The next fewdays are boring, frustrating, and met with dead-ends. Speaking with Alina at night or when I can snatch the time leaves me aching, yearning for more. And it’s getting harder with each call not to ask her to break free of her brother’s watchful eye and safety manacles, not to deepen the rift, and come back here. To me.
It’s harder still because she wants to.
I have to tell her to cool down, stay calm. That we’ll work something out.
Like now.
“Please, Ilya, I want to come back. Albert misses you.”
I grit my teeth. “Not until we have Melor taken care of?—”
“That might never happen.” Her frustration is an echo of mine. “This is about Demyan, isn’t it?”
“He needs to calm down, too, but not completely. You’re safe with him.”
“And I’m safe withyou,” she insists.
In the background, Sasha demands more ice cream. It makes me smile and hurts my heart, all at the same time.
“Demyan won’t ever learn if we keep giving in.”
“Demyan’s stubborn, but Alina,malyshka, I won’t have you choose. That isn’t fair.”
“He’s my brother, and he’ll come around.”
Right now? I’m not so sure. Demyan’s a ticking bomb, and he needs to cool, not heat. He needs to grow used to all of this.
Or maybe it’s true. Maybe he doesn’t see me as worthy. And if that’s so, perhaps our friendship won’t survive intact. If I can prove I’m worthy, though, then I can save his relationship with Alina.
I’m not giving up on her.
I never will.
Not now that I know what it is to have her, hold her, taste her, love her.
“He will,” I say with less conviction than she did, “but it takes time. And it’ll take me getting Melor.”
“And your bratva?” she says. “What of that?”
I laugh. “I wasn’t aware you were so enthusiastic about being a bratva wife.”
“Yourwife,” she says softly, making my heart suddenly sing. “And what if the lawyers check up? They’re going to have to, because otherwise, what’s the point of that clause in the will? You need me.”
She’s right, on so many levels. They will. At some point. My grandfather strikes me as the type to do that. To check up from beyond the grave to make sure his rule is followed to the letter.
“We’ll talk soon,” I say. “Goodbye,malyshka.”
I hang up.
I do need her.
For my heart and my soul.
But first, I need Melor.
Thing is, no one’s come to me with information. Just dead ends. No one’s seen him, and not even Oleg has heard a whisper.
Melor’s vanished. Like he’s made of air. Or never existed.
