Page 30

By the time Lilibeth and I get home, we’re both exhausted. It’s been a long day working at the bar, and with everything that happened with the Solotovs and then after, we’re both spent.

I loosen my tie the minute we step into the foyer. “Join me for a drink before dinner?” I ask.

She turns to me with a smile. “I’d love to, but I think I need a shower first. Join you in a bit?”

“You know where to find me,” I playfully pat her ass as she scurries off toward the stairs with a squeal. I watch her run up the stairs, her curves hypnotic under that dress.

“Don't take forever,” I call after her when she’s upstairs and about to disappear around the bend to her bedroom.

“Keep the drinks cold!” she bellows back with laughter.

I head to the living room and take off my jacket with a groan, leaving it on a side table nearby. I push open the doors, debating whether I should stick to opening a wine or making us some cocktails—and that’s when I see him.

Nikandr sits on a couch and has his bags piled beside him like he's planning to stay .

His hair is longer than when I last saw him, and from a place of worry, I look into his eyes. They seem clearer than usual, I think to myself with relief.

“Surprise,” he says, giving me a lazy wave.

My heart pounds against my ribs, and I walk toward him with clenched fists. “You got into my house? And how the hell did you get in here?”

“Through the back door.” He shrugs in that callous way of his. “And I have the key.”

“How very stupid of me to have ever given you that key,” I growl in anger.

Hurt flickers across his face, but he quickly covers it with a cocky grin. I feel a sharp pang of regret, but that’s the problem with Nikandr—it’s impossible to get through to him, no matter what approach I take. No matter what I say, do, or don’t, I’ll always feel regret. Always feel guilt.

And he won’t do a damn thing to change.

“Three weeks of silence and now you show up unannounced?” I move to the bar cart, pouring myself a drink, refusing to even offer one to Nikandr. “Last we spoke, you said you’d drop by for a visit someday. You never mentioned you’d be coming now . A warning would have helped.”

Nikandr’s gaze follows me as I sit down across from him. “I finished my program early. Thought I'd surprise you.”

“What program is it now?” I scoff. “Drugs? Alcohol? Gambling?”

“Behavioural therapy, actually,” Nikandr says without skipping a beat.

“Congratulations,” I say, and mean it. This is what I wanted—Nikandr clean, functional, maybe even happy.

“Thanks.” He gives me a genuine smile, and the awkwardness around this situation simmers down a little. It’s a good thing he’s been reaching out more often over the past year. We speak every couple of weeks, and just knowing he’s no longer shutting us out makes me more receptive to his presence.

After all, I can’t help him if he wants nothing to do with me.

“How long are you staying?” I ask, taking a sip.

“I…I don’t have to say if you don’t want me to.”

I growl. “You’re my brother. Of course you’re staying.”

“Thanks,” he says again, but shuffles in his seat awkwardly.

There’s a silence that falls over us for a little while, and then his eyes freeze on the fireplace mantle. I follow his trail and see what he’s looking at. Photos. From our wedding day. Lilibeth had some framed and put them there.

His eyes track back to mine. “Seems like I've missed a lot.”

“Just the usual business,” I say, not wanting to talk about Lilibeth to him.

He scoffs. “Right. Just business. Like getting married to my ex-girlfriend? That kind of usual business? Tatiana told me you were getting married. Never got an invite, Brother.”

My throat closes. I knew this was coming, inevitable from the moment I saw him, but knowing so doesn't dull the impact of this.

“Tatiana has a big mouth,” I mutter. “Besides, you wouldn’t have shown.”

He leans forward, elbows on knees. “Lilibeth Orlov, Agafon? Really?”

The way he says her name with such familiarity makes me see red. “It was arranged,” I say, the words stiff. “A business agreement with her family.”

“Bullshit,” Nikandr scowls.

I hold his stare. “You wouldn't understand. You weren't here.”

“Because you didn't want me here,” he snaps, and just like that, we're fighting again.

“That's not true. I’ve always had the door open. You’re the one who chose to leave, who wanted nothing to do with us!”

“It is. It's always been true.” His voice rises. “You prefer me at a distance—close enough to keep an eye on, far enough that I don't embarrass you. Isn’t that why you had me locked in that asylum three years ago, Brother?”

My temples throb with the beginnings of a migraine. This is why Nikandr and I can't be in the same room for long.

“That's not why I sent you to that place. You needed help.”

“I needed my brother,” he says, voice dropping. “But that's not what I got, was it? I got the boss. The patriarch. The fucking judge.”

I scream at him now. “You were destroying yourself. What was I supposed to do? Watch?”

“You were supposed to embrace me despite my failures!” The words explode out of him. “You were supposed to see me for who I was and accept me the way I was, and in time, I would have changed.”

“I always knew who you were and what you were capable of,” I say quietly. “That's why it hurt so much to watch you fade away. I did my best, you hear that, Nikandr? My best.”

The moment hangs between us, and then Nikandr laughs with scorn.

“And now you've married the woman who started it all. That's quite the punchline for proving you did your best, Brother.”

The anger roars in me like a living bull. How dare he question my choices? I married her for one reason alone—him. And he sits here before me, acting like I’m the selfish one?

“You,” I say, pointing at him in anger. “You have no right to judge me. Not when you’re the reason I had to marry Lilibeth Orlov!”

“That’s rich!” he fights back. “You married her for me? I wonder how you justify that in your head.”

“I don’t have to justify anything to you,” I snarl.

“No, you don’t. But don’t you dare tell me you married her for me, Brother. That’s the lamest excuse I’ve ever heard.”

“It’s not an excuse,” I say with ice in my tone now. “I remember what she did to you. How broken you were. How much we all suffered as a family because of what she reduced you to. And I thought—”

Nikandr’s eyes widen, and he cuts me off in shock. “You married her for revenge? Because of me?”

I don't answer.

“Jesus Christ, Agafon.” He leans back in his seat, disgust written across his features. “That's fucking pathetic.”

“I did it for you,” I snarl, but the words ring hollow even to my ears. “She destroyed you. I watched you disappear piece by piece, and she was the trigger. I wanted to—”

“To what? Make her pay? By marrying her? Do you hear yourself? You married a woman to punish her for breaking up with me years ago? That's not revenge, that's—” He stops, eyes widening as something else occurs to him. “Unless...”

“Unless what?” I demand.

“Unless this isn't about revenge at all,” he says slowly. “The others said you two seemed happy. That you were different with her. You’re just making an excuse to make this easier on me, aren’t you?”

“They're idiots,” I snap, but heat crawls up my neck. “This marriage is business, nothing more. A way to gain power through her family and, yes, to eventually show her what it feels like to be discarded.”

The lie tastes bitter on my tongue. Images flash through my mind—Lilibeth laughing, her eyes bright when I come home early, the way she fits against me when I make love to her.

Nikandr sees it all written on my face. “You're in love with her.”

“No,” I say without thinking. “Never. I'll never love her after what she did to you.”

Nikandr now looks at me with pity, and I hate seeing him that way. His tone is gentler now, kinder. “Agafon, I fucked myself up. Not her. Me.”

“You said—”

“Whatever I said was in the past. We can move on, Agafon. If you love her, be happy. Don’t waste your life away fighting to fix the past.”

“I don’t love her,” I say, coldly. “Like I said, I’m not wasting anything. She hurt you, and I want to give her a taste of her medicine.”

“That’s not what I heard,” Nikandr frowns. “Stop lying, Agafon. To yourself, to me. Even if you did marry her for revenge, that’s no longer true. You know that.”

His words hit with the force of a physical blow. One more word out of him, and I might no longer know the truth. Already, in this conversation, I can feel myself waver, question if it is revenge I seek…or something more.

But something more was never on the table, was it? Something more can’t exist. Not when Nikandr sits before me and memories of his troubled past surface in my mind.

If I didn’t marry her for revenge, then what was all of this for?

“I told you the truth,” I say with gritted teeth. “Now make of it what you will.”

“Whatever you say, Brother,” Nikandr says, and that pity he feels for me is once again etched across his face. I don’t bother telling him to wipe it off when, in my heart, I too feel sorry for my words.