Ultimate Vengeance (Wanted Men Book 4)(25)
“Eva’s mother was…brilliant. She was so small. Blonde. Sadly, our daughter doesn’t resemble her much until she smiles. Or cries. Though she does have the same astute mind. Kathryn would have swept through seven years of college in under four if I hadn’t come along. She’d have been a licenced pharmacist before the age of twenty. Isn’t that impressive? I was in awe of her.”
He came back and stood next to the chair he’d vacated. “I met her on the Tacoma campus of the University of Washington. She thought I was a student.” He smiled as though remembering something. “You have no idea how pissed I was when she told me she was only seventeen. Not that I wasn’t willing to risk jail time to be with her…but luckily, her eighteenth birthday was less than a week away so I didn’t break any laws where she was concerned. Until later, of course.”
He fell silent and Alek was overcome with sympathy. The loneliness filling the room wasn’t something he’d ever been allowed to witness. It struck him then that Vasily had been alone for nearly twenty-five years. Twenty-five fucking years.
“This leads me to my reasons for keeping Maksim away from this. If he finds the person responsible for Kathryn’s death before I do, he will be tempted to kill him. That can’t happen.”
Alek would understand why. “You’ve never spoken of her before now.” He didn’t mind admitting he was mildly disturbed to be hearing his uncle do so now.
Vasily shrugged. “She’s been coming to me a lot lately. I’m hoping if I purge some of my memories I might find some peace.” As he came over, he offered a not-so-confident smile that didn’t reach his eyes. He didn’t believe that. “You have no idea how relieved I am that you won’t be following in my footsteps after all.” He kissed the top of Alek’s head before taking the bunched up napkin and his dirty glass over to the sink. Once there, he took his phone out and read a text. “Maksim is going incommunicado.”
Alek jumped to his feet. “What?” He ripped his phone out and called the idiot. “He can’t do that now.”
“Said all the interruptions are hindering his work and he’ll call you the second he has her.”
Frustration sizzled through Alek’s blood as the generic voicemail greeting came on. He stabbed his thumb on the screen to disconnect.
“Now that there’s no chance you’ll go off with your lined trunk and ready body bag,” Vasily said with a wink. “I’ll leave you to get some rest.”
Alek walked him out and said his goodbyes. He came back in with Anton and they talked for a while about what to expect from each other. Confident they were going to get along fine, he found himself wandering around the apartment. He kept thinking about the expression Vasily had worn when he’d talked about Kathryn Jacobs. It had been familiar.
When he realized why, he took his phone out and called his cousin. His goddamn cousin who was working his way through something none of them could hope to comprehend. Alek had seen Sacha tonight, received another chance. He could have held her, kissed her, touched her. Tomorrow he might argue with her, then make up. They would sit down and talk, maybe laughed, hopefully love.
His cousin never would again. Not with his wife, and not with his son.
“You there, Alek?” Sergei’s voice registered when he spoke louder.
He cleared away the knot that had formed in his throat. “Hey. Yeah, I’m here. Sorry. Are you busy?” He wandered down the corridor and into the master bedroom.
“Not that busy. Do you need me?”
His kept his eyes away from the bed that should have scorch marks around it. “No, brother. I’m good. How are you?”
A heavy silence descended, lingering when Sergei got what was being asked. “Same. Why do you continue with this? That question is pointless because the answer will not change. Stop now, please.” The guy had hung from a thread for months but now seemed to be pulling himself up from his death spiral. Alek couldn’t imagine how.
He stood in front of the window and felt ashamed as he watched the light flurries. He and Sergei had been living in their misery for the same amount of time, but when one compared the two…
“I’m sorry. I can’t help it. Want to come over for a drink?”
“No, thanks, man. I am getting shit done.”
His lip quirked at the expression Sergei had laughed at when he’d first heard it upon settling in the States five years ago. Alek was convinced it had been Sergei’s mother who’d pushed her son to relocate. Vasily had gone to see his much older sister before she died and she’d told him to expect Sergei and his family in America within the year. They’d shown six months later, so a promise must have been made. The regrets and what-ifs must drive the guy insane. Had he stayed in Russia, he’d still have his wife and child.