Page 74 of Bratva Stalker Kidnaps His Bride

“You left me. You made a decision and I was not part of it. I grew up not knowing where I came from or who I was or whether I was someone worth coming back for,” I say matter-of-factly, but there is still a small waver I can’t hide, and I don’t bother to either. “You both should understand that. I know it wasn’t your fault, or whatever the stakes were, but you have to admit to it.”

“We do,” my mother croaks, her voice breaking on the two words cleanly, and she does not try to hide it either. That similarity is the first thing that has felt genuinely familiar since I found them.

“I'm not ready to resolve it and I don't think I will be for a while. I am not saying I can't forgive you; I think I can, eventually. I think I am already working toward it. But I need you to not rush that. I need us to go slowly and let me adjust to both of you existing in my life after never being there at all.”

My father crosses the room as well to sit next to me. For a moment, he studies my face, and I his. There are bags under his eyes, crow’s feet beside the sharp curve of his lashes, and a few moles on his philtrum. His hair is gray at the temples. The shape of his eyes is exactly like mine. A man who has been looking at photographs for years now has a living, breathing reality sitting in front of him.

“Whatever pace you need, Zara,” he says.

“We'll follow your lead,” my mother adds. “In everything.”

The three of us sit together, my mother’s hand now on my cheek, and father’s hand atop my head, and my heart feels so full like it will burst. The foundation may be faulty, but it won’t be when the time is right.

My thoughts drift to Mikhail in the midst of the hug my parents pull me into.

He must be somewhere behind in the penthouse. He has made himself scarce for four days. Appearing only to check up on my parents and me, available but not inserting himself, skirting around the edges of whatever is happening between me and my parents.

He has brought me food twice without announcing it, and handled the security arrangements for my parents' temporary accommodation without asking me a single question.

He has been extraordinary, in the simplest words.

My father’s question snaps me out of my reverie. “You said you have been in New York five years?”

“Since I was eighteen,” I confirm. “I came for university and I stayed because the city suited me.”

“Journalism, huh,” he comments.

“Journalism,” I confirm.

My mother picks her cup up, wrapping both hands around her mug the way I wrap both hands around mine. Another small, involuntary evidence of inheritance I have encountered since finding them, and it makes my heart bloom in my chest.

“What started all of it? I mean, your interest in journalism,” she asks.

“Well, it was the Moretti investigation that started all of this.”

“Really?”

The curiosity in her voice makes me spill. I don’t water down anything, giving them the real story about the source who came to me at two in the morning, the documents I spent three weeks verifying, the fear that raced down my spine the moment I understood what I had and what it would cost to publish it.

They listen quietly but intently, my mother’s head slightly tilted and my father rubbing his chin with his fingers.

“You were so brave,” my mother says, wonder in her tone, when I finish.

“Brave? I was stubborn,” I correct. “There is a difference.”

“I think in our family,” my father begins and stops in the same breath, and the weight ofour familybeing together for the first time in fifteen years heavy yet gentle on our shoulders. He clears his throat. “In our family, they were always the same thing.”

My mother smiles a small and private grin, one you have when there’s a very long shared history, intimacy between two people who have been through life together.

I wonder if I have a specific smile for Mikhail.

As if she’s read my thoughts, the way people claim mothers often do, she turns that smile on me and pointedly asks, “So, what is Mikhail like?”

The way she says it is entirely too casual to be casual. My father's eyes dart to his wife’s with a speed that tells me they have discussed this in my absence.

“There's not much to tell,” I mutter, flushing, which gives me away so obviously that my mother's eyebrows reach her hairline.

“He managed an international rescue operation for people he had never met,” my father says drily, folding his arms across his chest as the corner of his mouth curls up in mirth. “I think there is quite a lot to tell.”