I stomped into my office a few days after my meeting with Mikhail, my mood as dark and angry as ever.
Despite keeping myself busy with preparations for Allistair’s Ball, my mind continued to wander, images of fiery green eyes and vibrant red hair haunting my fucking dreams.
It didn’t seem to matter that I told myself countless times not to think about her. Not to wonder what she was doing. Where she was. If she was fucking someone.
Denial was a funny thing. I’d told myself time and time again that I didn’t give a shit about anything to do with Autumn, and yet, I found myself incapable of thinking about anyone else.
I was so sure the minute she was out of my sight that things would go back to normal. That my mind would become clear once again. That all those unwanted feelings she’d brought up within me would vanish.
But that didn’t happen.
It was the opposite.
They got worse.
Why?
Why couldn’t I get her off my fucking mind?
Why was I constantly having to stop myself from hunting her down?
Was I plaguing her every waking thought, like she was mine?
I fucking doubted it. And that pissed me off even more.
The conversation ceased the moment I stepped into my office, Aleksandr, Nikolai and Lukyan exchanging awkward looks with one another as they snapped their mouths shut in an instant. Like they were afraid to talk in front of me in case I lost it.
Smart.
Aleksandr and Nikolai were dressed for the day—full suit and tie—but my youngest son usually chose comfort over business attire. He was in a pair of grey sweats and decided it was a day to go shirtless.
I glanced around the room before locking my gaze on my eldest son. “Where’s your wife?”
The slight crease in his brows told me he was confused by my question. He slowly came to his feet. “She’s upstairs.”
“Get her here,” I snapped. “What part of ’family meeting’ did you not understand? She’s family, isn’t she?”
I knew I was being…well…for lack of a better word, bitchy. But I honestly couldn’t help it. My patience was non-existent, my temper like a bomb about to detonate and explode.
Surprise flashed in Aleksandr’s eyes for the briefest moment before he left the room, returning a few minutes later with Drea in tow.
Standing at five feet tall, she might have been a tiny, little thing, but she was also full of fire and spirit. She was wearing a heavy metal t-shirt and ripped black jeans with a pair of combat boots to match. Every inch of skin was covered in tattoos and she had several facial piercings.
I remembered when I first met her. She’d literally run right into me. Fear had streaked across her face for the briefest moment, but then she’d surprised the shit out of me by standing her ground and not backing down. Not crumbling despite the fact that she was uneasy in my presence.
She impressed me then. And after hearing everything she’d done to help rescue us from Talon’s grasp, I was even more impressed with her.
Drea cleared her throat awkwardly. “Hello, Mr Butcher—I mean, Mr Volkov—it’s nice to meet you. Well, I guess we’ve met before. Not sure if you remember. You probably don’t, it was a long time ago. Well, not a long, long time ago, but it was before you were kidnapped and everything—” She winced, and I found myself fighting the urge to chuckle at her rambling. “Sorry, um, Aleksandr said you wanted to see me? Maybe? Or was he wrong? I can go.”
“I remember you,” was all I replied with.
“Okay. Cool. Well, I remember you. Obviously. I mean, who wouldn’t remember you, you know, ’cause of the whole ’kkkkkkkkkk’.” My brows rose slightly as she swiped a finger across her throat. “You’ve killed a lot of people. How many people have you killed anyway? Do you know? Do you keep count? I keep count—”
Huh. She’s a talker. Surprising, considering my son is a man of few words.
Aleksandr slapped a hand over her mouth to stop her rambling. Lukyan snickered.
I cleared my throat with a cough. “Right.” I wasn’t going to answer that question, partly because I didn’t actually know how many people I’d killed.
I stopped counting a long time ago.
Now that everyone was there, it was time to make things official.
I moved behind my desk, pulled out my chair, and instead of sitting down, offered it to Aleksandr. The room filled with silence. Nikolai and Lukyan shared a look with one another, shock mirrored on their faces.
“Father?” Aleksandr questioned.
Drea forcibly removed his hand that was still covering her mouth. “He wants you to sit down,” she whispered out of the side of her mouth.
“I know that,” he hissed back.
Aleksandr and I stared at each other from across the room, the significance of the moment not lost on him. He knew I wasn’t just offering him a place to sit down. I was offering him…everything.
When Dominik had kidnapped me, the role of Pakhan had gone to Aleksandr by default. With me gone, he’d had no choice but to step up, to take control. But now that I was back, they’d all assumed things would go back to normal. That we would all return to our roles prior to my kidnapping.
Me as Pakhan.
Aleksandr as second-in-command.
That wasn’t going to happen.
I’d come to realise several things upon my return, one of which was that Aleksandr was more than ready to take over. I’d spoken to several of my advisors, the soldiers, the maids—even to some of our clients, old and new—and everyone had nothing but high praises when it came to Aleksandr. They all said he’d handled himself well. Conducted himself professionally. That he’d thrived despite all the pressure he’d been under.
It was time for me to step aside and time for him to shine.
I remained silent, waiting, staring my son down. By offering him my seat, I was offering him the role of Pakhan. He, of course, had the choice to decline it if he wished. I would never force something like that onto my children. If it wasn’t what he wanted, that was okay.
The choice was his.
Determination settled over Aleksandr’s face. He straightened his spine, standing taller, and with his head held high, he walked over and sat down.
Pride burst in my chest.
The shutter of a photo being taken rang out through the room. We all looked at Lukyan. He had his phone in his hand, teeth bared in an innocent smile.
‘What?’ he shrugged. ‘We have to document this. It’s a special moment.’
My son, the class clown ladies and gentleman.
One down, one to go.
I moved to the corner of the room and grabbed another chair, wheeling it over to place it right next to Aleksandr. I looked pointedly at Drea, waiting again.
She glanced around awkwardly, like she wasn’t sure if I was looking at her or someone else. “Is he looking at me?” she whispered to no one in particular, but Lukyan answered the way Lukyan always does.
With snark.
“Duh.” Then he snapped his mouth shut at Aleksandr’s scathing glare.
Any initial nervousness Drea had when she entered the room vanished in an instant. She walked over with absolute confidence, taking her rightful place alongside her husband, the new Pakhan.
What a lot of people didn’t realise was that although Aleksandr was now the official leader of the Bratva, so too was Drea. A king needed a queen, and anyone with half a brain knew the queen was the one who held all the power.
Nodding, satisfied, I walked around the desk and stood in front of Lukyan, arching an eyebrow.
“I’ll just go sit over there,” Lukyan said, getting up and taking a seat on the couch.
“Father—”
I raised a hand, silencing Aleksandr as I sat down. I had something I needed to say before we officially began, and I didn’t want anyone interrupting me. Something both Aleksandr and Drea deserved to hear.
“During my absence, both you and your wife proved that you have what it takes to not only fill the role of Pakhan, but fill it well.” I poured every ounce of pride I felt into that one word, hoping he could hear my sincerity. “I see no reason why that has to change just because I’m back. I’ve spoken with the soldiers, with Ivan and Vladimir, and they did nothing but sing your praises. You held strong in the face of overwhelming uncertainty. Didn’t crumble under the pressure, but thrived. And your wife” —my gaze moved to Drea— “managed to pull off one of the biggest infiltrations I’ve ever witnessed. She showed where her true loyalties lay, and that she would go above and beyond for you. Which, my son, is one of the greatest gifts men like us can ever hope to get. It’s my time to step aside and your time to shine. Both of you.”
Aleksandr’s mouth dropped open. He looked at Nikolai and back at me, struggling to come to terms with what I’d just said.
I’d learnt a lot of things from being stuck in that arena, one of which was that I needed to be more honest with my children. I needed to stop holding myself back from them. I loved them all so, so much, and that love terrified me. I feared losing them like I lost Yekaterina. Feared experiencing that devastating, crippling loss all over again. Because of that, I held them all at arm’s length, thinking that by doing so, it might lessen that pain should I lose them, too.
But that was idiotic.
I was self-aware enough to realise that now.
“What… Uh,” Aleksandr licked his lips. “What will you do now, then?”
“Usually, there’s a transition period when new leadership is underway, but based on what I’ve heard, you don’t need it. I’ll still be here, though, in case you need me or need any advice. But ultimately, you’ll be in charge.”
That got my youngest son’s attention. “Ooo,” Lukyan sang, straightening in his seat. “Does that mean he gets to boss you around for once?”
A tiny bit of humor trickled through me. Aleksandr arched an eyebrow, waiting for me to respond. It was a good question, and I could feel the corner of my lips hike up into a smirk.
“I’m nothing if not respectful of the proper chain of command,” was all I said on that matter. Let them infer whatever they want from that. I nodded and leant back in my chair, crossing my ankle over my knee. “The meeting is yours, son.”
Aleksandr straightened, and with no hesitation, dived straight into it. He discussed several key problems going on, and every second I sat there listening, I just grew more and more proud of him.
Turns out, a lot of shit went down while I was gone. My children had been quite busy dealing with Franco—Nero’s brother, the fucker responsible for kidnapping Illayana (the first time). He was in hiding. They’d also tracked down and killed the MC Gangs Dominik had hired to raid our home over two months earlier. While I was happy about that, I was also slightly disappointed. I wanted in on that action.
When we got to the topic of Talon, I said nothing of my plans. Nothing about how, in a few short days, I would be on a plane to London to attend a stupid ball held by a pretentious asshole in hopes of getting my hands on the one person I knew who had recent contact with Talon. Luckily, Aleksandr, Drea, Nikolai and Lukyan were far too preoccupied to notice I was hiding anything, the topic quickly switching to that of Lukyan’s stalker.
“What about her?” Lukyan shrugged uncaringly. He didn’t seem to be too worried about the fact that he had someone following his every move.
“Did you know she was the one who sent the location of the island to Drea? Or that she was the sniper who saved you in the arena?” Aleksandr asked his brother sternly.
The first one, I didn’t know. I was curious how Drea, Mikhail, Arturo and Tatiana had found us. But the second one, I had suspected. What happened in the arena was chaotic, but I noticed that, whoever that sniper was, they were only interested in protecting Lukyan. The rest of us might as well have not been there at all.
Lukyan’s eyes widened. “She was? How could you possibly know that?”
Drea answered, “Because I didn’t order anyone up there. Neither did Arturo, Mikhail or my brother.”
Her brother, the new leader of The Los Zetas Cartel—the same cartel that assisted Nero in kidnapping Illayana.
Wow, how things have changed.
“Okay? I don’t get what the big deal is.” Of course he doesn’t. I found it more difficult than I thought it would be to keep my mouth shut. But Aleksandr was in charge, and he would have to handle it. Unless he asked for help, I wouldn’t say a thing. “If what you’re saying is true, it means she saved me, she saved us.”
Aleksandr’s face remained hard, showing he wasn’t fucking around. “The big deal is, the woman is highly-trained, highly-skilled, has managed to sneak in and out of our property completely undetected” —wait, what?— “and we have no idea who the fuck she is. The big deal is that she is a massive, massive threat, and the moment she realises she can’t have you will be the moment everything changes.”
For once, Lukyan had no sarcastic retort. He sat there, processing his brother’s words with a frown on his face.
“We need to find her and deal with her.” The intent behind that was clear. “She’s following you. That means you’re the only one who can do it. You do whatever you need to do to find her, and you kill her. Understand?”
The room was silent for a moment. I thought perhaps Lukyan would fight him on it, but eventually, he agreed. “Got it.”
Aleksandr addressed a few more issues; where we sat with inventory, our new clients in New York, the progress of the new soldiers that had been sent over from Russia to help replenish our ranks.
Once he was done, I spoke. “I will be going away for a few weeks. There’s something I have to do—”
“Does this ’something’ have anything to do with a certain feisty redhead?” Lukyan sang, full of cheekiness.
My eyes snapped to him wicked fast, the mere mention of Autumn making that dark, angry beast inside of me—who had just started to go back to sleep—roar to life, scratching at my skin. Anger burnt in my eyes, my jaw clenching, hands closing into tight fists as I glared at my youngest son, who had the propensity to say whatever stupid thing popped into his head.
Lukyan winced, looking away.
Watching Aleksandr step into the role he’d been preparing for his entire life had helped distract me, however briefly, from the crushing thought of Autumn. But suddenly, she was right back there, slinking around in the forefront of my mind like she had every right to be there.
I had half a mind to take Lukyan to the ring and beat his ass for putting her back there—
“Since we’re sharing news, I have something to tell you all,” Nikolai cut in, stopping my train of thought.
Probably a good idea.
“I’m leaving,” he finished.
My gaze whipped to him in shock. Nikolai’s words had surprised everyone so much that we all spoke at the same time, talking over one another.
Me: “What are you talking about?”
Aleksandr: “Where are you going?”
Lukyan: “Can I have your room?”
We all gave him a deadpan stare.
He shrugged. “What?” he asked innocently, his eyes moving over us one at a time. “It’s not like it’s a surprise. Of course he’s leaving. As if he could live somewhere different than Tatiana,” he scoffed, looking at us like we were the idiots.
Well, he has a point there.
The love Nikolai had for Tatiana was the type of love everyone hoped to have in their lives. The type of love I had for his mother. I could understand completely why—
Wait—had? Past tense?
“Tatiana can’t move here?” Aleksandr asked Nikolai with a frown.
I tried to keep up with the conversation, but my mind started to spiral, the implications of my thoughts making me freak the fuck out.
What is going on? I love Yekaterina. Not loved. LOVE. It doesn’t matter if she wasn’t there anymore. I will always love her, no matter what. Love. Love. Love—
“She’s pregnant.”
My thoughts cut off in an instant, my head snapping to Nikolai. Surprise hit me hard, making my eyes bug out of my head.
Did he just say what I think he said?
“What?!” Lukyan shouted. “Already?! Damn, how strong are your swimmers?”
“Oh my god! Congratulations!” Drea squealed, jumping up and down in her chair. “A baby! How exciting!”
Nikolai smirked. “Two, actually.”
Aleksandr’s eyes widened. “Twins?” he breathed out.
Nikolai nodded, his face alight with happiness.
Whaaaat? All these surprises were liable to give me a goddamn heart attack. Delight exploded in my chest, and I got to my feet at the same time Aleksandr did, moving towards him.
“Congratulations, little brother,” he said, hauling Nikolai up into a tight hug.
I came up from behind and patted him on the shoulder. “Congratulations, son.”
It was such a significant moment for Nikolai, and I couldn’t be happier for him. But with the news must have come unbelievable anxiety after what happened the first time.
Before he left, I would need to speak with him, like I should have done years ago. It was a conversation I was in no way looking forward to, but one we needed to have.
“I wanna get in on this.” Lukyan slammed into us, his arms wrapping around us and his head resting on Nikolai’s back. “This is so nice,” he breathed dreamily.
Aleksandr grunted. “Get off me.”
“Andddd look at that, you ruined it, ya big grump.”
Laughing softly, Nikolai stepped back. We all took our seats again.
“Just because I’m leaving doesn’t mean I won’t still work,” Nikolai began. “I’ll coordinate with our new clients in New York and oversee the deliveries and payments. Tatiana only plans to stay at FIT long enough to gain enough credits so that, when a spot opens up at a college here, she can transfer.”
Aleksandr nodded, satisfied with that plan. “So when do you leave?”
“Now.”
“Nikolai, stay back a moment.”
“Oooo, someone’s in troubleeee,” Lukyan sang mockingly. At my glare, he snapped his mouth shut and pointed to the door. “I’ll just—”
“Leave? Good idea,” I grunted, still annoyed with his little comment about Autumn from earlier.
He shot out the door quicksmart. Aleksandr and Drea said their goodbyes next. Aleksandr gave me a slight bow of the head, something he was no longer required to do now that he was Pakhan, but I suspected he was so used to it that it had become second nature to him.
Drea looked awkwardly between the two of us like she wasn’t sure what to do. She started to lower herself into a curtsy.
Humor trickled through me. I grabbed her arm, stopping her. “Just goodbye is fine,” I chuckled softly, unable to help myself.
She smiled. “Goodbye.”
‘Proshchay, doch,” Goodbye, daughter.
Aleksandr gasped.
“What?” Her gaze whipped back and forth. “What is it?”
“I’ll let Aleksandr tell you. Now, give us the room, please.”
Aleksandr swallowed thickly before bowing his head again, this time a lot lower than the first, and then he took Drea’s hand and pulled her out of the room despite her slight protest.
“That was nice of you,” Nikolai commented after the door shut. “I know it would have meant a lot to Aleksandr to hear you call her that. To know you accept her and approve of her.”
“It’s true.” I signalled for him to take a seat. “She’s my daughter now, and she’ll be treated as such. So will Tatiana.”
He bowed his head in thanks. ‘Spasibo, Otets.’ Thank you, Father. He sat down, a certain tenseness to his body that told me he was wary of why I asked him to remain behind. “If you’ve kept me back to try and convince me to stay—”
“I wouldn’t do that,” I said softly.
He nodded, satisfied, and urged me to continue on.
I took a deep breath, wondering where on Earth to begin. Nervousness was not something I felt often, but right then, it skated across my skin, worming its way into my gut. I feared his response, that he would be angry with me once he knew the truth.
“I’m really happy for you and Tatiana.”
He smiled, bright and beaming. I’d never seen him so happy.
I hated to ruin that.
“There’s a conversation we need to have. One I fear we both have been avoiding for a while.”
His whole body went rigid, going stiff as a board. “You know,” he breathed, somehow figuring it out from just that one sentence alone. “How-how do you know? Did Aleksandr tell you?” he asked, a slight accusatory tilt to his words.
I shook my head. “No. Of course not. Though, I am glad you finally confided in someone.”
“Then, how?”
I moved the other armchair until it was directly across from him, and then I sat down. “How much do you remember?” I whispered softly. “From…that night?”
He looked away, clearly not wanting to talk about it. Not wanting to remember.
I didn’t blame him.
I placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. “We need to talk about it, son.”
“Why? It’s in the past. What good could possibly come from talking about it now?” he asked, voice devoid of emotion.
“Talk to me,” I begged.
His eyes shot to me. Drawing in a shaky breath, he said, with pain dripping from every word, “I remember everything from before I left the hospital. I remember how beautiful my son was. How h-heavy he felt in my arms.” Tears welled in his eyes as he looked down at his hands like he could picture that little baby right there, in that moment. “How broken and completely devastated Tatiana was. I remember how impossible it all seemed, to love someone so strongly, so fiercely, and have them ripped away from you, not being able to do a thing to stop it. I remember the hurt in Tatiana’s voice. The betrayal in her eyes because I wasn’t there for her. The guilt. The shame… Why are you making me relive this?” he asked, pained.
“And what do you remember after?” I pushed, ignoring his question.
“After?”
“After the hospital.”
He frowned. “Not much. Everything is kind of hazy after that.”
I nodded.
I’d suspected as much.
Taking a deep breath, I began. “I was around the corner from the house when Aleksandr called me,” I said, getting lost in the memory, allowing it to take me over. “I’ve never heard him so scared. He was absolutely terrified. He told me I needed to get home as quickly as I could. That there was something wrong with you, and he didn’t know what to do. That in itself had made me so scared, I ended up driving my car straight through the gates instead of waiting for the guards to open them. Your brother always knows what to do. For him to say that… It meant something had to be very, very wrong. When I pulled up, you were lying in his arms, completely catatonic. You didn’t move, didn’t speak, no matter how much we tried to get you to. You just lay there, staring off into space. When I asked Aleksandr what happened, he told me he found you in your car, just sitting there with the engine running. Aleksandr dragged you out, and then you just snapped, screaming and clawing at your chest like you were trying to get something out. Then you just…dropped.”
Nikolai listened, the slight crease in his brows telling me he had no recollection of that.
“I called every single doctor on our payroll, and they all said the same thing. Physically, you were fine. That whatever you were dealing with was emotional. Of the mind. I used your tracker to retrace your last steps and found out where you’d been. You’d just come from Saint Royal Hospital. So, I called them. After bribing some nurses and threatening some others, I found out what happened. Found out Tatiana had been admitted for a stillbirth delivery.”
Nikolai’s frown deepened. He looked at me, hurt blazing in his eyes. “Are you… Are you telling me you knew this whole time?” he asked, incredulous. “You knew this whole time, and never said anything?!”
Guilt slammed into me at the betrayal on his face. “Nikolai, I—”
He jumped to his feet, anger literally pulsing from him. “Why?” he growled. “Why didn’t you say anything?! I needed you! I needed someone! Anyone! Why weren’t you there for me if you knew what happened?!”
Panic began to smother me. “Nikolai. Let me explain. I knew what you were going through and—”
“You couldn’t possibly know,” Nikolai spat. “You couldn’t know the hurt, the loss I was feeling—”
“Yes, I—”
“No, you couldn’t!” he yelled, cutting me off again. “You have no idea—”
“Yes. I. Do!” I screamed, leaping up to stand toe-to-toe with him. I dropped my guard, the façade I kept in place all the time, and allowed him to see the pain I shared with him. The pain only someone who’d lost a child could know.
His chest rose and fell with deep, heavy breaths as his eyes ran over my face, studying me. He gasped softly. “Mother?”
I collapsed back into my seat, mentally exhausted. But I knew I had to keep going. “She wasn’t as far along as Tatiana was. Only twenty-one weeks. But…yes.” I stared off into space, every detail from back then bombarding my senses. “It was a few years after you were born. Everything was going great. We found out it was a girl.” I smiled as the memory played before my eyes, the happiness and excitement Yekaterina had at finally getting the little girl she’d always dreamed of having. “Then, your mother had a terrible fall. She lost her footing and fell down the stairs. We rushed to the hospital, but—” I sucked in a breath, unable to even finish the sentence, the pain was so great.
Nikolai lowered himself slowly back into his seat, listening quietly.
Clearing my throat, I continued, but it took everything I had to keep my voice from shaking. “Your mother was devastated after it. She blamed herself, no matter how many times I told her that it wasn’t her fault. It was an accident. No one was to blame. She was so traumatized by it, she decided that she didn’t want to have any more children.”
“Is-is that why there’s such a big age gap between Lukyan and I?”
I nodded. “If she didn’t want to have any more children, that was fine with me. I had two beautiful sons. I was happy. Then, when you were about ten years old, Aleksandr twelve, she fell pregnant with Lukyan. Everything obviously worked out okay, and he was born happy and healthy, so she decided she wanted to try one more time for another girl.”
“And got Illayana,” Nikolai finished.
“Yes,” I said smiling. “When I found out what happened with your son, I made the mistake of assuming you’d want to deal with it and grieve the same way I did: alone. I never spoke about it to anyone. Not even your mother, unless she brought it up. The pain was crippling, and I preferred not to think about it at all. Hurt less that way. I foolishly thought that if you wanted to discuss it, you would have come to me. So, I waited. I waited for you to broach the subject. To confide in me. But you never did. Then, so much time passed, I wasn’t sure how to approach it. I…” I looked down at my hands, ashamed of myself. “I let you down. I failed you. And for that, I am so sorry, my son.”
Nikolai remained quiet for a moment. It was a lot of information to process, so I gave him the time he needed, not saying a word until he was ready. “I…understand your thought behind it. I do. But you had to know I was hurting. Did you just not care?”
“What? Of course I cared, Nikolai,” I said sincerely, but the look on his face told me he didn’t entirely believe me.
I couldn’t really blame him for that, and in a way, I definitely deserved it. But I didn’t want him thinking that. Thinking so little of me. That I didn’t care about it or him.
I got to my feet and went to my desk, pulling out my personal iPad. This one was mine. Not for business. It had photos and videos of Yekaterina. Of Aleksandr, Nikolai, Lukyan and Illayana when they were children. Babies. Videos of their first steps. Their first words. It was the only device that had them. They were for me and me alone.
Activating it with a swipe, I entered my passcode and then went straight into the files I had hidden. Security footage from around the house.
I turned the device to face Nikolai and pushed play on the video that sat waiting. “I didn’t leave your bedside for over seventy-two hours, Nikolai,” I said softly.
I didn’t need to watch it because I knew exactly what it would show. Nikolai, lying catatonic on an infirmary bed I’d had installed in one of the dining areas, several IVs hooked into his body and a heart monitor machine next to him.
Nikolai took the iPad, watching the footage with wide eyes. He pressed down to make the video fast forward. The time stamp on the bottom of it showed how long he’d been in that state. The entire time, I was there, sitting and sleeping in a chair next to the bed, reading a book, eating food from a tray, pacing the room, repositioning him every few hours so he didn’t accumulate bedsores.
I couldn’t say exactly why I decided to keep the footage. Maybe it was for that very moment. So I could prove that I wasn’t as much of a heartless bastard as I might have seemed. Maybe it was so I could alleviate the guilt I had over failing to be there for my son because I wasn’t willing to deal with my own trauma.
I truly didn’t know.
Nikolai’s hands shook as he watched me zoom around the room, taking care of him. He looked up at me, his mouth opening and closing. “I… I don’t know what to say. I don’t…remember this.”
Taking back the iPad, I locked it and put it on my desk. “No, I didn’t think you did. Like I said, the doctors said that, physically, you were in perfect health. But losing your son, the guilt you felt over not being there for Tatiana, caused you to shut down. For three days, you lay there, and I couldn’t leave you until you came out of it. When you eventually did, you had no recollection of it. I was afraid to push you on it because I feared you’d slip back into that unconscious state, and since you didn’t mention anything about what happened with your son, I thought you were just dealing with the loss the same way I had.” I shook my head. “It in no way excuses what I did. I should have been there for you after. I should have spoken to you about it. Let you know I knew so that if you wanted to talk about it, you knew you could come to me. I failed you as a father, and I’ll live with that guilt for the rest of my life—ooff.”
Nikolai hugged me, crashing into me and wrapping his arms around me so tightly that I struggled to breathe. For a moment, I sat there shocked, not sure what to do.
Hug him back. I looked up to see the ghostly image of Yekaterina standing behind him, a small smile on her face.
I raised my arms and hugged him, and I didn’t let him go until he was ready.
