Page 139 of Ruthless Rustanovs

SO that was how Thel ended up in the office of the man she most despised on Christmas Eve.

“I don’t know what Eva sees in you or why she trusts you enough to take your side in this,” Thel fumed as she walked through the door he held open for her. “But I swear if you keep me in here a second longer than it takes to say whatever you have to say, Real Thel’s coming out again.”

Alexei didn’t look too scared at the prospect. “No, she will not,” he answered. “You will sit. And you will listen. And then you may go.”

Thel folded her arms across her chest. Refusing to sit, and only listening so she could get to the “go” part.

“Please, sit,” Alexei said, like he was dealing with an idiot child. “You have already exerted yourself enough this evening, and I promised Boris I would make sure you were taken care of like my own wife if he would simply return to the first guesthouse without killing our cousin.”

Thel sat. But only because she now actually wanted to hear the rest of what Alexei had to say about how Bair was doing. “Is he okay? Is he…is he going dark again? I should go to him if he is.”

Alexei raised an eyebrow as he took a seat behind his desk. “What do you know about how your husband was raised?”

She blinked, her brain struggling to catch up with the subject change. “Um…not much, I guess. He told me a bunch of stories yesterday about his grandma bringing him up in Siberia. And after she died, he said he went to a German boarding school.”

“Boarding school. Is that what he called it?”

“No,” she answered, recalling their terse conversation more clearly. “He just called it a school in Germany.”

“That is because it was a school where boys were given rooms, but it was not the kind of boarding you are probably thinking of. More like a reform school. Much like a jail in some ways, where wealthy parents from around the world sent children who refused to behave. Apparently after Boris’s grandmother passed, the caretaker Ivan’s father hired to look after him said he was unmanageable.

As you know, Sirena, when he becomes too angry, he can be…

difficult. And so he was sent to this school and made to stay there until the age of eighteen. ”

A not entirely unsympathetic expression passed over Alexei’s face as he spoke of Bair’s German years. But then he continued with the story.

“As soon as he reached his adult year, he became the fighter you met in Greece. By the time I found him, this was how he made his living. Fighting all over Europe in places that turn a blind eye if one of their fighters end up dead. That scar on his stomach was from a fight in Turkey—a fighter stabbed him before the fight could even start, because he was bitter about Bair’s many wins. ”

Thel covered her mouth, remembering the angry scar. How he’d called it “a scratch” when they first met.

“So you understand why I did not want this life for him,” Alexei continued, seeing her horrified expression.

“I had just come back from the States and I had decided to take the Rustanovs in a more legitimate direction. So I brought all the children of Rustanov pets into our fold, including Nikolai. But Bair was different. He was my blood. The only kin I had left after the death of my parents, even if neither of my uncles, Nikolai’s father, nor Ivan’s, wanted me to claim him.

I wanted him beside me. Helping me run our empire.

But when I visited him in that damn hospital and made him an offer to go to business school in Moscow, he told me no.

That he wanted nothing to do with the family of the men who’d ‘killed his mother.’ And as soon as he was released, he went back to fighting. ”

“For nearly a year after that hospital conversation, I did not hear from him. Of course, I had him followed, but I did not force communication.”

Having him followed wasn’t exactly an “of course” response to Bair’s initial refusal to have anything to do with his brother, in Thel’s opinion. But she was too fascinated by Alexei’s story to point that out.

Alexei folded his hands on top of his desk. “I had almost given up on him. But then one day I received a call. It was the man I had following him. He said Boris wanted to speak with me.”

Now Thel was sitting all the way forward. “About what?” she asked.

Alexei’s eyes met hers. “About you, Sirena. He told me he’d just killed three Greek men.

And not only did he need an old-fashioned clean up, but he also wanted a new life.

For him and for you. He told me he’d do whatever I wanted him to do, if I made things safe for you.

He told me, Sirena, that he wanted to marry you. ”

Thel gasped. “What?!?! Wait, no! That’s not how it happened. He only wanted me to be his pet.”

Alexei chuffed. “Yes, that is because I told him he could not marry someone he had just met. I am like snow queen in the film my little Layla likes so much.”

“Frozen?” Thel asked, feeling liked she was in some kind of Twilight Zone episode. “You mean like Queen Elsa?”

“Yes, like Queen Elsa. I was sure you must be like the man with red hair in that film. A pretty demon who only wanted to take advantage of my brother. And I will admit, it did not help when he told me he wanted to take you back to Germany because he was not sure about Russia for you, since you are black. You see I was very bitter back then, because I’d had my heart broken by an American black girl.

Eva and I were together when we were younger, and very much in love, but then she left me… ”

Alexei heaved a pained sigh at the memory.

“And I was…it is hard to explain, but an angry shell of the man I would have been if she’d stayed.

Not even ten percent of the man I am now after finding her again.

But I could see you were good in a way for him.

You were somehow keeping him from ‘going dark’ as you called it.

Making it so that he could not only go to school but excel there.

You gave me my brother finally, but you had too much power over him.

That is why I told Boris he must wait at least five years to marry you.

That is why I advised him to hold you close. ”

He raised his eyebrows and admitted, “You are a very compelling woman, Sirena. Even I might have broken my rule about black American girls and taken you as my pet if I’d met you before Bair.

I would not have cared for you like I do my Eva, but it was clear to me from the start that other men would attempt to steal you from my brother.

Richer men. Less volatile and difficult men.

He knew this. I knew this, and I did not want him hurt.

I did not want him destroyed by your leaving, as I had been destroyed by Eva’s departure. ”

He regarded Thel with a sad expulsion of breath.

“But then your five years were up. And he said he would not come to Russia without you. And that day in the office, I saw how—” Alexei broke off.

“Dedicated is the wrong word. More like how obsessed he was with you. I knew then he would never let you go. Would never accept to come to Russia and let you go to another. So I agreed to let him marry you, which he did. But then my worst nightmare for him came true. You left. And Thel, he went very dark after you left. Very dark.”

“I…I…” Thel sat back in a daze, unable to align what Alexei was saying with the person she’d known in Germany.

“I was sick. And I didn’t think—I didn’t know he actually cared anything about me.

He never said anything to me about love, except that he didn’t want to have anything to do with it. And that ceremony…”

Thel shook her head with the memory of their “wedding.”

“It was basically a judge and a piece of paper. Plus, the way he treated me. It was so fucked up. We were so fucked up. I couldn’t stay with him.”

Alexei nodded. “I understand. Not then. But now, I truly understand all the reasons you had to leave my brother. However, when The Twins asked for you specifically for this show, I understood how dangerous this would be for him. You are different now. Not as docile. I could see the new steel in you, and I was concerned. Concerned for you. Concerned for my brother. Then you left him again. And once again, he was destroyed. In fact, after you turned down the opportunity to play Chrysanthemum in Pittsburgh, I found him once again fighting in Turkey. And he had gone dark again, almost as if he were seeking it out. In fact he might still be there if he had not come back to New Mexico to make sure you were all right. So you can see, Sirena, I am glad to have my brother finally with me this Christmas, but I remain concerned. Because if you leave him a third time…”

“I can’t leave him a third time, because I’m still trying to decide if we should even get back together.”

Thel shook her head, torn between guilt and complete disbelief of the Bair side of the tale Alexei was trying to tell her.

“I wasn’t trying to destroy anybody. Especially not the second time we broke up.

I wanted a child, and he made it clear he really didn’t.

Like, he so didn’t want to have a kid, he left me.

Not the other way around.” She glared at Alexei as she pointed out, “People all over the world split up for that exact same reason all the time, without either of them being accused of destroying the other.”

Alexei lowered his eyes. “Yes, I understand your desire for a child, but given his background, maybe you can understand why he would not want children. Why he would decide to break his own heart by letting you go before he would agree to have children with you.”

Thel rubbed her stomach. “Yeah, I guess I do, but I’m not sure what you want me to do with all of this information.”

“Other than stop hating me and offering my wife refuge, like I am a monster?” Alexei asked with a slight tilt upward of his lips.

Thel had to breathe out a little laugh. “Yeah, other than that. Though now I guess I kind of understand why you were so horrible back in the day. If someone as great as Eva broke up with me, I’d probably be real bitter and messed up, too.”

Alexei once again sat back in his chair, regarding her with a soft smile. “So I see you fully understand about Bair now.” Off her confused look, he explained. “You are Bair’s Eva. The woman he needs to make him not horrible, bitter man like I used to be.”

She shook her head. “If I’m Bair’s Eva, why did he treat me so bad in Germany? Why didn’t he ever tell me he loved me, or let me even think about saying it to him? Matter of fact, if I’m Bair’s Eva, why did he make me become his pet again in order to take that part in New Mexico?”

She stopped and pinned Alexei with an angry-sad look as she asked, “If I’m Bair’s Eva, why isn’t he here telling me all of this instead of you?”

“That is a good question, Sirena,” Alexei answered with a sad look of his own. “Go to Boris with the knowledge you now have. Go to him and ask if what I say is true.”

Alexei nodded as if a great decision had been made in this room. “Da, I think it is time—finally time—for you to make Boris explain himself to you.”