The Hacker by Renee Rose

14

Dima

“I just checked on Nikolai, and he’s fine. Bingeing Netflix. Want to go for a walk?” Natasha leans a hip against the office door frame, looking like sunshine itself. Yesterday Ravil sent Adrian here with clothes and necessities for both of us and more groceries, so at least she’s not driving me insane in that tiny t-shirt and my boxers.

Not that the halter top and short-shorts are any better.

I had Adrian bring her expensive gourmet chocolate bars, too, which made her look at me in a way that seared my insides.

It’s been two days of us being friends, which is the best and worst thing ever.

For one thing, it’s way too easy. Too comfortable. Almost like we shot past the tearing our clothes off around each other straight into the sweetest long-term marriage minus the sex.

She’s sweet as pie, doing things like making pancakes and coffee. She makes jokes and dazzles me with her quick, easy smile. She stands behind me at the computer and massages my neck with those magic fingers of hers. I had to refuse her offer for a full massage, knowing we’d be right back in the clothes-tearing territory.

I’m not even sure how I keep from going there now, except by holding onto the pain and defeat I’d felt after I let myself have her out in the mud. I keep that bite of sadness with me everywhere. Like a talisman I rub every time my gaze starts to wander over her luscious body.

Say no. Say no.

I want to do the right thing. I could tell her to go on her own. I stopped acting like her warden after our roll in the mud.

But resisting her doesn’t feel like the right thing anymore, either.

So I push back from the office chair and stand. I might as well take a break. I’m still no closer to figuring out what the FBI is after, nor what secret Alex holds, although I feel certain there’s more to him than I know. Is it about Natasha? Or the bratva? That’s the part I can’t figure out.

I shove my feet into my shoes.

“I’m so happy to have my sneakers here,” Natasha says as she pulls on her red Chucks.

“I’ll bet.” I touch her back as I reach past her to open the back door. “Heels really aren’t you, are they?”

Her laugh is chagrined, and she ducks her head. “No.”

I stop myself from asking if she’d worn them for me, as well.

Outside, the light has taken on the first color changes of sunset—an orange swath cutting across the top layer of the trees. We follow the path from the cabin that leads to the road.

It feels so natural to take her hand—so natural that I yank my fingers away the moment they brush hers, shocked at the instinct.

Friends.

Friends.

It’s my new mantra. The one I can’t seem to get my entire being on board with.

“How did you end up in the bratva?” Her question sounds so innocent; she has no idea how charged it is for me.

She catches my frown and her forehead crinkles. “I’m sorry—I’m probably not allowed to ask that.”

Hating her to be sorry, I try to cover it. “You’re not wearing a wire, are you? Do I need to search you again?”

A blush spreads across her neck, pooling in the hollow of her neck and dipping into the cleavage that’s so nicely framed by her turquoise print halter. “There’s a mud puddle back there you might use.” She jerks a thumb behind us, and I can’t stop my reluctant smile.

This is exactly what’s been so excruciating. There’s no awkwardness about what’s happened. She’s so fucking precious it bruises my heart.

“Don’t tempt me,” I mutter.

At least it’s all out in the open now. I can own my attraction, and we’ve agreed it can’t be acted on.

It’s against the rules to talk about any bratva business with anyone outside the brotherhood, and yet I know she’s asking because of what I’d confessed back there in that puddle. That Nikolai was in the bratva because of me.

“I borrowed money for...someone who needed it. I was trying to save a life.” I slide a glance her way. The warm hues of sunset pick up the red and copper in her hair, making it shimmer and glow in a halo around her.

You’re beautiful.

I manage not to say it out loud.

She is. Heart-achingly beautiful.

“I sold my soul.”

“And what about Nikolai?”

“I sold his, too.” I spot a large boulder and scramble up it, sitting on the top with my arms draped around my knees. Natasha follows.

We sit in silence for a few moments. “I don’t believe you.”

My laugh is dark and bitter. “No? Why not?”

“You wouldn’t do that. He chose to come with you, right?”

A shudder of some unknown emotion runs through me. Guilt? Shame? The darkness of those early days, those early years washes over me like a dark bloodstain. One that will never come off, no matter how light or easy our existence in Ravil’s cell may seem in comparison.

“He chose.” The guilt of it nearly suffocates me. “He came with me when I borrowed the money. He was part of it from the beginning. He did it all for me.”

“Why is that so wrong?” Her voice is so soft it can’t be registered as a challenge. It’s like her questions the other night, after the mud sex. What if it was no one’s fault?

But I don’t know how to see things if not through the lens and weight of my own guilt.

“It’s wrong because we died that night.”

Natasha goes still, waiting for more.

I work to swallow and fail. This is not a story I’ve ever told. Nikolai and I don’t talk about it. The rest of the brotherhood wouldn’t ask—they have their own stories to hold.

“The bratva…” My voice sounds rusty. “We swear an oath to the brotherhood and one part is to cut ties with all other family. That way no one ever has leverage over you, and your ties are only to your brothers.”

Natasha is quick to follow. “Your family thinks you both are dead.”

I nod. “Da.” For a moment, I can’t speak, the shame and horror of what we put our mother through ripping me to shreds. And then I start talking. “We were seventeen. It was just our mom—our dad walked out when we were six. We were all she had.” My throat tightens around a well of pain.

Natasha covers her mouth, her eyes swimming with the tears I haven’t produced. Like she’s my surrogate heart, willing to emote what I’ve held in all these years.

“She thinks we died in a car crash—our car went into an icy river, and no bodies were ever found.”

“Oh God,” Natasha whispers.

I nod, grateful she understands the magnitude of it all. How horrible a man I truly am.

“Can you imagine how much she must have suffered?” My voice breaks.

“No.” A tear tracks down Natasha’s cheek. She brushes it away with the back of her hand. “That’s awful, Dima. I can tell it’s killing you.”

Killing me.

I never thought of it that way. I thought of it as something in the past. A metaphoric death for both Nikolai and I. The day we entered a life of violence and crime. I didn’t think of it as something that continued to kill me, but she’s right. It’s like a cancer eating a hole in my gut, day by day.

Getting worse as each year passes instead of fading away.

Is Alyona’s death the same? That pain certainly hasn’t eased. Maybe because it’s all tied into the same event. The same time period. I sold my soul for Alyona, broke my mother’s heart and forced my brother into a life of crime, and it never did a bit of good. I couldn’t save Alyona. I just wished I’d died with her.

And, in a way, I had.

It doesn’t take a psychiatrist to point out that I’m hardly in the world of the living. I spend my hours behind a screen because I don’t want to interact with anyone in real life. Even my brothers in the penthouse.

I trace my fingertip over the lichen on the boulder. “We’ve taken care of our mom. I, uh, arranged early retirement, so she gets a healthy pension. And she… wins quite a few contests. Home makeovers and clothing sprees.”

Natasha’s smile is sad. “That’s sweet. At least you can still take care of her from afar.”

Not really, but Natasha calling it sweet is a kindness to me.

We stare into the trees for a few moments, and then Natasha leans her forehead on my shoulder and kisses my biceps. I kiss the top of her head.

We’re sweet.

And it doesn’t feel wrong. This tenderness between us never feels wrong.

“But Ravil has a family. And Maxim has Sasha. And Oleg has Story.” Natasha’s up to speed quickly again.

“Da. Ravil broke the code with Lucy and their baby Benjamin. Then Maxim’s marriage was ordered by the pakhan back in Moscow, by Sasha’s father.” I shrug. “So once they’d broken it, the rules loosened for all of us.”

“So… do you think you could… reach out to your mom now? Maybe tell her you and Nikolai are alive? Visit her?”

Bile rises up my throat. I shake my head. “You think she could forgive the pain we brought her? That she could accept what we’ve become? Nyet. Better to let her believe we are dead.”

“I…have to disagree. I think she’d be overjoyed to know you’re both alive. You may not be proud of what happened in the past, but I think she could see beyond it. I mean, I don’t know what you’ve done—and I don’t want to know—” she adds quickly, “but no matter what it is, I know you’re both good men.”

“How do you know this thing, Natasha?”

“I just know.” I hear that note of stubbornness in her voice, and it makes a smile tug at my lips.

Natasha gasps, lifting her head and gripping my forearm.

Every muscle in my body tenses, the need to protect her a white-hot scream, but then I see what she does.

A doe.

A beautiful, big-eyed doe staring straight at us.

Natasha’s fingers tighten on my forearm to convey her excitement. “Dima,” she breathes, barely making a sound.

We hold perfectly still, watching our forest friend as she dips her head and bites a tuft of sweet grass. When she lifts her head again, she slowly chews it, pinning us again with her beautiful gaze.

“I love her,” Natasha whispers. “I love her so much.”

It’s a funny thing to say. Not that she loves seeing a deer, but she loves the doe. The one she’s only known for thirty seconds.

This is what makes Natasha special. Miraculous. One of a kind.

Every moment that passes it feels like she’s pulling me into the world of the living—falling in love with animals. Calling my actions sweet.

None of that feels wrong.

Our doe turns and majestically walks into the forest, and only when she’s out of sight do we turn and look at each other.

“That was amazing,” Natasha sighs, a little smile playing around her lips.

I kiss her forehead. “You’re amazing.”

I’m starting to wonder if she could be right—that Nikolai getting shot wasn’t the most horrible thing that’s ever happened.

Even though I don’t get to keep Natasha, I get this.

I had this moment with her.

And it feels like a gift.

It’s not enough, but I’ll take it.

We won’t be here much longer. Dr. Taylor, the vet, said Nikolai can start to get up and move around now when he wants, and Natasha took his IV out today. Another day or two is all I have with her.

Another day or two of exquisite torture.

And then maybe I can sleep at night without fucking my fist for an hour to stop thinking about her.

Maybe we can stay friends until she leaves for naturopathy school.

But no. Even as I think it, I know I’ve pushed this thing between us way farther than it should go. Even though I’ve been honest about not being available for a relationship, we’re developing one.

And to let it go on would be a cruelty to both of us.