Her whole body was trembling as she held me close. I gently pulled away. “You are cold,” I declared. Her lips chattered and her skin was icy to the touch.

“You needed me,” she replied softly, her fingers combing through my hair. Taking a deep breath, Talia lost her laughter, and said, “I was extremely close to my grandmother, Zaal. As a child, and right up until her death a few years ago.” I froze as Talia began to mention her family. Talia shuffled on my lap, moving in closer.

“She and I were kindred spirits. She was feisty, and never walked the line”—Talia laughed—“just like me. I’ve never been good at obeying my father’s strict rules.” Talia’s fingers stopped stroking my hair. She was lost in her memories. “I grew up knowing only the story my family told me of our family’s conflict. The one where the Georgians used to be part of the Vor V Zakone, the soviet Thieves in Law, until they turned coat. I knew how the Kostavas, the Jakhuas, and the Volkovs all worked together as one unit. And I was told the story of how the Volkovs took the turf in New York, but banned the Georgians from joining them, taking the territory as their own, leaving the Jakhuas and Kostavas to run Moscow.” Talia sighed, shook her head, and continued, “And I know that your father, out of anger for this slight against his faction, organized to murder the Volkov bosses when they were next to visit home. But my grandfather ended up going alone to Moscow on the fated trip when Jakhua and your father planned the murder to send a message. It was my grandfather your father shot and hung from a street post for everyone in Russia to see. And it was my grandmother that lost the love of her life that day, all so the Georgians could show their strength against the Russians.”

I tensed listening to the story from the Russian point of view, but as Talia’s hand began moving through my hair again, I tried to relax.

Talia shifted again, laying her head against my chest, and said, “I imagine your family hated being left out of the New York business. And I imagine after they were hunted down after my grandfather’s murder and forced back to Georgia, all trade routes cut by the Volkov Bratva, that your family and the Jakhuas became more resentful toward us than ever.” Talia’s hand slid down my face from my hair and she lifted my chin with her fingers, lifting her head to meet my eyes. “I imagine growing up as the Kostava heir, you were filled with an intense hatred for my family.”

I nodded silently. Talia’s lips tightened.

“I know this because I’ve had a great hatred for your family my whole life, Zaal.” Talia laughed a humorless laugh. “And I can honestly say it has brought me nothing but pain.” Talia’s finger stroked over the moles below my left eye, and asked, “If it’s okay with you, I’d like to let go of that hatred now. Those people back then were not us. It was a lifetime ago, a history that we can’t change.” Her chin dropped. “I know your version of that story will no doubt differ from mine, but I pray it ends the same. With you wanting me, with you being with me despite our surnames causing a drift.”

I stayed unmoving for the longest time, listening to the sea, feeling the cold wind hit my skin. Talia didn’t say anything more, but I knew one thing: I felt exactly the same.

Taking Talia’s freezing hand, I got to my feet, pulling her with me.

As we stood wrapped in the wind, Talia looked up at my face and asked, “You feel the same? Even after you remember your family?”

I nodded my head, unable to speak. I felt drained, numb. But I knew I wanted this female above anything else.

“You need to rest,” Talia said on a relieved sigh, and took my hand. She turned to walk us back to the house, but I needed to express something from the heart. I pulled on Talia’s hand. She turned to face me, her beautiful face confused.

I lifted my hand over my chest and rasped, “To me, you are not a Tolstaia.”

Her eyes softened, and stepping closer, she replied, “To me, you are not a Kostava.” She lifted higher on her toes, and said, “You are my Zaal, the man whose soul has stolen mine.”

Then she kissed me. Her cold lips met mine; soft, tender, caring. She pulled away and stroked my arm. “Let’s go inside. I need to care for you and hold you while you sleep.”

Warmth spread in my chest. I let this female, my female, guide me into the house. As we entered the door, Luka rose from the long seat. He watched me with wary eyes. Squeezing Talia’s hand, I let go, and walked toward her brother. The guards all stood around him, more guards than there were before. All holding their guns.

But Luka’s eyes did not leave mine.

Standing before him, I said, “You have my gratitude for freeing me from Master.”

Luka’s face hardened. “He isn’t your master anymore. He’s nothing but a fucking dead man walking.”

I nodded at Luka. I went to walk back to Talia, when he announced, “Anri would be proud of the man you’ve become. You’re like him in every way. Your looks, your strength, your loyalty.”

I closed my eyes for the briefest of moments, before taking a deep breath and making my way back to Talia.

We entered the bedroom and Talia took me into the shower. She cleaned me slowly with a washcloth, then patched up my cuts and bruises, before brushing out my hair. All the time she touched me, I touched her back. As she cleansed and cared for me, she peppered my face with kisses, told me, without words, that she was mine, and I was hers.

As we climbed into bed, I faced Talia on my pillow. Memories now were a trickle, a gentle stream in my mind.

Talia watched me. I shuffled closer, wrapping her in my arms. I closed my eyes, relaxed my heart with the female I should never have wanted, and confessed, “Ya khochu byt’s toboy vsegda.”

Talia stilled in my arms, then with a press of her lips on my chest, whispered, “I, too, want to be with you forever.”

Chapter Sixteen

Luka

Brooklyn, New York

One week later

“You’re really doing this?”

I turned to face my father as I stood in the center of my living room.

“I’m going,” I replied coldly. My father slowly sat down on the sofa.

I hadn’t seen him since that day in the gym when he’d seen me training. When I’d arrived back here from the Hamptons last week, he was away on business. This evening I found him waiting at my door. He was here to discuss tonight’s plan to take out Levan Jakhua. We’d finally got a tip-off for where the Georgian bastard was hiding from our insider. I’d been given permission for this sting from the Pakhan in my father’s absence.

It seemed he was now here to hear about it in person.

Refocusing on the here and now, I watched my father cross his legs, reflecting the calm demeanor he always wore, as his eyes fell upon me. “And you’re going to kill him? You?”

My jaw clenched as I anticipated the argument that was going to come. I walked to my papa and sat down on the seat before him. “My byki will go in to where he’s hiding. I promised you I wouldn’t fight, and I won’t. They’ll bring Jakhua out to me.” I looked up at my father. “Then I’ll slit his fucking throat.”

My father’s hand rubbed over his short graying beard, and he nodded. “And Kisa knows you’re doing this?”

“She understands what I have to do to avenge Anri,” I replied vaguely. He nodded again.

We sat in silence until I asked, “Papa? Why don’t you want me to fight?”

My father’s hand stopped on his face, his brown eyes looked into mine. “Luka, you will never understand this until you have children, but the day you were taken from me”—he patted his chest—“something within me died.”

A hollow pit formed in my stomach. My father rarely showed emotion. Since I’d gotten back to Brooklyn after being freed from the gulag, he hadn’t really known how to treat me. I supposed that was because he no longer knew me. I’d left him a boy, and I’d returned a damaged man. Fourteen years of raising me had been lost. I’d never really thought about it that way before. Maybe he was just as lost as I was.