“I am so fucking sorry.” His whisper was more powerful than if he’d matched her shout. “For all of it. Goddammit, I’ll never be able to verbalize the scope of my regret. Not if I had a million years.” His hands were out, his tone imploring.
She looked at the way his dark blond hair fell over his forehead. At the silver streaks interspersed in the iridescent blue of his eyes that appeared bruised, as if he no longer slept well. At the shape and softness of his firm lips. Her hands itched to touch him and she wanted to cut them off. She was drowning in agony, and she still wanted to reach for him. To draw comfort even while she offered it.
When he shoved a hand through his hair to push it back—a pointless habit he’d always had—revealing his face in all its beauty. She died that much more.
He appeared to brace himself before saying, “You have to know that Sergei lost Renee and Evan the day before I ruined you and me. I didn’t tell you when they were first taken because I didn’t want to frighten you. The assumption was, we’d get them back and things would be fine. It didn’t work out that way.”
He was doing it again. Openly speaking about “that” part of his life. There had been countless references made, code words, silent, meaningful looks exchanged between him and his uncle. But never a direct, open statement about a particular situation.
With goosebumps flowing down from her nape, she absently went to reach for her bag to silence the vibration of her phone. Alekzander gave her a severe look meant to pin her in place. It worked.
“I was with Sergei when he got the call from a member of the Baikov organization.”
She locked her knees when that jerked the strength from her muscles. She had no trouble remembering the rivalry between the Bratvas. She’d been warned time and again the Baikov family wasn’t to be trusted. Not the women, children, and especially not the men.
“Never have I seen a man so tortured. And it never left; that expression in his eyes remained the entire time we pulled shit together and tried to get his wife and son back from those cocksuckers. When we failed, I reacted.”
Just that suddenly, Sacha didn’t want to know anymore. She pictured Sergei’s wife; a cheerful brunette. And his son; a quiet, intelligent boy. Since they’d come from Russia only a few years before her, there had been an instant connection. But because they’d lived outside the city, Sacha and Renee hadn’t spent as much time together as they’d have liked. But Sacha had still missed them when things had fallen apart.
“We failed to get to them in time, and they were brutalized and sent back to Sergei in pieces. I remember sitting in his kitchen and Reynard coming in with delivery boxes. I’ll never forget it. UPS.” His voice grew rough. “Those sonsofbitches sent them back by UPS. Hearing the sounds he made— Sacha, I stood there and watched my cousin’s hysterics as he scrambled to put his family back together again. He eventually fell to the ground, holding their hands—”
He stopped and coughed, his eyes squeezing shut as he turned away to scrape his palm over his face. He was quiet for a long moment, and then a harsh laugh pushed from his throat. He came back around to look at her.
“I couldn’t risk you. I wouldn’t. I came home afterward, I loved you as hard as I fucking could for one more night, and then I got you the hell away from me. I couldn’t get rid of you fast enough. I didn’t think any further than wanting to keep you safe from something like that ever happening to you.”
On legs that felt like rubber, Sacha stood in the shadowy room, silently crying over the tragedy even as a cowering sliver of hope worked itself free of the tangled mess in her heart. It wanted to break through the sadness his story caused but couldn’t. The horror of it was just too great.
“Why did you not tell me?” she eventually asked. “Renee was my friend. And Evan… I did not even know they were gone.”
He shrugged, the action helpless. “I didn’t think,” he repeated. “I just reacted in the worst possible way. But I did not have sex with that fucking woman. I couldn’t have. Not with anyone but you. I swear on my uncle’s life, I’ve never looked beyond you, Sacha.”
She stepped forward and reached up to cup his cheeks, everything in her wanting to soothe the pain radiating from him. A low-level buzz shot through her at the first voluntary contact she’d had with him in so long.
As the day’s growth along his jaw prickled her palms, something cracked and a small beam of light filtered into her dark world. “I am so sorry for you. If it is suitable, please give Sergei my most heartfelt condolences. To your uncle, as well.”