Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 85156 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 426(@200wpm)___ 341(@250wpm)___ 284(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85156 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 426(@200wpm)___ 341(@250wpm)___ 284(@300wpm)
I burned it, tried to forget it and deny all knowledge of it; your father is no longer with us, and so I have tried to let it die. But my father comes to me in the night. He is burnt and angry, shaming me for not taking revenge, for not taking the Kucherov Bratva for myself, for not furthering our family name and his designs. He has cursed me, and now I fear I hear him during the day, hear his curse and his wails as he burns, and I know he will not leave me.
He drives me to vengeance, to seek what is mine, to see the injustice you and your family brought upon ours corrected. Evgeny, you are my brother and my tormentor. I am trying to keep the demon my father has become at bay, but every day, it grows harder.
Whatever happens, whether the demons possess me or not, know you are my brother. Know I fought against them for you. Know I forgive what happened. And I forgive whatever happens. Know I love you as my own blood.
The letter isn’t signed or dated, but I don’t need it to be to feel its impact, to know Vasya is talking to me from beyond the grave. From beyond time.
As I forgave him, he forgave me.
“The knowledge of what your father did, what his father was about to do, drove him mad,” Dmitri says quietly. He and Vasya never got along, but I still hear sadness in the big man’s voice.
“The stress of dueling loyalties to his father and me,” I add, wishing, yet again, he had said something. Something at all. Then, maybe he would still be here.
This letter is a treasure. It contained Vasya’s last words to me, the words that reveal his heart and his true nature. The words that ease my heart so I can finally, finally, let my brother rest.
My phone buzzes, and I take it out of my pocket to see a message from Eva.
Where are you? The guests are here.
“We’re being summoned,” I say, cringing as I push to my feet.
Dmitri’s big paw of a hand slaps my shoulder, and we return to the maelstrom of children, noise, and bright yellow.
Eva, surrounded by other parents and a sea of frothy balloons and streamers, beams as she turns and sees me, a twin juggled in each arm. She’s wearing the Fabergé rose pinned to her sundress, and it glints in the bright sunlight.
Jordan gives me an enormous smile that mirrors his mother’s. Eliana reaches for me, her small, chubby hands opening and closing until I have her in my arms, where she curls into me. Like me, the noise, color, and attention overwhelm the little girl, and I hold her small body close.
The other parents Eva has befriended in their mommy-and-me and music groups don’t seem entirely at ease around me, either. Eva doesn’t seem to care, since her grin is enormous as she floats from guest to guest, Jordan still in her arms, ever the glowing hostess.
I stand back from the crowd, holding my daughter, watching the woman who has helped me find the greatest version of myself, one who sees and appreciates me for the man I am. The woman who has stayed with me, though I snarled and growled at her, tried to scare her off, who sat by my side in the hospital and came back to me, and who was almost taken from my arms. The woman whose hand I held as our children came into this world, the children who are such a light in both of our lives.
Never once did I think I deserved such blessings. Two years ago, I could not have imagined my life now and the light and happiness that chase my dark away.
The beauty to my beast.
The love of my life.
The End