Anna stares at me. “You brought someone new?”
“He wanted to come.”
“You can’t just bring him over because he wanted to come.” She points a finger in Sasha’s direction without looking at her. “He looks suspicious.”
“I’m actually over here,” Sasha says in a calm tone, but her ears are turning red. Also, she actually speaks with no Russian accent. It’s a bit stiff, but it sounds natural.
That’s hard to accomplish, even for an American-born Russian. The accent is usually there no matter what. Viktor, Maksim, and Yuri have it.
She really did have those private tutors in her previous life.
“Hush, boy.” Anna still doesn’t look at her. “Why are you doing this, Kirochka? It’s not like you.”
She’s right. It’s not.
When Sasha expressed her desire to come along, the most logical solution would’ve been to refuse.
One problem, though. I couldn’t.
Especially when she agreed to place her life in the palm of my hand to do with as I please.
Is it sadism? Probably. But even I can’t recognize what the end goal behind it is.
I can sense the contempt rising in Sasha, but the moment she steps forward, probably to give Anna a piece of her mind, I ask, “Is my father inside?”
A dark shadow falls over Anna’s face, and she seems to forget about Sasha and her suspicions. “Why, yes. The lady of the house and Konstantin didn’t want to inform you of this, probably not wanting you to come back, but Mr. Roman is…not doing very well. He has been severely ill for a while now, and it only got worse after he went to Russia last week.”
Even better.
When I step in the direction of the house, Anna takes my hand between her smaller ones. “Be tolerant of everyone inside, my boy. Everything’s changed, but some things remain the same.”
“You don’t have to worry about me.”
“Nonsense.” She gets on her tiptoes to touch my hair and pat my face. “I’m going to see the others. You take care of him, Viktor.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
With one last unsure look, she heads to where my guards went earlier. Anna is the mother of the orphans. Whenever a child lost his parents, she took it upon herself to raise them ‘right.’
I’m not an orphan, but I found more affection in that woman than in my own parents.
The moment I stroll inside my so-called home, I’m greeted by the tension-filled, unwelcome atmosphere of the living room.
The baroque style of the sofas, chairs, and ceiling gives it an elegant aura that’s stained with invisible splashes of blood.
Two pairs of eyes fall on me in pure contempt. The first belongs to the woman who gave birth to me.
She hasn’t changed one bit. Her golden hair falls to her shoulders in the usual stuck-up sprayed style. She’s wearing one of her straight red dresses with a gold belt and matching heels, and she’s sitting like a queen on her throne.
If Yulia Morozova were an actual ruler, I would’ve been sentenced to death the moment I was born.
The second malicious stare that could get someone accidentally killed belongs to my brother, Konstantin, who’s two years my junior.
He has lighter hair than me, a more angular facial structure that could never look friendly, and my mother’s eyes.
Which is the first reason to put him at the very top of my hit list.
“Look who’s done playing soldier and came back.”