I kicked my feet as I waited on a bench out in the hallway in the Volkov family headquarters. I hated the place; with its clinical feel, it gave me the creeps. But maybe that was just because I knew the kinds of things that the Volkov family got up to, and didn’t want anything to do with them.

Actually, I hated that my father had anything to do with this stuff, even though I knew these arms deals were his way of doing Mother Russia proud. It wasn’t like he was really doing anything wrong, either. But it made my skin crawl, nonetheless.

I wasn’t really sure why he had asked me to come along to Barcelona with him. I wasn’t usually part of these things. I knew that some measure of it was for moral support. He and the Volkovs didn’t always see eye-to-eye. I hadn’t realized it back then, but I was pretty sure Evgeni had specifically forced Alexei to come to Barcelona all those years ago because he didn’t want his nephew marrying someone like me.

Our name wasn’t particularly well thought of in Russia.

I sighed and closed my eyes, beyond bored with just hanging around the headquarters. I’d expected this to just be a quick stop. All I knew was that Dad needed to hand a list of contacts over to Evgeni. They were people he knew through work who were interested in buying some large arms shipment. The weapons would ship from Barcelona and the Volkovs rather than the mob syndicate back home in St. Petersburg so that it was less likely to be traced back to Russia if things went south on the deal.

Or something like that. I didn’t know all the specifics.

The thing I really didn’t understand was why Dad had to be the one to come all the way to Barcelona to get this deal figured out. He usually didn’t have anything to do with these kind of deals. Or if he did, he didn’t tell me about them.

I had to wonder whether I was there as some sort of cover for him. Maybe an arms deal was just the start of things.

But I didn’t want to think about any of that. All those possibilities, all the things that our family might be tied up in—and once upon a time, all the things that Alexei might be tied up in—I did my best to ignore. The less I knew, the safer I was. And the safer they were because there was no information for me to hand over to police, members of other gangs, or whoever else might have a reason to use that sort of information.

I shuddered just thinking about it.

Just then, Dad came out into the hallway, closely followed by Evgeni. He looked surprised to see me sitting there, and I could tell that the two of them had been drinking. I fought the urge to roll my eyes. Russians… Enemies or friends, it seemed like they were always drinking together, especially where business matters were concerned.

“Yulia!” Dad said, his voice too loud and overly-enthusiastic. “What are you still doing here? I thought you’d be gone by now.”

I raised an eyebrow at him, giving him a cool stare. Maybe that’s what I was doing here: fishing him away from these wolves before they tore him limb from limb. But I was careful to keep my tone sweet and my expression neutral. “Dad, I thought we were going to go to lunch together,” I reminded him.

Dad looked shocked, but he quickly recovered himself, laughing as he clapped me on the shoulder. “We’ll go to dinner instead,” he promised me. “Zhenechka was just telling me about this wonderful place on the waterfront that we have to try while we’re here.”

I stared at him for a long moment, not sure which I was more baffled by, the fact that Dad was blowing me off, or the fact that he and Evgeni were apparently close enough now that he used Evgeni’s pet name when talking about him. Zhenechka, I never thought I’d hear Dad call him that, I thought, shaking my head.

The deal either had gone really well already, or else there was something more going on that I didn’t understand. But again, I didn’t want to know what it was.

Instead, I back slowly away from the two of them, edging carefully away. “All right, well, call me when you’re ready to go to dinner,” I told him, even though I had a feeling that if he was this drunk already, there was no way we’d be going to dinner that night. He’d be lucky to make it back to the hotel before passing out.

As I headed through the maze of hallways, trying to remember which way the exit was, I suddenly bumped into someone. I stumbled backward, caught totally off guard, and the guy reached out to steady me. His hands were strong on my forearms, and for a moment, I leaned towards him, comforted by the familiar scent of…

“Alexei?” I asked in surprise, blushing crimson as I shook his hands off my arms.

Alexei stared down at me, looking like he didn’t know what to say. I smirked, remembering how flat-footed I’d caught him the previous night.

Alexei’s eyes narrowed, and he folded his arms across his chest. “What are you doing here?” he asked.

I shrugged. “Just keeping Dad company for a while,” I told him.

Alexei looked around. “And where is your father, then?” he asked.

“With Evgeni,” I said, my mouth twisting. I paused. “Seems I have a free afternoon.”

“Well, you’d better not go poking around Volkov headquarters,” Alexei said. “You know better than that.”

I raised an eyebrow at him, putting a hand on his arm. “Why Alexei, I didn’t know you still cared about me,” I purred. There was something cute about watching him squirm.

The truth was, my feelings were still tangled up over Alexei, even all these years later. I’d dated a few guys, but there hadn’t been anyone serious. I kept catching myself comparing them to Alexei, even though I knew that wasn’t fair. But every one of those guys had fallen short of my standards in some way.

I hated that I was still thinking about him. He certainly hadn’t waited for me; Dmitry said he was at Ritmo to pick up a new girl nearly every other night. I mean, I hadn’t expected him to wait for me, to pine for me. I would never have liked him in the first place if he had been that kind of guy. But all the same…

And the cherry on top of it all had been his attempts to get me to go home with him the previous night. I knew that I didn’t look half as studious as I used to. We’d both changed. I’d matured a lot. But the fact that he didn’t recognize me at all, that he didn’t even think I was Russian… Something about that just hurt. It made me feel like I’d just been some forgettable chapter in his life.

For all I knew, maybe I had been. After all, we’d both changed. Maybe he’d grown up and realized that I could never have been what he wanted anyway. He seemed pretty happy with his life here in Barcelona; he’d hardly come back to Russia at all since he’d moved here.

All I knew was that I couldn’t let him know how much I still cared about him. If he was going to treat our relationship like it had never meant anything, then I had to do the same.

“What are you up to this afternoon?” I asked him. “I could use someone to show me around the city.”

For a moment, there was indecision in his eyes, but then he shook his head. “I have Volkov business to attend to,” he told me sharply.

“Still involved with all this shit, hmm?” I asked disgustedly. Of course, I should have known. Once you were a member of the mob, it was pretty much impossible to get out of. That was part of why I’d never wanted him to get tangled up with it in the first place. He was too intelligent to be doing this stuff for the rest of his life, even if it was a get-rich-quick sort of scheme.

“And you’re still slaving away in St. Petersburg trying to teach English to rich, idiot kids whose parents are the only ones who care that they know a single word of the language,” Alexei said, a sneer on his face. “Don’t pretend that you couldn’t be doing better with your life.”

He took a step closer, moving into my personal space until I was backed up against the wall. I could feel my heartbeat quicken, and for the briefest moment, I thought that he was going to kiss me.

I didn’t push him away. I didn’t pull him closer, of course, but I didn’t push him away. We lingered there for a moment, and I think neither of us knew just what to say. I could see his pupils dilated with lust, he wanted this to be intimidating but instead was just as turned on as I was.

Finally, I laughed and pushed at his shoulders. “You know, Alexei,” I said. “If you’re really that desperate to get laid, we probably have enough history between us that we could make it really good.”

Alexei gave me an unreadable look, and I realized I was holding my breath—even though I didn’t know what sort of answer I was waiting for. Would it be better for him to scoff and say that whatever we’d had was over? Or for him to pull me into his arms, kiss me passionately—maybe take me into one of the deserted rooms here and fuck me senseless?

I swallowed hard, not feeling half of the bravado that I’d infused my offer with.

But Alexei didn’t respond in either of the ways that I’d thought he might. Instead, he turned on his heel and stalked off down the hallway, not even giving me a backwards glance.

I slumped back against the wall, not sure why I felt so hollow, so rejected. Had I really thought that I could just show up here in Barcelona and have back everything that I’d once had with Alexei?

That wasn’t what I thought at all, I thought angrily. But I knew, deep down, that it wasn’t exactly true. I’d expected that I would see Alexei again and that sparks would fly. Instead, he was positively frosty towards me, like he wanted nothing to do with me ever again.

And as much as I didn’t want to admit it, that careful neutrality hurt me somewhere deep in my core.