“You know what—” I pushed off the counter, ready to throw him out.
“You. Were. The. Lucky. One.” He meant every word. It was there in his eyes, in the rage so hot it burned ice-cold. “Secret?” The laugh that burst from his chest wasn’t remotely happy. It was tortured. “Do you really think you were a secret in my house?”
I settled back against the counter. “I wouldn’t know shit about your house. All I knew was I met our…father”—God, the word tasted bitter in my mouth—“when I was thirteen, and he told me to never seek him out again.”
“That’s Dad for you.” Maxim scoffed. “Like I said, lucky one. Trust me, he did you a favor.”
“That’s easy to say from your side of the story.” I’d been a fucking wreck after that little introduction.
“I’ve known about you since I was eight.” He continued to pick at the label on his bottle. “My parents were screaming at each other, and I crept out of my bed to sit at the top of the stairs. Nicolai was already there. My mother told him that she’d leave him and take us all back to Russia if you ever appeared on her doorstep. She knew Dad had a problem keeping it in his pants, but knowing and facing the knowledge aren’t the same, and the only thing my mother loves more than her wardrobe is her reputation.”
I ran my thumb over the label, considering his words.
“If you think that little show he put on after the game was bad, then you wouldn’t have survived my house. I didn’t play hockey because I wanted to. I played because he expected it. Did I learn to love it? Sure. But I was also terrified every time I stepped onto the ice because I knew what he would do to me if I performed…poorly. And it wasn’t like we spent our weekends at the rink or even five days a week for practices. We had a rink at my fucking house. He made us skate every day. It wasn’t just training, it was punishment. Laps. Shots. Drills. All of it. There aren’t any cutsie pictures of me grinning in my gear like that one.” He pointed to the frame.
I’d been a squirt, ten years old, and my mother had her arms around me as I smiled wide, proudly showing off my championship medal from whatever tournament we’d been at.
“Nicolai was lucky, too. His ACL went out in college, so he never played again.” He shook his head. “I would have rather been the secret.”
“I wanted a dad.”
“You wouldn’t have wanted ours.”
I thought about the few interactions I’d had with Sergei and couldn’t argue with Maxim’s point.
“I’ve hated you since we were eight,” Maxim admitted, no shame in his gaze. “You were this intangible threat to my family. I never would have signed with the Reapers if I’d known they were bringing you back.”
“Don’t hold back on my account.” Sarcasm saturated every word.
He smiled. “Never will.”
“You took my house.”
“I had no idea it had been yours. Guess we have the same taste in architecture.” He shrugged.
“And women.”
His hands stilled. “She’s why I’m here.”
“Really? I thought maybe you wanted to walk me through our ancestry.”
“Are you ever not sarcastic?” His eyes narrowed on me.
“Nope.” I put the bottle on the counter. “You have no right to talk to me about London.”
“She’s miserable.” His shoulders fell. “Her eyes are swollen and red. She looks like she hasn’t slept in weeks, and her smile is just…gone.”
My chest clenched at the mental picture he presented. “That makes two of us, I guess. But what do you care? You got what you wanted, right? Because it was never about London for you. It was only about taking something else from me.”
“The way you put it makes me sound like an asshole, but yeah. I guess.” Was that a flash of remorse in his eyes?
“You are an asshole,” I countered. “And I loved London. I fell for her in that elevator before I even knew you were on the team. Finding out that you two had a history was…” I shook my head.
“We’re just friends.”
“I didn’t want you to be just anything. I’ve spent the last thirteen years of my life being told I wasn’t allowed in your world, so who the fuck are you to waltz in and take over mine?” The injustice of it all was just fucked up.
“Valid point, but in my defense, London has been in my life a