Vlad waited two days to call Rachel, hoping she missed him at least half as much as he missed her. Instead, he discovered she’d blocked him and the frustration ate at him. She had pride, which he understood given the circumstances, but he didn’t know what to do about it. He’d thought long and hard about what she’d said and there was no universe in which he would give her up just so to have a biological child. That was ludicrous. Growing up as an orphan, he would have done anything to have a family like he and Rachel could provide, parents willing to adopt him. They had so much to give children like that and she was too hurt to see it just yet.

He wasn’t stupid; he understood her hesitation. There were dozens of marriages that had publicly gone south due to infertility issues, but he was positive it wouldn’t matter to him. Not today, not tomorrow, and not in ten years. Yes, he wanted children—a lot of them if possible—but it truly didn’t matter to him if they shared his blood or not. Maybe it was because he’d never known his parents or any family, but his bloodline didn’t have any meaning to him. Giving a home to children who didn’t have anyone else to take care of them was far more important to him than whose DNA they shared. Unfortunately, it was going to be a monumental task to convince Rachel he meant it.

* * *

“Maybe she just needs a little time,” Tessa said softly that night at dinner. She and Toli had invited him over after he’d told Toli about Rachel blocking his number on her phone.

“I’m not going to blow smoke up your ass,” Toli added. “This is going to be an uphill battle for you. Convincing her that a twenty-three-year-old man is perfectly content not having his own children is going to be hard.”

Vlad scowled. “I can’t give up. She’s everything to me.”

“She’s got to be in a lot of emotional pain right now,” Tessa said. “If I’d had to have a hysterectomy before I had Raina, it would have gutted me. She’s only twenty-five. This has to be devastating to her.”

“Which is why I need to be with her.” Vlad hung his head. “But I can’t be in L.A. and she won’t come here.”

“You’re in a tough spot,” Toli nodded. “Maybe you should let it be for a while, give her some time to work through it.”

Tessa shook her head. “I think the longer he leaves her alone, the harder it’ll be to get to her. I think he needs to go back to L.A. every free minute he has and sit on her front porch until she lets him in.”

Vlad snickered. “If she changes the gate code, I’m fucked. And if I’m standing outside her gate, the community’s security guards will remove me.”

“Then you’d better be quick about getting her to un-block you from her life,” Toli muttered.

“I really fucked up everything, didn’t I?” Vlad said, putting down his fork. “If I hadn’t left her at the altar, we’d be married and going through this together. If I hadn’t run away and missed training camp, I’d be able to take a leave of absence for a month or two to take care of my wife, who’s battling cancer. Instead, I’m playing on the fourth line of the team I was the second-highest scorer for last year, riding the bench tomorrow night, and sleeping alone every night. It fucking sucks.”

“You’re going to be okay,” Toli said softly. “Coach won’t have you on the fourth line once he finalizes the roster, and you’re only benched for two games. Things will settle down and no one will even remember you missed part of camp or anything about the wedding.”

“I hope so.” Vlad didn’t know what else to say and was grateful when Toli started talking about Anton’s start to his college hockey season.

After dinner, they sat in the living room talking. Tessa was feeding the baby and Raina was playing on the floor. It was exactly what Vlad wanted for himself, and once again it didn’t matter if the children were natural or adopted. Raina wasn’t Toli’s biological child, but he adored her and they were very close. Vlad didn’t see any difference in the way he treated Raina and the way he treated Anton or Alexei, so he was sure it wouldn’t matter with any children Vlad adopted, either.

“I’m going to go work on Toli’s scrapbook,” Tessa said when the baby was finally asleep. “You two can talk shop or whatever.” She got up and headed towards the stairs.

“Hey, Tessa?” Vlad called out to her.

“Yes?” She turned.

“I’d like to see some of those pictures again. There was a picture that’s bugging me and I can’t figure out why.”

“Sure. Let me put the baby down and I’ll be right back.”

“What picture?” Toli asked, leading him into the dining room, where Tessa still had pictures spread out all over the table.

“You said you never played at Coach Novoseltsev’s academy, but I know those jerseys and there’s a picture of you wearing one.”

Toli frowned. “Where?”

Vlad browsed through the photos that were out and then opened an envelope that had a mish-mash of random pictures. Tessa came back as he was looking and took them from him.

“I think I remember the one you asked about last time you looked at these… Oh, yes, this is it, right?” She held up a picture and Vlad frowned.

“Yes, that’s it. I have the exact same picture.”

“You have a picture of me?” Toli asked in confusion.

“No, it’s of me.”

The two men looked at each other. Toli took the picture and studied it carefully. “You’re right,” he said at last. “This isn’t me. Look.” He pulled out another picture of him at approximately the same age and though there was a resemblance, they weren’t the same.

“Your mother gave me these pictures,” Tessa said. “Why would she have a picture of Vlad?”

“Your father said he looked out for me,” Vlad said slowly. “Because my mother asked him to.”

“But these were pictures Toli’s mom collected of Toli. She had two envelopes, one for Toli and one for Sergei. She gave me Toli’s saying it would be better for me to have them, to show our children.”

“It’s definitely strange,” Toli admitted. “Even if my father had photos and such of you, why would he put them in with mine?”

“Maybe he didn’t want your mother to know about them?” Tessa suggested.

“If he was just looking out for the child of a fallen colleague, why wouldn’t he want her to know?” Vlad asked.

“There’s definitely more to this story,” Toli said quietly. “The question is, how badly do you want to know the rest? You already discovered that the answers you get aren’t necessarily helpful. Do you want me to dig into this?”

Vlad hesitated but finally nodded. “I’ve come this far and sacrificed a lot… What do you think, Toli? Can you ask your father, or should we leave it alone?”

“Again, how badly do you want to know?”

“I almost ruined my whole life looking for answers—it’s pretty obvious I want to know.”

“My dad might have the answers you want. The thing is, if he’s KGB or some other type of government official, you can’t approach, contact, or even think about him. That puts not just you, but also Rachel, in all kinds of danger. This isn’t debatable, Vlad. If I ask my father for the truth, you have to be prepared to live with not being able to pursue it.”

Vlad was quiet for a moment, his thoughts racing as he contemplated the idea of his father being alive and him not being able to contact him. Would it bother him anymore than it had bothered him not knowing anything about his parents? At this point, probably not. He glanced over at Toli and shook his head.

“I don’t really care who he is or what he does. I just want to know the truth. Maybe he can answer some questions about my mother or something like that, but at this stage of my life, I don’t need a father. I only want to have some closure.”

Toli nodded. “I’ll call my father before I go to bed tonight. It’ll be morning in Moscow.”

“Thank you.”

* * *

Toli was already in the locker room, changing into his gear, when Vlad arrived in the morning. They had a morning skate before the game tonight, and though Vlad wasn’t playing, he still had to be there. He was surprised to see Toli so early and sank onto the bench next to him.

“Hey.”

“Hey.” Toli had a strange look on his face.

“What’s up?”

Toli switched to Russian. “I had a very interesting conversation with my father last night.”

“What did he say?”

“Nothing.” Toli looked thoughtful. “In fact, he was short with me and eventually hung up, saying I always cause him trouble and should leave him alone.”

Vlad raised his eyebrows. “Is this code for something?”

Toli nodded. “It means he won’t talk about it on the phone and not to bring it up again.”

“So he knows something,” Vlad acknowledged slowly. “If he didn’t, he would have said so and moved on.”

“Exactly.”

“Then what do we do?”

“I don’t know,” Toli admitted. “For my father to have such a strong reaction, it means he doesn’t want to talk about it on the phone and since I don’t plan to ever set foot in Russia again, there’s no way to ask him in person.”

Vlad sighed. “Yes, okay.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Vlad thought about the photographs Tessa had. “Can we look to see if there are more pictures that are possibly me? I have very few from before I joined the men’s junior team.”

“Of course. Come over on the next day off and we’ll go through all of them.”

Vlad nodded but his thoughts were far away. Something had been bothering him about Anatoly’s behavior both when he’d been in Russia and now with Toli. He wasn’t sure what was going on, but Toli’s father was hiding something significant. He could have simply reiterated that Vlad’s father was dead and he and Toli wouldn’t have been any wiser. Yet he’d had such a strong reaction to Toli’s call it was as if he was trying to tell them something.

He yearned to talk to Rachel, ask her what she thought, but for now that was impossible. He’d talk to Brock later, see if he’d heard anything from her. In the meantime, he had to get through practice and sitting out the game tonight. He deserved it, but that didn’t make it any easier. Seeing his teammates gearing up for a game while he warmed the bench sucked. There was no other way to put it. Until that part of his life was sorted out, the mystery of his lineage had to wait.