“Cut the shit, Nikolai. I’m pregnant, not stupid. You’re avoiding the question.”
He sighs. “We’re brothers,” he says simply. “Some days, we love each other. Some days, we hate each other. It’s just normal brother stuff.”
I’m guessing there’s a lot more to it than that but Nikolai doesn’t seem eager to go there. So I don’t push him. Especially because I’m grateful for how amazing he’s been with me the last few days. He checks up on me almost as much as Uri does—though never at the same time. I’ve come to see him as a real friend.
I glance out the window and see it streaked with rain. “Ziva loved rainy days,” I whisper softly. “Any excuse to stay home under a thick blanket and make hot chocolate. To this day, I can’t see rain without also smelling hot cocoa.”
Nikolai laughs bitterly, to my surprise. “Our rainy days were a little different.”
“Oh, yeah? What did you guys do?”
“It was just Uri and me. Polly hadn’t been born yet and Lev was just a baby. Our father used to take us to the shed out back and we used to have target practice. Any time the skies got dark, he told the men to set the dummies up. When I see rain, I smell metal and gunpowder.”
“My God, that’s bleak.”
“Not exactly the wholesome childhood story you were expecting, eh?”
“Yeah, I’d say it’s a little light on sunshine and rainbows.”
Nikolai shrugs. “The thing is, it felt pretty wholesome to me. At least, it did before Otets decided to become a raging asshole.”
“What do you mean?”
Nikolai clears his throat and I get the sense that he regrets saying anything at all. He’s fidgeting a lot more than he was a second ago. “Nothing. Just typical alpha male shit. He’d constantly pit Uri and me against each other. Make everything a competition. I just wanted to shoot guns; I didn’t care if there was a winner.”
“This might not be the right question to ask, but was there a winner?”
His lips purse up. “It was always Uri. That little fuck was a damn natural with a gun. Actually… he was a natural with most things.”
“Sounds annoying.”
“Incredibly. Especially since I was the older brother.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Trust me, it mattered. Our father expected me to be the stronger one, the faster one, the more capable one. Most of my adolescence was, Why can’t you be more like your little brother? Or Uri should have been the firstborn.”
My jaw drops. “You’re kidding. That’s horrible.”
“That was my dad.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” he says in a clipped voice. “I stopped placing my self-worth on my father’s opinion a long time ago.”
“If it’s any consolation, my dad wasn’t much better. He was an asshole, too—just in a different way.” I fidget against the pillows. “I guess his only redeeming quality was that he ignored both Ziva and me. Mom did, too, if I’m being brutally honest. Maybe that’s why it felt as though I lost everything after Ziva died. It really did feel like I didn’t have anyone anymore.” I glance at Nikolai out of the corner of my eyes. “Which is why it was so easy for me to bond with Lev and Polly. I suppose that’s the kind of family dynamic I always wanted for myself.”
Nikolai raises his eyebrows. “Dysfunctional, you mean?”
“Ha-ha. You guys may be dysfunctional but at least you have each other’s backs. You care about one another. That’s family.” I start picking at my fingernails, trying to keep the hope from getting the best of me before we have a real reason to believe. “Do you think Uri will find Polly tonight?”
Nikolai glances at his watch. “You never know with this kind of stuff. We live in a world of smoke and mirrors. Sometimes, you reach for a sure thing and come up empty.”
I flop back and sigh. “If only I could just remember something that might help you guys find her. It’s just that the memories are so hazy I’m not even sure I can trust them.”
“You’re putting too much pressure on yourself. There might be nothing there to remember.”
“My gut’s telling me otherwise.”
“Your gut also told you to accept dinner with my brother. It’s got a checkered past.”
I throw him a dirty look and he just chuckles. When he stops, he leans in and looks me in the eye. “You went through a lot recently, Alyssa—all while pregnant. You haven’t given yourself enough time to process, to recover—”
“What ever happened to the therapist you said you’d find for me? To help jog my memories?”
He clears his throat uncomfortably. “Things got a little sidetracked after the bleeding incident. Uri was on board at first, but now… well, it’s tough to get anyone new in or out of the gates.”
“For fuck’s sake!” I cry. “His overprotectiveness is getting out of hand.”
“You could have lost those babies, Alyssa. I’d say his reaction is justified.”
“Wonderful. So glad you’re taking his side.”
Nikolai holds up his hands in self-defense. “I’m on the side of my nephews or nieces in there,” he says, pointing to my belly. “That’s it.”
I give him a smile. “Fair enough. I can live with that. Thank you, Nikolai.”
“For what?” he asks, looking suddenly sheepish.
“For being so nice to me. For making me feel like a person again. For listening to me even when you didn’t have to. And for refusing to let me take the blame for… well, for everything.” I reach out and put my hand on his. “You have no idea how much it means to me.”
Then, for the second time that day, Uri bursts into my room. Nikolai jerks out from underneath my hand and lunges to his feet as though he’s been caught doing something he shouldn’t.
Uri’s eyes flit from him to me. But I’m less concerned about their weird sibling rivalry and more concerned with knowing if the lead panned out.
“Well?” I ask. “Did you find Polly? Did you find anything?”
“It was a dead lead,” Uri says impatiently. “I found the girl who matched Polly’s description—except that she was a former stripper named Octavia. I spoke to her for a couple of minutes but no one’s seen Polly in that joint.”
“Fuck,” Nikolai mutters. “So we’re back to square one.”
“We haven’t exhausted all our options yet. We just have to keep looking.”
Nikolai runs a hand through his hair. “Yeah, okay. I’m gonna check on our recon teams. See if they’ve picked up anything. Excuse me.” He barely glances at me on his way out.
Uri watches his brother leave. Then he shuts the door with an expression in his eyes that I can’t quite read. “You and Nikolai seem to be getting… close.”
“What was that pause you made before ‘close’?” I frown. “Also you said ‘close’ like it should have been in quotation marks.”
“Did I?”
I roll my eyes. “Don’t think I didn’t notice that comment you made earlier, the first time you barged in here.”
“What comment?”