At least everyone but him, he thought, his mind darkening.
“So you married the woman in the green dress,” his cousin said beside him. His eyes stayed on the two half-Russian boys on the ice, but his voice took on a certain chill. “Yet you did not invite your favorite cousin to the wedding. Only to this child’s birthday party.”
“Our wedding was small and quick. This party is much more important. It was time for Pavel to meet you and your family.”
“More important than your wedding? Hmmm,” Alexei chewed on that for a moment and Nikolai felt himself tense up. But then Alexei smoothly continued, “Aaron is glad to have another boy on the American side of the Rustanov family, so we appreciate the invitation to Pavel’s birthday.”
Nikolai had always liked and respected his cousin, but his easy acceptance of Pavel as an official Rustanov, despite the fact that he had no official blood ties to their family, made Nikolai admire him that much more.
“Pavel feels the same, I am sure,” Nikolai answered in Russian.
They stood there for a few moments, watching Aaron and Pavel play with matching fondness, but then Alexei opened his mouth again and totally ruined the moment.
“How far along is she?” he asked Nikolai.
Nikolai respected Alexei too much to pretend he didn’t know what he was talking about, even though he’d never told his cousin Samantha was pregnant.
“Twelve weeks,” he answered. “The blood test says it will be a boy.”
Alexei nodded and said, “Pozdravlyayu.”
Congratulations in Russian.
“Spasibo,” Nikolai answered, hoping that would be the end of this line of conversation.
But after a few moments of thoughtful silence, his cousin said, “Did you get this woman pregnant on purpose?”
Nikolai’s chin dipped low in embarrassment and growing anger, but he answered his cousin truthfully. “Of course not on purpose. It was a surprise. You know I did not want children.”
Alexei tilted his head to the side and gave his cousin another thoughtful look. “I told my Eva I did not want children. I told her this from the start.”
“So you understand,” Nikolai said.
“I told her this, but then I made her pregnant. It was also a surprise. A surprise I have never had with another woman.”
Nikolai who was already well acquainted with Alexei and Eva’s dramatic back story, pursed his lips and asked, “What is your point?”
“I did not like growing up in the Rustanov family. The constant danger, the bodyguards, all the killing. It colored the way I saw the world, and I would not wish that for my children. That is why I refused to have any. But maybe Eva changed my mind, without me knowing it.”
Alexei continued to watch the children skating, but his eyes were in a faraway place as he said, “I did not like growing up a Rustanov, but at least my parents were kind to me. At least they showed me what it was for two people to love each other. That helped.”
Nikolai didn’t reply this time. It was the first time his cousin had ever alluded to the difficulties of growing up a Russian mafia scion, and though Nikolai respected his cousin for turning the Rustanovs into a legitimate business family, he still found it hard to see things from Alexei’s perspective.
Back then, Alexei’s life had seemed perfect, a Russian version of a Norman Rockwell painting. His parents doted on him, and gave him good memories of them to carry forward even after their untimely deaths. It was the complete opposite of how Nikolai had grown up, making it difficult for him on the few occasions his father had brought him to the Rustanov’s palatial estate in Rublevka.
Alexei regarded him with a sad smile. “I will make a confession to you now. Your father scared me as a little boy, and also as a young man. I often took solace in the fact that he was only my uncle, and I felt very sorry for you and Fedya, especially after what happened with your mother. Even sorrier now, because Fedya did not make it.”
Nikolai flinched, Alexei words a sharp knife twisting in his gut. He’d always suspected his cousin regarded him as an object of pity, that finally accepting him into the Rustanov family was an act of pity, and now here was his confirmation.
But the flinch was the only thing Alexei got from him. After that small movement, Nikolai blanked his face and said, “Thank you for your thoughts. But I keep the past in the past. My father does not concern me now.”
“So you say,” Alexei continued to regard him, his eyes narrowing slightly. “You know, I made a lot of mistakes with Eva because of my past. Mistakes I deeply regret now that she is the mother of my children.”
Alexei shook his head, wincing as if the memories of his and Eva’s tumultuous relationship still caused him pain. “I do not know what is wrong between you and this woman, but I see she does not talk to you, does not look at you while we are all here together. Whatever it is that is wrong, you need to fix it. Before the baby comes.”
Alexei and Nikolai were no longer boys. Alexei was no longer a mafia prince, and Nikolai was no longer in line to replace his father as the Rustanov family’s enforcer. Alexei had no right to talk to him this way. No right at all.
Nikolai’s fist clenched at his side.
“Hit me if you want,” Alexei told him calmly. “But it is still the truth. You must fix this. She is a good woman. Funny, like my Eva. And you are full of pride, like me. But trust me, pride has no place in relationships and I promised you this, if you do not get over yours, you will lose her.”
The thought of losing Samantha, of her taking the baby with her as she had threatened before, tore at him worse than a nightmare and it rooted him to the spot in horror. Because Alexei’s words didn’t feel like a warning, but a promise.
A promise of things to come.
“I would like another piece of cake,” Alexei decided out loud. “And then I will take my family and we will go. But think about what I said, Nikolai.”
Alexei left then, heading towards the cake table, and Nikolai was left alone. Still a little boy, still unable to defend himself when confronted with an opponent he couldn’t punch or knock down or kill.
He watched Alexei walk away, his words of answer stuck in his throat. I am trying. I am. But… I am not sure it can be fixed.
“Mr. Rustanov?”
Nikolai turned around to see Isaac standing there.
“Just checking in,” his assistant said. “The party’s scheduled to end in twenty minutes. Is there anything else you want me to do before I give everyone a fifteen warning?”