get out, then his “legitimate” sons would lose everything. “Katerina didn’t care about his betrayal?”
My grandfather leans back in his chair and lights a cigarette. “I suspect she did, but who knows what he said or promised her.” He blows out a ring of smoke, and then motions to Ben. “Obviously, she forgave him at least once.”
He laughs at his own joke, while Ben and I sit there in total silence.
I have a brother. A brother I can spend time with and actually acknowledge in public. A brother who took care of me after I got shot, watched over the woman I loved when I couldn’t, and remained on my side, never betraying me.
My grandfather rises to his impressive height. He towers over us when we are standing, much less sitting. A bodyguard hands him a rifle. Slowly but surely, Grandfather steps to the edge of the roof and takes aim at the lovers climbing into a skiff that will surely take them to a much larger boat. “Though it pains this old man to do this, it has to be done. Thank you, Ben, for agreeing to help me.”
“Happy to be of service.”
A shot rings out. Vladimir goes down, falling headfirst into the water. Katerina screams. I look away.
“Make sure he is dead. He’ll receive a proper burial in London.” Grandfather tosses the weapon back to the bodyguard. “The two of you are good boys. Go have some fun. Live your lives how you see fit.”
“But what about…” I cannot finish my sentence. Between the shock of my father surviving an explosion and then being murdered in front of me, my grandfather’s offer seems surreal. This entire morning has been surreal.
“You must promise that no one will bother us, or who we choose to be with,” Ben says suddenly. “Nikolai and I would like to attempt to live in the sunlight.”
Grandfather nods. “I swear it.” He hugs each of us, then says, “I must go. Much work has to be done, now that Vladimir is dead, and the two of you are leaving the—how did Everly put it?—ah, yes, the family business. I quite like her, Kolya. Please bring her to visit me.”
He walks away, his bodyguards flanking him. Ben and I don’t say goodbye. We know it won’t be the last time we see him, or the last time he spies on us, like the crafty old spider he is.
Once he disappears, I glance at Ben. “How long have you known?”
“Not very long,” he says, his gaze shifting to the debris-covered marina. Most of the fire has been extinguished by local firefighters. A few boats are scorched on the sides, with melted paint and railings. “But at some level, I think I knew the entire time.”
“Katerina did not raise you?”
“Nyet. I lived with her sister’s family until Grandfather came to get me.”
Her sister’s family. Not my aunt and her family. That is very telling. “They did not treat you well?”
“They treated me like a dog,” he says, his eyes clouding over. “A dog that was only good for kicking and throwing scraps at…among other things.”
My fists tighten. Ben was younger than I was when he first came to Grandfather’s. There was no way he could have defended himself.
He laughs, but there is no mirth in it. “Calm yourself. They’ve been taken care of.”
“How?”
The look he gives me chills my soul. “Computers aren’t the only thing I know how to hack into.”
There’s no need to tell him to stay away from the path I’ve been traveling. He’s a man on his own road. The only way he’ll veer to the right or left is by his choice alone. “This is good to hear.”
“No lecture?” he asks lightly.
I cock a brow. “Only if you left evidence.”
His mouth thins. “I left nothing.”
I adjust my cuff links. “Everly is safe. And home. No one will bother her ever again.”
“So.” He shrugs.
“So?”
“You don’t care about her, not beyond this guilt-driven need to keep her safe, because if you did—”
Incensed, I jump to my feet, planting my hands on the table. “You know nothing. Nothing of what I feel for her. You’re nothing but a nineteen-year-old zhopa who knows exactly shit.”
That familiar grin of his kicks up the corners of his mouth. “Go to her, bratan.” Brother.
My anger slowly drains away and is replaced with pride. “Blyad. I have no reason to go to Asheville.”
“Not even to personally deliver her last book order?” he asks innocently.