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My clenching heart starts to ache at the thought. Why would he be doing that?
… Unless he’s leaving forever… Or if the mission he’s going on is so dangerous that he isn’t sure he’ll make it back.
Fucking hell, what happens to me if he dies?
What happens to my heart?
“Here, take this,” Leonid says, handing me a book. It’s one of the few that I hadn’t managed to whisk away during my initial spree. But it’s not what he’s brought me down here to see.
Instead, I spot a secret compartment behind the spot on the shelf the book had just occupied.
With a few careful clicks of a small golden wheel, Leonid opens up the hidden cache and reaches inside.
I’m not sure what I’m expecting to see, but it’s definitely not another book. Yet that’s exactly what he pulls out.
“This should keep you busy while I’m away,” he says, handing the thick hardcover to me. “It’s not like the others, you won’t get bored of it so easily.”
Fuck. The thought that I actually got bored of books is almost enough to snap me out of this strangely tender moment.
“What’s different about this book?” I ask, opening up the first page.
Immediately, I can tell that it’s special. The first page is decorated in what looks like a coat of arms, magnificently displayed over the creamy paper.
“… This one has pictures,” Leonid teases.
“I think I might be a little old for picture books,” I say, drawing my finger over the lines of the coat of arms. Two fearsome looking wolves protect a battered banner of dark green and blue.
… Do I see the Barinov name on the banner?
“These aren’t any old pictures. They’re drawings.”
Immediately, I can tell that he’s right. This isn’t a printed book. Someone has painted this with their own hands.
“It’s beautiful,” I whisper, turning the page. What I see next is almost shocking.
… A family portrait.
“My mother made this book…” Leonid says.
“She drew these images?” I ask, unable to take my eyes off of the portrait. Instantly, I recognize the man.
Sergey Barinov.
Leonid’s father.
A cold chill skates up my spine.
… But this isn’t the man I knew as a child. He’s not scowling like he always did when he met my father. Even when I eavesdropped from afar, I could sense the hate in the king of assassins.
I could never have imagined him looking like anything other than a nightmare.
But here he is, painted beautifully—not smiling, but with a certain comfort to him that feels so foreign… yet so right.
Just below him is a woman. She’s absolutely gorgeous, with deep black hair and caring blue eyes. At her feet are three young boys. The tallest one, I don’t recognize. But the middle boy has green eyes. The smallest has his mother’s blue eyes, and a shaggy head full of blonde hair.
It’s Roman and Leonid.
“This is your family…” I whisper, shocked to the bone at the intimacy of what he’s showing me. “… But who is the third boy?”
