The Russian's Acquistion(71)

                Clair gasped and covered her mouth. The house like this one that she adored? “While you and your parents slept?” Horror gripped her. “And your father—?”

                “Ran outside behind my mother and me. The arsonist was still there. My father told me not to go after him, but I had had enough. I didn’t see the knife until he did this.” His hand lifted to his face, his expression twisted with old fury and fresh pain.

                “Oh, Aleksy,” Clair breathed, terrified for him. Everything in her wanted to rush forward in comfort, but he radiated too much pain, as though the least thing would break him. “And you were just a teenager.” The pieces were falling together quickly now, forming a tragic, unbearable picture.

                He shuddered.

                “A boy’s temper in a man’s body. I would have been killed if my father hadn’t intervened. He lost his life saving mine.” He slugged the vodka and set down the empty glass with a sharp clunk. Then he looked at his hand. His voice seemed to come from far off. “I don’t remember doing it, but it’s in the statements to police that I killed the other man.”

                “I can’t believe they arrested you!”

                “Why wouldn’t they? A crime had been committed.” He turned to the freezer to retrieve the bottle. “It was ruled self-defense and, supposedly, sealed because of my age.”

                Ever-deepening levels of dreadfulness rippled over her. A deliberately set fire. A narrow escape. Petrifying violence. Catastrophic loss. His life nearly taken. She never would have known him. The thought pushed tears into her eyes.

                And all at the hands of a man she had trusted and relied on. Bile and self-disgust rose to the back of her throat.

                Aleksy would never pick her. Not to live with him forever. Her awful connection to Victor would always be between them.

                “I’m so sorry,” she said with remorse, wishing the words weren’t so inadequate. “I had no idea Victor could do something so vile.” She took a deep swallow of the cocoa, seeking the numbing effect of the alcohol. The sweetness made her gag. She set it away, revolted.

                “What about what I’ve done?” A scowl of self-hatred ravaged his expression. “I’m no better than the paid assassin who killed my father.”

                “You were fighting for your life!”

                “I shouldn’t have fought at all. I got my father killed and destroyed my mother.”

                She shook her head. This was why he isolated himself. He thought he was some kind of monster. “You can’t punish yourself for a…mistake.”

                “A mistake that lasts forever.”

                “If you let it,” she asserted. “You can’t blame yourself, Aleksy. Victor brought about the tragedy by starting it, not you.”

                “Stop it.” He stepped forward, every muscle bulging in confrontation. “I saw how you looked at me when you realized what I’d done. I know what you really think of me.”

                “No,” she cried, assailed by guilt. “I was in shock from something completely unexpected. I didn’t know what to believe—”

                “How could it be unexpected? It’s right here!” he railed, pointing at his scar. “From the first moment anyone sees me, they know what kind of man I am. You should have run far and fast the first day we met.”