But he’d never shown up.
My disappointment wasn’t his fault. He’d never said he was coming to me, but I had assumed.
Because I was stupid.
I’d assumed things between us had changed.
They hadn’t, and I was furious at myself for thinking they had, still desperately wanting him.
“Hey, Se.” Sergei stopped in front of me, and when I stared up at him, I saw some strain in his usually jovial eyes.
“Tough night?” I asked.
He shrugged, still looking casual, a lot like the wild, scruffy, cocky kid he’d been a decade ago when I’d first met him.
Maxim had taken Sergei under his wing, was still training him today, but I could see Sergei’s frustration at the slow progress.
I said nothing about that tension, though, not speaking of business with him or any of the others, though our relationship was more than cordial. But I thought Sergei’s warmth, his energy, was exactly what the distant and impervious Maxim needed.
They balanced each other out, and I could see how being around Sergei had softened Maxim, how being around Maxim had matured Sergei.
“You know how it goes,” he said.
I nodded, and didn’t ask any further questions. He wouldn’t answer, and in truth, I didn’t want to know. I didn’t like to think about what happened out there, the danger they were all perpetually in. I knew that danger existed, knew that the ugly world could destroy Maxim, the others, and honest, innocent people like my parents with no warning. Yet I knew that all that mattered was the people I cared about, the person I cared about.
Even if I meant nothing to him.
“What’s up with the frown?” Sergei said.
I started and looked up at him, returning to the present.
“Just thinking,” I said.
“Ahh,” he said, that easy smile coming back to lift his entire face and brighten his eyes. “How craftily cryptic, Se. Has Maxim been giving you lessons?” he asked.
My eyes widened and I said nothing, watched as Sergei’s easy smile began to lower. He hadn’t meant anything by it, but for some reason his words made me feel guilty, exposed, reminding me that in spite of what I might have wanted, there was nothing between Maxim and me.
“Se?” he said.
I looked at him again, seeing concern in his golden-brown eyes. Saw warmth that I’d only seen in Maxim in those minutes I had been on my knees.
Seized by something I couldn’t name or stop, I stepped a little closer, saw Sergei’s frown, but the words came out before I could stop them. “Do you think I’m pretty?”
Sergei’s eyes flew open wide with shock, and he stepped back.
Instantly, my face flamed hot, and I froze from the embarrassment. I couldn’t believe I had said that, but when I looked at Sergei again, saw the shock still on his face, I knew I had.
I dropped my gaze and started to turn, the pit of nerves in my stomach and the deep well of embarrassment making my shoulders slump.
“Hey, hey,” Sergei said, reaching out for me to stop me.
I didn’t look at him, and instead mumbled toward the carpet. “I’m sorry, Sergei. I don’t know what came over me…” I trailed off, chuckled, the sound thin, reedy. “I’m old enough to be your mother.”
He snorted. “Nah, Se. Not my mother. My very cool older sister, and just barely,” he said, touching my chin gently and turning my head toward him, looking at me with warmth and friendliness in his eyes. “But you don’t care what I think. So why not ask the person whose opinion you care about?”
Not at all a direct answer, but all I suspected I was going to get. Annoying as always, but I wouldn’t push, knowing that doing so would get me nowhere. “Thanks, Sergei,” I said.
He nodded and then he dropped his hand. “Don’t tell Maxim I did that,” he said.
“Why?”
“I prefer my hands attached,” he said.
His face was set in a smile, his voice full with humor, but I could detect the thread of seriousness in it. That seriousness was well placed. Maxim, Sergei, Adrian, everyone tried to keep me completely insulated from that darker, violent side of their business, but even their efforts were insufficient. I never saw anything but couldn’t help but hear the whispered stories, knew them all well enough to know they were capable of violence. They had to be to survive.
That should have scared, disgusted me, but it didn’t. I simply accepted the violence, their capacity for it, as a part of the world I chose to live in.
I looked at Sergei again, shook my head. “Don’t worry. He wouldn’t go to that trouble over me,” I said.
He furrowed his brow and then shrugged. “Whatever you say, Se,” he said.