“Mama?”
Malvina Antakova looked to him then, her face splitting into the softest, but most honest smiles he had ever seen. He could just see the tears in her eyes as she crossed the floor towards him.
He was halfway to her when he stopped and dropped to his knees to make up for their height difference.
Since his training, Niklaus had feared he didn’t know if he was capable of tears, thinking it had been beaten out of him, but as he felt the arms of his mother close around him, he could feel the lump in his throat, the sting in the back of his eyes.
“Syn moy—my son,” he heard whispered above him, the words taking him back to early mornings in the Florida heat as he happily went along with her to a job not wanting her to be alone.
Or the nights when it was just the pair of them at home, sitting in the living room with pizza, even though she hated the taste of it.
But she ate with him, because he enjoyed it.
Laughed with him when he needed it most.
Loved him when no one else would.
“I didn’t believe him, you know,” Malvina said pulling away after a moment, lifting her hands to cradle his face. “How could you have been okay after all these years?”
She looked between them, Niklaus and Mishca. “The resemblance really is uncanny. Catja would have loved to see her boys together again.”
In the twenty-one years that he had lived with her, she had never mentioned that name, and judging from the way Mishca stood a little bit straighter, a flash of pain in his eyes, Niklaus knew that Catja had been their mother.
“She worried,” Malvina said sadly, “that the life Mikhail wanted for you two would ultimately tear you apart. So, she gave me you, Niklaus, to love and raise—give you the freedom you might not have had otherwise.”
Whatever ill feelings he might have had towards Catja drifted away at his mother’s words. No one could have predicted what would come of it, and that despite her best efforts, they had ultimately been torn apart.
But Malvina didn’t need to know that.
Getting back to his feet, Niklaus looked to Reagan who was standing not too far away, and unlike him, she was crying freely, quickly wiping at her eyes, however, when she noticed his attention on her.
With one arm still around Malvina, he held his hand out to Reagan and waited. Wordlessly, she joined him at his side.
He didn’t know what Malvina would say about her. She knew better than anyone in this room how he had felt about Sarah.
“Such a sweet girl, your Reagan,” Malvina said instantly. “Stayed with me during the entire flight, though she didn’t tell me you needed a haircut.”
She reached for his hair, and he had to bend at the waist to give her access to what she wanted. As quickly as she had touched the ends of it, she turned a narrowed gaze on Mishca.
“You too, Mishca.” She asked, making her head. “It’s grown too long.”
Lauren smiled up at her husband, waiting to see his reaction just as Niklaus did.
The man in question just shrugged. “Let me know and I’ll let you have at it. Now, we’ll give you all some time before Lauren comes back with Sacha. She told me how you’ve been ready to meet your grandson.”
Malvina’s eyes lit up, and Niklaus knew it wasn’t just because of the prospect of meeting Sacha, but the casual way he had included her in the family.
Releasing his hold on his mother and Reagan, Niklaus walked back over to Mishca and didn’t hesitate in hugging him. Mishca grew stiff, but after a moment, he returned the embrace.
It had only taken twenty-seven years, but they had finally embraced as family should.
“Thank you, brat.”
It was the first, and probably the last time, Niklaus would ever call Mishca, ‘brother,’ but in that moment, that was how he felt.
With just this simple gesture, though Niklaus couldn’t express the magnitude of it in words, Niklaus finally let it all go.
The anger.
The frustration.
The hatred.
This meant the world to him.
“No worries,” Mishca said for only him to hear. “You deserve this.”
Clapping him on the back, Mishca pulled away, grabbing hold of Lauren’s hand. When Niklaus looked to her, she winked, a knowing smile curling her lips. She had always promised that the feud between them would end, and he hadn’t believed her.
She was right.
As they made their leave, Niklaus turned back to his two favorite women. Rubbing the back of his neck, he knew it was about to be a long night. “Where do I start?”
Malvina got comfortable on the couch, patting the spot next to her. “Start at the beginning.”
* * *
Three months later